Summer interns or bluffmasters??

Every intern tries to potray his internship profile as a great learning experience even if that involved selling "reused" eco-friendly underwear in delhi streets.Whatever be the profile,if someone is asked about his profile,that person will proudly dub his profile as "Strategy" or"Consulting" as these are two of the most loosely defined terms.By dubbing his profile as "strategy" he indirectly mocks at the other guy saying..."You Moron! Unlike yours,my job profile is to formulate a strategy and implement a robust sales channel based on segmentation of the target consumer group.Your job is to ensure that the consumer actually buys that underwear and also wear that underwear to office everyday".

Now lets look at some sample facebook updates of interns in FB during summer internship:

"Getting awesome food to eat and awesome place to stay,everthing at company's expense.Really a great learning experience"

"Sitting beside the CEO in the cabin,hell yes!! cabin..not cubicle...Escorting CEO everywhere from boardrooms to washroom.Amazing learning experience"

"Online from Honolulu :) "

"Successfully positioned green colored underwears as "Eco-friendly" and created a blue ocean strategy to tap a vastly unexplored market for males"

Its still an enigma why does an intern markets his organization as a "great learning place" and "awesome work culture" among his fellow batchmates who are well aware of the peanuts type stipend that he gets and that the type of stuff that one has to sell from itch guard creams to eco-friendly underwear.

Few of the other interns understand their true purpose of life in the middle of internship and give up all wordly interest in business and money.They realize some things are outside their "circle of competence"(all thanks to Warren Buffets for giving this theory) and hence they shouldn't put forth their resources(read time) into the assignment.The result is that they end up "investing" time on sick FB updates to generate maximum likes and comments from their female friends.

Disclaimer: The content in this post is fictional and/or extrapolation of some true events :)

Never ever Assume..!!!!

One fine day as I was doing some odd routine work at office,I started vizualising the delicacies cooked at home by my mom.There weren't any train tickets on offer on irctc.com and and I was too lazy to go to the bus depot for booking my bus tickets.

I thought of giving a try to booking bus tickets online from Bhubaneswar to Rourkela.I had booked bus tickets online from Mumbai to bangalore before but had never given it a try in Orissa. I booked my tickets by makemytrip.com and I assumed that all the buses which were partnering with makemytrip would be good ones.I randomly clicked on a bus called XX Travels(initials undisclosed as my blog isn't supposed to be hate blog) and booked one of the two tickets available,which gave me a feeling of achievement.

The bus ticket had the departure time of "9.30 p,m" and I rushed to the bus stop by 9.00 p.m as I was all geared up for a trip to home to gratify my taste buds.What followed next was one of the "horrible" journeys of my life.

I was kept stranded at the bus stop for the next 2 hours.Buses came and went but mine one didn't turn up.The other passengers waiting for the bus were loosing their temper and went to the ticket counter,held the person at the counter by the collar and punched hard on his face.I got some entertainment after having waited for 1 hour.The person at the counter really deserved this as he had deceived all of us by saying that bus would be arriving in next 15 min while the truth was that the bus had punchered its tyre.

Finally the 9.30 pm bus arrived at 11.30p.m.I felt like setting the bus on fire but some how I kept my anger in control and boarded the bus.When I entered the bus,I was shocked! The aisle was filled with large cement bags carrying vegetables,steel rods,stinking dry fish.To worsen my conditions,there was a drunken idiot sitting behind my seat who was murmuring some oriya slangs and was cursing the entire system and the world.It looked like the entire villagehad boarded the bus with all their bagging and was migrating to some other place.Deeply frustrated,I closed my eyes and started frantically praying for the bus to reach my home place ASAP.After 9 hours of third degree torture,I reached my home.

The moral of the story is that it can be damn risky at times to "assume".Had I not assumed that all buses partnering with makemytrip.com were good service providers,I wouldn't have gone through all this trauma.Its true that "Assumptions is the mother of all goof-ups".

First operation of my life-appendectomy!!

When life seemed its all about attending never ending lectures,appearing for online quizzes,desperately fighting to stay afloat in the my sinking ship of poor grades,I was struck by appendicitus!

Appendicitus is the inflammation of appendix which leads to severe pain in the right bottom of your abdomen! Pain is like real bad and it strikes like lightning-suddenly!I decided to go for operation as that was the only permanent solution.Now here comes the experience of a life time!

The pain had subsided after a couple of days and after consulting with doctor,I gobbled dozen of antibiotics and was again back to normal.But still thought of going for operation as never wanted to take any chance!

The operation day arrived.I went to the operation theater dressed as if I am going for hanging out with my friends--spykar denim jeans and a wrangler denim shirt.I had the impression that a laproscope would need a few inches of space to be inserted,appendix would be removed and I would get back to jogging(for obvious reasons) the very next day---that's what the doctor at my campus had said!! Whatever I had been told to say yes for operations was sheer non-sense!!

My operation was scheduled on 8.30 p.m and I wasn't allowed to even drink a single drop of water the entire day,also no food.All I was given was few bottles of antibiotics mercilessly injected into by bloodstream by some long needles pierced into my veins.

The abdomen area was shaved off,my denim jeans and shirt stripped off and was given some depressing operation gown.The gown had strange pattern of stripes and it was half open on the other side.Hospital was filled with gloomy creatures ,some depressingly old faces with imbecile behaviour,nurses dressed in white seemed to have heard the death bells of patients and preparing them for the death bed.Such sick atmosphere made my feel for a moment my NIT degree and XIMB MBA was all wasted.I started feeling the futility of leading a materialistic life.
Life was not about matlab codes,gabor wavelets,NPV or any shitty academic subject.Laproscopy is a very minor operation,0% risk.But the very feeling of undergoing at an age of 25 made me feel nervous.

I was taken to the operation room.I could observe the colorful bulb and the tick-tock timer that I had seen only in movies.The entire body except my head was made numb by anesthesaia.My body started feeling heavy and I felt weighting a ton!The surgeon entered the room in a green gown with some strange looking instruments.

Afraid at the very sight of big machines in the operation room,I closed my eyes and started frantically praying!Strangely I could hear the doctors and his entourage gossiping in the operation theater about what color they should paint their new upcoming hospital,which made me more nervous!There were even phone calls inside the theater and I heard people taking to their friends on phone.
"...man tho kar raha tha..kade hokar ek ek chata jama doon..sab par!!!"
but.....my body was numb.I thought may be laproscopy was too minor an operation for the surgeon and his team.Later i knew that that particular surgeon used to do some 10 operations every day.

After operations I was on liquid food for 5 days.Thanks to GSK for coming up with a healthy product like horlicks drink and biscuits.Lived on Nariyal paani and horlicks for 5 days.Horlicks biscuits was one of my fav..so had no issues eating it 3 times a day for 5 day :)

After 10 days of bed rest,I was back to normal!! I could drive..I could eat "most" of the delicacies!

Now when any of my friends ask about operation,I give them a wry smile and say "Life mein sab cheez ka experience lena chahiye....operation was one of the things missing..so decided to go for it!!"

In some way it was fun."Aaram se bed mein pade rao....your relatives come to you with a misleading sad face and some goodies.Your family members treat you like a baby.....you say it..you have it in a flash!!!

Altogether it was a "very-different" experience gave me a lot of time for self introspection!

Back to blogging arena

After 1 year of mental torture(read MBA-1st year) and 1 year of hiatus from blogging,I am back with brand new stories!!!