Q4 and missing Crystal Ball

We’ve just wrapped up week 1 of Q4 – just 7 weeks and we’re officially done with first year. Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!

In an atypical move for me, I’ve gone and taken a whole bunch of non-spreadsheet electives – at least I think they’re that way! I really wanted to do Valuations and Data Analysis, especially after how much I enjoyed Finance last quarter. But I decided to forego those two for this quarter (they are offered once more in second year) and opted for subjects that I thought would free up more time to invest in job search. So I currently have an interesting subject called the Consulting Process – we’re doing cases that were done by consulting firms and we even have a partner from Bain coming in to talk to us about a case they did that we’re studying about; I also have Marketing Intelligence – I am excited about this module they have on marketing through social network media; and I have Strategic Communication – which is all about communication of your corporate identity through means other than messaging –which includes communicating through your annual report!

These are electives and we have two common classes too – our first course on Ethics and our second course on Leadership. Both classes are super interesting, in that they seek to spark debates in the class about leadership and ethical issues, to bring out the grey nature of a lot of managerial decisions and actions.

So that brings me to the title of this post. I miss being busy. This sudden change of scenery is scary. My early week classes are regular 8AM classes while my late week classes begin only at 10AM. This week I woke up at 8AM for my late week classes. And I feel terrible about it! I feel like I’m wasting my life by not being busy. And the reason I freed myself up was to do job search. But even then I have time on my hands and it’s driving me crazy! I’m thinking of taking up reading or painting again, but I am too restless to do it. I hunted around all of today – the last day we can change our courses – for either Econ or Data Analysis to free up so that I could drop one of my subjects for something that would get me out of bed in a panic at least 2 days a week. But it seems like no one wants to let those go. I’m not even looking for Valuations – Yiorgos is one of the best professors Darden has and I can’t think of anyone who’d want to drop his class!

The weather in the ville is getting better – it seems to me that people have returned from Spring Break very refreshed, with a new and positive attitude. Almost 50% of my class is still without internship but we’re plodding away, getting creative with the search, tapping our resources. I worry about what I will do if I don’t get anything for the summer, but I am sleeping better these days that I have done in the last four months… I've got hope.

Chin up

You know what’s coming from the title. And by the end of this post you’re probably going to ask me if I want some cheese (LT39 will get this one).

When I was hanging out at the Root residence on Christmas Eve all I could wish for was that I get the gift of an interview call at a consulting firm. By the time New Year’s Eve rolled in, all I wished for was any firm to call me for an interview. 12 days into the New Year, all I’d received were reject letters, and the year was threatening to turn into one massive nightmare. On day 13 I got my first invite, but going by the number of offers firms are making here, I don’t even know if I should be hopeful. I will admit that others in my school will tell you it’s too early to press the panic button. I will also admit that when I came to business school I really thought I’d put my foot in the door to a great career. I thought my days of worry and of feeling like I was headed nowhere were finally over. Someone in Wall Street obviously had other plans.

I don’t like this feeling of general all pervading gloom that seems to have set up shop in my head. And I hate playing party-pooper with my friends. But these wonderful people who I have the privilege of calling friends, stand by me, calling me up and telling me it’s going to be ok. They’re the most awesome people and I’m thankful to just know them. You all know who you are and I want you to know I’m grateful for your support, especially the one you’ve given me in the last two weeks. Special thanks for all the hugs, chai meetings and to those who would call me on the phone only to hear my outburst of frustration.

Sometimes you just have to look for treasure in the unlikeliest of places. Sometimes good tidings also come when you least expect them. They tell us the way out is to cast a wide net, as wide as you possibly can. I watch some of my batch mates holed up in learning team rooms doing cases while others walk the halls looking sharper than before in crisp suits and I feel a sense of deep disappointment for not being a part of the race. And then I hear of the offers that are coming in – less than 5% of the total interview invite list, and I wonder which of us would be more depressed – the suit clad banker-wannabe or me.

In other news, I’d gone to Seattle on a job trek last week. Standing in Microsoft’s Redmond campus, the techie in me was full of glee, like a kid in a candy store. I felt strangely comfortable and familiar and awe for the organization, its culture and its products, so much that I could actually see myself working there! And there’s a lot to be said about the Darden alum – they all took time off their schedules to spend an informative couple of hours with us. It was the same case with the other firms we visited – everywhere the Darden alum were there to talk to us about school, work, internship search and even networking! We capped off the evening with a student-alumni mixer which was a great opportunity to talk at length with all the alum we’d met in the course of the day. And while I really liked Seattle, I didn’t like how far away it is and how it took me forever to get back home. Like every trip I’ve been on, I met some interesting people on the flights; including another bschooler from Cornell (we exchanged some gloom).

I’m back in the Ville now and yes I’d like some cheese. And I’d love a belated Christmas gift too. Actually just a gift would be nice…

On why being idle does not agree with me

So I’m sick. It's not because I’m missing home. I’m not missing warm sunny India either. I’m not missing my mom’s cooking – ok ,THAT I am missing terribly! I do not want to eat one more day of my own cooking!

I am sick because I miss having work. I miss having to race against time to make it to my 8AM class in classroom 180 with all the awesome section D ppl! I miss my learning team. And I am sick of the fact that it gets dark at 5pm and I don’t have a watch on and I am all disoriented about what time it is. And I am also a little sick of the fact that a whole bunch of my friends have gone home or on job treks for the hols and so I miss them – I miss going to the coffee place and wasting away over a cup of cappuccino.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have an internship yet and due to the down economy the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is kind of fading out too. I have tons of work to do – like reaching out to companies and case prep for the interviews. I have apartment moving work to do too – yes I’m stupid enough to move apartments in the middle of the school year. And I should be booking tickets and accommodation for my trip to Seattle early next year. But instead of checking these (and whole host of other things) off my list of to-dos, I am choosing to waste away the time doing I-don’t-know-what. I so hope my mother is not reading this right now.

This is the time I was counting down to since the beginning of the second quarter. I had a ton of plans including hitting the gym (day 4 and counting and all I’ve done towards losing a few pounds is play an evening of tennis) and now that the time is finally here I am unable to shake off that feeling of general laziness and get out of the brain-dead mode.

I am going to try to get up at 6AM tomorrow – maybe all I’m missing is the boot camp rigor. It seems like a good time to check how much self-organization I’ve learnt in this one semester of Darden. I am hoping to have mastered it by the time graduation rolls by so I hope I am at least better than I was before I came here.

I’ll sign off now. Back to my… er… back to doing nothing.

In The Run Up To New Year

This is going to be the first new year's eve that I am NOT going to look forward to.
You guessed right, I am going to rant, so click off if you're having too much fun and don't want to have to deal with one whiner right now.

Back to the new year's eve that I am not looking forward to. I am alone, away from family, in a god forsaken part of India's happening city. I am working on new year's eve AND on new year's day. I am going to be running around getting a million different papers in order before I fly out. And believe me, running around here sounds like a great work out at first, but loses the novelty soon enough - I am not making this one up. I have been running from one end of this sprawling campus to the other all day and my head is pounding and I can't even will my feet to take me to Terminal for dinner! And after all this running around, I still have not got any of the documents I was promised. Am I pissed or what!

This weekend I'm going to be here on campus, trying to wrap up my applications. I still have one very important essay to write from scratch, for my top college preference. I'm hating myself for getting into this state - had I begun earlier I'd be paying credit card bills for all college applications. I've just done two of them so far and I have my most important ones coming up next week. So basically this weekend is going to be spent in front of a dell desktop tap-tapping away to oblivion. I don't know about you but my life sure is happening!

With seemingly million things to do before next Thursday and feeling the need to be in more than one place at a give time, I'll be really fortunate if I get out of this place in one piece and more so if I make it to my flight on Friday night with all my papers and luggage intact. I'll squeeze in one more post later about this flight thing that I'm suddenly talking about. Beginning yesterday I seem to have been overloaded with information that makes very little sense. Thankfully I've made copious notes ( or so I think) so I'm going to pore over them as bedside reading tonight so that I can make some sense out of them.

Basically this new year's is going to suck big time. I probably won't even know when it comes and goes. And I'll probably be ultra cranky too. I'm already getting there.

Of all the months for this to happen, why in god's name did it have to be the holiday season?????

Afterthought:
As I was pondering on the labels to put for this post, I put in experiences too. And I got to thinking how I would justify this post as an experience. Well turns out it is. It's going to mark the beginning of a year that is going to change my life completely, in so many more ways than I can foresee now. This party's just getting started!

What else can go wrong??

Based on personal experience, here are somethings that can go wrong in the bschool application process:

So you've written the essays for your applications, and you're feeling all proud of your work. So what do you want to do next? You want to show your essay the light of the day. It's really important to get your essays reviewed by the right people. A lot of people will offer to review it for you. Still more will agree when you approach them to review. It is your call on who you want to pick. There is lot of gyaan on the net about the right kind of people to pick to review your essays. So I am not going to repeat that. But I will warn that there is a chance that none of your reviewers will get back to you with their inputs. Your printouts/emails will be languishing in their shelf/mailbox and you'll never hear from them. I found my saviour in two people, thankfully, one who patiently reviewed my essays ( and will continue to do so) and the other who I approached right at the last minute when I was desperately in need of another reviewer. This second person was the last person I would have thought to ask. Just goes to show that you can find help in the most unexpected places.

Essays are really not too much of a battle. The real battle is the recommendations. Again, there is enough gyaan on the net about whom to pick as recommenders and that titles don't work blah blah blah. It is most important to heed that advice. It is even more important to make sure you give your evaluators enough time to fill this stuff. If you looked at the questions you would know that they do not require too much thinking. One hour tops. If your evaluator had good things to say about you, then he/she will not have to dig right into the recesses of his/her brain to get them out. People who read this blog and know the screw ups that happened in my recommendations will know what I am talking about. So here is where choosing the right evaluators comes into the picture. Choose someone who can manage his/her time well enough to not give you excuses a week before your deadline about how they were caught up in work - this after being nominated 2 months in advance. Choose someone who really knows what to write for you. It doesn't matter if he/she has written recommendations for other people. You still have to evaluate if this person has the right skills ( viz communication, thinking) to give you a recommendation. Remember that it can make or break your application. I know it has broken at least one of mine.

Dont wait till the last deadline. There is a possibility that you might get transferred. Or go onsite. Or have a sudden upheaval at the workplace that ruins your state of mind and saps you of motivation. Or all of the above. I know you're thinking, " Man, I'm so screwed if this happens!" Well it does. Trust me.

At the end of all of this, if you still manage to get your applications in on time, then you'd better have strong prayers. Because after all the screw ups, it will dawn on you that you cannot go through this again, and that you'd rather get out of your current situation than have to stick around another year or two and give Wharton a go, because you'd have more work experience or you'd have got your promotion or you'd have international experience or all of the above.

For having warned you, please send out a prayer for me so that I may get through a college of my preference and not have to go through this crap again.

Six Questions*

Here they are:

1. How was CAT?
2. What are the other exams you are writing/have written?
3. How come you're on bench?
4. When are you getting married?
5. Wassup ( in all the ways that you can spell that)?
6. Are you busy? ( this when my status on a chat application says I'm busy)

* that you should not ask me.

Tring Tring – Silence!

Whatever happened to the regular telephone ring?
I cannot remember the last time I heard the trrrrrrrrrng!–
I was not trying to make that rhyme.
I was just a little hard pressed for time.
So here I was on a regular Monday morning,
I had a test but instead I was yawning.
When suddenly out of the blue
A mobile phone rings, I don’t know who
Left it on full blast – it startled me
It was a popular rock song, it played on fully.
Other people poked their heads out
I also looked up to see what it was all about
Apparently the music was too loud, the volume high
But was it only because it was something they didn't like?
So later today when another phone rang
And the latest Tamil movie song it sang,
How come no one seemed to mind it?
It rubs me wrong; that’s an unfair bit!
If it’s English it’s too much noise,
If it’s Tamil, then it’s a beautiful voice?
Why do you want to be such a hypocrite?
Why can’t you instead keep your phone quiet?
Nine hours a day, with many a clickety click
Do we need more sound, even good music?
So please remember dear colleague or friend,
When you get to work, put that phone on silent!

Some good customer service

Last week, I was reading this article on the Freakonomics blog site about good customer service and how it can make your day and how it can be really really rare. ( Read that piece here)
My dad and I were discussing how that was sorely missing in the Indian service industry scene and we even brainstormed on a business plan involving that.
Well, something just happened yesterday that reaffirmed our faith in the service industry of this country. On our morning jaunt on the Besant Nagar beach yesterday, we had the engineers from Hyundai doing a free service camp for all Hyundai cars in the parking lot. Not only did they voluntarily give our Santro a check up, they also cleaned the windshield, mirrors, foot mats and tyres. Icing on the cake was when they got a guy from Amaron batteries to give our car battery a once-over! As though all of that was not enough, they kept bottles of mineral water for the walkers/joggers at the beach. As we drove off they pressed into Dad's hands a neatly wrapped gift package. (We opened it on the way home, it was a cute desk clock)
Needless to say, we were talking about it all day. No prizes for guessing that it really made our Sunday.
When the sister and I took a walk upto the organic veggies van, we saw that the Hyundai guys had also found themselves a spot on the otherwise pretty full parking lot. They had new variants for the Getz and Verna on display there.
Yesterday, Hyundai managed to make a lot of customers lifetime customers.

Outsourcing and some other stuff

It’s time for some more (negative) publicity for outsourcing. American elections are coming up and so these issues are in the line of fire once again (there were there last just about 5 years ago, when our dear hero was voted for second term). Along with that another side kick of an issue has earned its share of rumbling. This is the issue of the H1B visa. This of course has caused a bit of a furor among the IT junta. Having my name in the lottery caused me also to be copied on all the mails that were doing the rounds at work, about the latest on the visa issue.
So what was all the noise about anyways? Well some members of the American senate decided that granting as many H1Bs as they do is proving detrimental to the employment figures of the local population in their country. They have this concept of Phantom GDP that explains why they were hailing outsourcing as the next big things all these years but suddenly have the numbers that prove that, well, it's not all they imagined! The long and short of it is that they opine that when we go ‘ onsite’, as it is called in IT parlance, we rob an American local of his job. Of course, they forget to mention here that the amount it would cost our dear client companies to pay an American to do the job is more than it would cost them to have two Indian IT yuppies there to do the same job and then some more! So anyways they decided that they would have some kind of lottery system to decide who among the thousands who apply for visas will be the exalted beings that will get to grace their shores. It doesn’t make sense to me at all so I’m not going to say too much about it here. All I know is that they don’t understand that H1B or not, getting us to do the work is a win-win for both parties and a win-lose for the aforementioned exalted parties. Win- lose you wonder? Well, you win because you get to go. You lose because once you’re there, you lose all your sleep and peace of mind. People say that the lose part makes up for the number of zeros that add to your bank balance. I don’t know about that though and I don’t think it is food for thought.
We will come back to outsourcing for now. I read somewhere that there are organizations in the US – where else! - that are willing to outsource journalism! Simply put it means that you can, sitting here in India, cover an even that is going on in some part of the US! Sounds improbable? You’ll be surprised! Pasadena Now, a local news website has hired reporters from India to cover Council meetings sitting in the comfort of well, their country! According to a printed interview of the guy who owns this website, this move has been done in keeping with budget issues. You can read more about this here. Apparently, this is passé stuff because the Wall Street Journal regularly gets Reuters reports for its editions that are written in India’s silicon valley, Bangalore. Needless to say, the American media has been to quick to lap this up and the ensuing buzz that this news has created.
Where there is controversy of this sort there are also some funny takes! You will recall that I recently pointed you to a really classy article on Joshua Bell’s impromptu undercover concert in Washington DC subway station. The author of that brilliant piece has written another classy and really hilarious piece on his take on the outsourcing of journalism. You can read that and have yourself a good laugh right here. This isn’t long and is a must for those who are familiar with the politics of Tamil Nadu - the rest of you can read it too so long as you know the name of our Chief Minister.
So what’s the bottom line here? Nothing much really. They made a lot of noise about something. They managed to create some noise here. They got their way for this year. What’s left to be seen is if they’ll get their votes. I suppose that could be the stuff of another post. Meanwhile, we’ll just remain mute spectators to all the job-hopping that is going to be seen here among those who have got their visa applications rejected. And of course we will be mute and enthusiastic spectators to more Indian journalists getting their names in the black and whites of American news business.
Are we in for some entertainment or what!

Blog Flogging

I don't get the fundaes behind this whole corporate blogging thing. They've introduced it at my company as well and very honestly, the posts are not as interesting as the ones posted by the same bloggers on the net. So what major breakthrough are they hoping to achieve by hosting a blog at the office???
I read recently about how Cognizant's blog has been a hit all the way. And the same article had a whole bunch of people including my own "flat world" CEO eulogizing the very concept and the kind of insight it provides them. (By the way, forgive me for equating myself to Tom, but the lines that launched the bestseller are going to prompt a post on this blog - by me of course - very soon - as soon as I find the time to type it out.)
I personally didnt have a problem with the blogs at all, and often read those by some of my friends. But I wonder how could you possibly have the freedom to write stuff on that blog?? On any given day I'd love to crib about a few things - including the straight back of my chair - and if I have to check and recheck everything I write to see that it conforms to company policy, then it sure does take the the cheeze out of blogging.
Why I am waking up to this suddenly (that too after months of leaving my blog to wither away and "die a painful death" as Alex would put it) is because of the recent hauling up of a colleague for a cheeky poem he posted on the company bulletin board. Ok it was more than just cheeky, and I do think there are better ways to express your angst, but still, if it is company policy to not crib about anything in the company then why have these outlets for expression??
In any case, where the devil is the time for all that?????????????

The Bombay Rockers - 7/11

I am not going to relate what happened yesterday. The pictures and details are in all the newspapers and all TV channels ( news channels at least, the Page 3 channels couldn't care less) and the next few issues in most major magazines will carry more details and findings on the blasts ( 8 of them) that rocked Mumbai yesterday evening. Some news channels claim it is the LeT that is responsible while one popular news channel claims that an LeT spokesperson called their office claiming no responsiblity for the attacks. It doesnt really matter, if u ask me. The people who have died are not going to return. Knowing who was responsible is not going alleviate the pain and grief for the victims' families . And even if the perpetrators were identified, they are going to remain scot free,until the world moves on, and until the next such attack, wherever it may occur.
When i decided to put up this post I thought i would put in just pictures and let them speak for themselves. But as I am typing this out in the safety and securityof my office I cannot help but think that the pictures are not going to say any more than what they are already screaming out to u from the front pages ofall news publications. I got to thinking of what could be the motive of a person so demented, that he would actually perpetrate a crime so ghastly. What would be the results he was hoping to achieve by this gruesome feat? His actions are made worse by the timing of the blasts - a time, the perpetrator knew , when the suburbans trains would be packed with office goers returning after a day of work.
For once words fail me and I can only think of the sad truth that war and bloodshed is going to get us nowhere. Mumbai will move on, just as Srinagar will, just as New York, London and Madrid did. 7/11 will become just another date in the tainted history of terrorist attacks.
I could only think of the strip i am posting below. Look a little deeper and you will see the underlying wisdom.

4 years vs. 4mins… is that all it’s worth?

Four years ago, a few men carved a niche for themselves in history books world over. Their planning, timing and their ruthlessness changed the way the world lived. They managed to implant fear of the living into every mortal alive: 9/11 happened… and the world would never be the same again.
And now four years on, nothing much seems to have changed. The perpetrators of that ghastly carnage roam scot free, the families that suffered losses are still trying to come to terms with their loss, and politicians, not just in America, but the world over are still talking about wars on terrorism and the like. On the surface a lot has changed- hurricanes have come and gone, wars have been fought, genocide and destruction continues in other parts of the world: each country is grappling with its own problems. But beneath the surface, nothing has changed. The pain is still raw, the memories still fresh, and the reminders are all too present… and of course, as it is in every such historical landmark, if 9/11 could be called that, commercialism has been the first to kick into action. Books have been written and money has been made. Memorabilia have been sold and money has been made. Strikes, protests, peace marches… and money has been made; someone has become famous, someone has been promoted, some one even became president, and of course, money has been made.
Now on the fourth anniversary, the customary editorials are written, special issues of magazines are published, news channels send correspondents to NYC to cover Ground Zero as it is today.Interview a few families, a few poignant words and pictures...
Declare holidays, or better still, observe silence. The USA observed 4minutes of silence to “remember the victims of 9/11”, as they put it. As though those 4 minutes will ease the pain, if only for today. That day of death, destruction, fear, panic and loss, and just 4 minutes to remember it all. 4minutes to remember the anguish of families who have lost loved ones, or to imagine the feelings of a man trapped in that ill-fated aircraft, knowing he was about to die and take scores of others along with him, and feeling as helpless as a newborn, or the pain of never really knowing what exactly happened in those last few minutes before this incident was etched into history for eternity.
And as if this mockery is not enough, the government wants to build a Freedom Center on Ground Zero. What freedom is the monument going to stand for? Freedom from fear, when terrorists still run amok in our countries today? Or freedom to live in peace, as hunger and poverty ravages parts of the globe? And most importantly, freedom of its people while the country wars with other nations?
Those grieving are demanding for a memorial to be built on Ground Zero to stand as a permanent testimony of the tragedy that befell their nation on that fateful day, so that the world may remember for time to come, how all the carefully built seemingly impenetrable can fall in the blink of an eye, and without a warning.
Ultimately, this whole episode has been reduced to an endless fight between two parties for what is a piece of land, and nothing more. It does not seem to matter to the warring factions that this ground is not just the final resting place of many a citizen of the world, nor the fact that this whole exercise is making a mockery out of something as tragic as what happened on 9/11. Somewhere in the recesses of the mind springs a spark of fear that perhaps the world has forgotten the enormity of the tragedy, not entirely but just beginning to fade along the edges. Soon all of it will become too blurry to be lucid anymore. The fear lies that these people, who are stuck in a seeming time- warp and who have closed their minds and eyes to the bigger picture of it all, will need another 9/11 to jolt them from their slumber. Perhaps even then, this war will wage on with results too far away to be of any solace to anyone, victim or otherwise.