"I can’t take another lonely day in the office!” Dear Kool Kanya, I have been feeling terribly alone at work. This might sound pathetic, but it’s gotten to a point where I can’t handle it anymore. See—I’m a pretty shy person to begin with. I find it so very difficult to settle into new places, and making friends instantly is a mountain my introverted self cannot really scale. Everyday, I walk into work trying to drum up the courage to strike up a conversation. Yet, everyday I fail to do so. I’m exhausted; both, because I feel isolated, and because I feel frustrated at my inability to take cha ..read more

"This is my first job and as it turns out, I’m the youngest in the office. I feel extremely inexperienced and under confident in front of all the senior people in the workplace.” Dear Kool Kanya, I just graduated this past year and I bagged my first job soon after graduation. As proud as I felt after the opportunity, a week into the job I realised that I am the youngest in the workplace and literally everyone is older than me by a far margin. More than the age-intimidation aspect of it however, I feel so inadequate! I have a lot of thoughts and ideas but no opportunity to speak up during the ..read more

Last updated: 30th July 2023 Wondering what this week will bring for you? We’ve got our tarot card reader Jheel Gandhi (@zeal_reads) to chart out your career tarot reading, which will help you make all the right moves at work. Aries Opportunities incoming! Illustration credit: Shivam Srivastava (@_sri.vas.tva_) Looks like you have completed a cycle in your career or life in general. New opportunities are coming your way. Try to make the right choices by consulting your inner self. For your 2023 career tarot reading, click here. Taurus Focus on your routine Illustration credit: Shivam Srivasta ..read more

"I feel so overworked at work, and I can’t seem to catch a break!” Dear Kool Kanya, I’ve been feeling extremely overworked in the office lately. Every morning, I walk into work only to feel dread in the pit of my stomach. Don’t get me wrong, I love my work and I enjoy doing what I do. But my workload is overpowering me. All the work keeps adding up, and I don’t have enough energy or time in my lot to get it all done. Meeting deadlines – something which used to drive my workflow – has taken the form of an insurmountable obstacle. I am truly unable to figure out how to get out of this rut, and ..read more

Back when ordering food was a celebration and not a scary reminder of our vulnerability to a virus, I remember having a particularly bizarre call with a restaurant receptionist. I was dictating my address for assisting the delivery personnel homewards when he said, “We already have your address.” This was a restaurant which I had never ordered from before. Privacy is dead. We’ve all seen that with Zoom, ever since it went from a random video call app to the Messiah of early lockdown days. This led me to wonder about how transparency on the internet works in situations where we’d rather choose ..read more

For all those who find technology challenging, here’s a list of easy technology hacks to increase productivity in the workplace. Amongst a host of other adjectives the next progeny might use to describe this generation, the most striking one might be ‘technological galore’. That is, if the robots haven’t taken over the world already by then. But here’s the thing, I am not particularly fond of technology. And I’m not particularly good at it either. Okay fine, I am terrible with everything tech. I used to run at the slightest mention of the words ‘tech savvy’. But then arrived at a point when I ..read more

If you’re a freelance writer in the pursuit of having your creativity reach your target audience, chances are you’re fairly aware that keywords and SEO is a major component of that equation. And chances are that researching for keywords is also the bane of your existence. It’s the thorn in your side that you’re supposed to learn to accept, acknowledge and imbibe in your writing process. So here’s a little something to make the process of keyword research more simplified. A step-by-step guide on finding the right keywords to get your blogs ranked on the SERP and reach your target audience. Foc ..read more

Get your WFH hustle on, but remember to keep your doshas in balance! Whether out of genuine curiosity, or boredom, we’ve all taken those quizzes to find out what our Ayurvedic constitution type might be. (If you haven’t, take it here). This is usually followed by a list of recommendations around food habits, which everyone almost always ignores. Still, it is a good topic for discussion. An advanced and more mature version of ‘Which sun-sign are you?” is “What is your Ayurvedic type?”, followed by a “Let me guess.You’re probably a…” Real Ayurveda practitioners would check your pulse and ask yo ..read more

"Before making any significant career decision, picture yourself forty years from now. Do you like what you see?” This is what my colleague’s father had told her, words she still remembered. What stayed with me however, was the sheer absurdity of this unimaginable length of forty years. When you are where I am now, in my early twenties, that’s almost a whole lifetime. But here’s the thing that I did realise. If one does try to picture oneself forty years from now, that picture is often an unfiltered culmination of all of one’s ambitions and fantasies. While forty years is far too long to chal ..read more

"I feel like my boss is such a micro-manager! He refuses to give us an inch of leash.” Dear Kool Kanya, I thought getting a job would mean adulting, but my work life feels like I’m five years old again! The problem is that my boss doesn’t understand the concept of professional space. He’s very respectful when it comes to our personal space. But when it comes to work he wants to hover over us like a cloud, monitoring our every move. How could simply give us a brief and let us work our way through it, but no! At every stage, we find him nipping at our heels and demanding that we “Make this chan ..read more