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!!!

Software Industry Through my Binoculars!

During my college days,I used to see IT field as a ticket to quick money as there were of numerous tales of people going onsite and earning in euros and pounds.When I actually joined IT,I came to know that the truth was far from reality. It is such a kind of industry where you can need "DIVINE PROVIDENCE" in order to strike gold.Here are the 3 pros and cons of IT industry.

Pros:

1)Air conditioned offices with coffee vending machines, high speed internet connection, some worldly "beauties" to stare at and flexi timings!

"When you feel like working,the whole office environment conspires against you to make you sleepy"

What else do you need after an engineering degree?? :D

2)Travel around the world(if your lucky) and interact with people around the globe.Only a service industry can give that amount of exposure.

3)You master the art of "Googling". :)

Cons:

1)You are just another brick in the wall.Almost every btech guy you meet turns out to be a s/w engineer.

2)No use of brains in most the projects(support/maintainance types),though common sense is an absolute must!

3)If you stick to the same company for long even your colleagues will doubt your calibre and you would see your package increasing in Arithmetic progression where the common difference is in fraction!

Inspite of all the all the odds,I feel an IT job is a very good option for the tech freaks.Its better to fix null pointer exceptions sipping cappuccino than sweat it out in some odd field job!!!

I would definitely like to join back IT firms in some business consulting role post my MBA.

Registered in Technorati

I registered today in Technorati.com,the most popular blog search engine.Last few steps to get my blog listed :)

PickPocketed....once again!!!!!

After the gruelling B-school season,I've turned a lazy pig.I gormandize,sleep,watch movies,sip capachinno at office and look back at life in retrospection like a philosopher.

Like any other typical day,I left my office sharp at 6.30 p.m,ogled at some techie beauties outside for some time to give respite to my tired eyes and then grooving to the music on my cell,I boarded the "The Red Beauty"(pun intended :)) a.k.a Best Bus of mumbai.

It was as packed as a bee-hive.I sometimes wonder how do ladies and old people manage in such over crowded buses when people like in their mid 20's find it so stifling.Kicking off everyone on my way,I managed a seat and that give a sense of achievement coz. I am used to getting kicked on my back.I peeked outside the bus window,then suddenly the song on my playlist changed...
"I walk a lonely road The only one that I have ever known Don't know where it goes But it's home to me and I walk alone"
This song always makes me feel how lonely I am in a place everyone's is trying their best to save their own as@%# .My mood sinks in and I think missing my home place and good old school and college days.
Then suddenly the song changed and it was "Ajab pyaar ki gazab kahani"....."Kaise bataye kyu tujh ko chahe yaara batana paye baatein dilo ki dekho zubaan ki aankhen tujhe samjhaye Tu Jaane Na Tu Jaane Na
Then I started thinking "kashi meri bhi ek GF hoti..............".Suddenly the driver gave a sudden break and I bumped against a lady sitting infront of me.Gosh!She gave me such a dreaded look that I felt she would file an FIR against me for harassment.I quickly took stock of the situation and said "Sorry Mam".

I then got close to the front door of the bus to get down at the next stop.Suddenly avril started humming in my ears " Chill out what you yelling' for? Lay back it's all been done before"
I told to myself.."Chill out..itna tension lekar kya milega"

I casually got down from the bus.Just when I got down,suddenly the music stopped.when I looked back at the pocket,there was nothing.Once again my mobile had been pick pocketed.

I asked one of the persons standing on the bus stop to call up but I couldn't trace it back.

A few stats:
Out of my 4 roomies,almost all have been pick pocketed 2 mobiles on an average
In my office,almost all have atleast once lost(pick pocketed) their mobile in buses/trains.

Today I got a brand new cell..guess what..its Nokia 1202..for just 1100 bucks.I've vowed to never again buy a costly set until I am using public transport.