Needless to say, become a parent can change ones personality completely as well as ones perception of the world around. For instance, in the past I always maintained a defensive posture and sullen silence in public spaces, fending off casual chatter or affable intrusions into my space or time. But now, when people have begun to take the liberty to reach out when they see us with a baby, I am receptive and welcoming and so far it has been a pleasant experience. Fellow parents have been sympathetic and random strangers have helped out in a million tiny ways - letting me jump the queue to the bathroom, keeping an entire museum open beyond German closing time as I used the diaper changing room, an uber driver helping out with my laptop case and diaper bag instead of driving off.
You give what you receive and you receive what you give ...or some such adage.
So, after I joined work after my maternity break, I worked on an open offer for shares of a listed company. The day before the offer letter was to be filed with the regulator the target company had to submit a certificate to the merchant banker. As the counsel for the target company, I began following up wth the client for the certificate. Due to some internal miscommunication within the company this certificate had slipped through the cracks and was left pending till the last moment.
It turned out that the compliance officer of the company was a young mother to a little baby herself and, unfortunately, that very day her baby fell ill and was under observation in the hospital. I felt terrible bothering the mother and did my best to make it easy - I ran the contents of the certificate past her on the phone and got oral confirmations so she did not need to access her computer. To make matters worse, no one else in the company had access to the knowledge required to fill up the annexures. By evening, as bankers and the acquirer counsel were getting into a tizzy, the client managed to do an information dump on us that my colleague and I then sifted through to complete the certificate. And that is how we met the deadline.
Or so I thought.
By the time I made the two hour commute back home, about 40 emails hit my inbox. It turned out that the bankers had sent us an incorrect format for the certificate and the entire exercise of the day had to be repeated. I frantically called the compliance officer and this time she was firm - the doctor had diagnosed her baby with chikungunya and she simply could not attend to work. In my previous avatar I would have probably passed the buck and shrugged to say - it is not my problem. But this time, I understood the compulsions of this new mother who I barely knew.
My husband watched as events unfolded and I fielded calls - he then suggested that we should help this lady and do what we can. He helped me go through information filed by the company with the stock exchanges. I then ascertained that we had almost all the information required to complete the annexure - it would require a few hours of work but was quite doable.
Even as emails were tossed from Singapore and US counsels and the bankers as the deadline for the filing loomed in less than 12 hours, I worked steadily and had the certificate ready - I then sent it to the client so the team could verify and then we could release it. The compliance officer had to simply scroll through the document on her phone the next day and tell me it was ok and we were done!
I do not know if this lady realises how much I helped out - instead of telling the CEO or the opposing counsel - sorry- this is the company's problem.
It really does not matter. What matters is that she was able to focus on her baby one critical night. The next morning when I spoke to her, she was happy to confirm that her baby was doing better and over the next few days made a full recovery.
As I said, parenting has changed me. I have learnt to think more about others - I realise now more than through any other experience in the past, how much joy even a little kindness from a stranger can give. And my little daughter's pleasant disposition, her glee at all and sundry proffering her even a smile, learning to devote myself to her care, has indeed made me a better person.
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