End of a Dream

Disclaimer: All characters in the story are real to the best possible extent. Any mistake in assigning the characters with the real life is totally regretted. The case is about a consulting firm based in NY with an office in Gurgaon and having its name starting with I. Read through the case, the name of the firm is given somewhere in the case. Spotters get a box of peanuts as bonus.

How do you react when something you deserve is taken from you in front of your eyes? How do you react to some gross injustice perpetrated on you? How do you react when someone is unable to justify his/her non-sense actions? And how do you react when you face something you never expected can happen to you? Maybe you are confused as to why I am asking you all this. There’s a reason for this. And let me narrate you a story to help you.

Imagine a situation that you are working in a company which is supposed to be very people oriented, very open in its policies and very fair in its review and rewards process. It entices you to work hard, put in everything you have got, think about nothing work etc etc. All this with the carrot that in the end you will be rewarded suitably. So you  being a lesser mortal fresh out of a graduate school you fall into the mousetrap and make office your second home and work your religion. This game continues happily for almost 2 years and I must confess that the company does keep its promise till the end of first year (atleast for some employess). This would be fair and just to add here that all this is done when the company is doing phenomenally fantastic, achieving over 100% growth. Everything and everyone around you is happy, picture is merry and there are all indications that the joy ride will continue.

Then suddenly one day the company is taken over by a BPO giant. You are told that this is the best thing which could happen at this point of time. We will get more clients and more sales and blah blah. Again you being a slave for 30K INR don’t have a choice but to accept and be happy and hope for the best. You continue to slog. You have a hidden desire to become an MBA after seeing your bosses. You try and this time you get admission into one of the IIMs. In the mean time the company has failed to get any clients and 90% of junta is on bench. But you being a senior member, who considers the company as your own, still continue to put in your best. You slog in late nights with no special expectations, expect the fact that you expect recognition of your efforts. Finally you resign and leave for MBA hoping that people at your company will continue to take you in the same spirit as they did when things were good. Then comes the time when your dreams are shattered and reality dawns on you.  It’s the time when things are declared and you are brought to hard truth. You did not complete 2 weeks in the year and hence you do not become eligible for getting the full bonus. Moreover you don’t even get the deserved performance rating. Just because the f***king company doesn’t has the funds to pay you some 20K extra (considering the fact that you were billed at $125/hr when you were there), you are told that this is what you deserve.

You are a person who has always wanted the best for the firm. You are the one who saw the firm grow from 15 to 150, you are the one who is respected most among the juniors, you are the one whose professionalism and commitment to work is unquestionable, you are the one who believed in pure meritocracy and raised your voice against any unethical thing. But in the end, people who cheated in the tests are revered, people who defy their roles and responsibilities are promoted, people who lick the ass of their superiors move ahead and you, the ideal, moral, ethical employee are left with peanuts to satisfy your values.  Just because the company knows you will never come back again they do this to you and on top of it have the guts to say bullshit to explain this.

So in the end, you are an employee who is still respected in eyes of your peers and juniors, who is still talked about, who has an unblemished track record, who finally reach those a**holes can never reach. But you are told that how much ever you may be good, you are not the employee whom the management dreamt about. You just spent 2 years with the firm called Inductis where the average period is less than 12 months, u multitasked between client projects and training people thereby screwing your life, you did what other people can only dream about but in the end you are one who is left wondering what exactly you got from all this. Nothing tangible. Some people may call you selfish but asking for what you deserve is not being selfish. Some may say that you are demanding too much but you also gave too much to a lost cause. And this blame game will continue.

So what do you learn from the story. Never trust a bunch of arrogant MBAs from one of the IIMs who believe that the only to get ahead is via someone else’s head. Never be emotionally attached to you work place. Just do whatever is expected from you. Because in the end, “It doesn’t even matter and it shouldn’t.”

PS: If you are still unable to comprehend the name of the firm, read again. Don’t ask me the meaning of the name of the firm, check wikipedia, afterall people should take initiative and put effort on their own. 

Why An MBA???

This is the question which may have very well costed me a seat at IIMB. This is the question which most of the people preparing for their B school interviews/admission essays dread answering. This is the question which maybe the most clichéd question in any interview. This is the question which all aspirants prepare the best yet this is the question which nobody can answer perfectly.  

I may have gotten an admission to one of the IIMs, I may have worked for 2 years but I am still not very sure about the answer to this question. What I dread is that even after doing an MBA I might not be able to answer this question. And this fear is amplified after I read the book “Snapshots from hell, The making of an MBA”. The book is about the first year at Stanford Business School, a school among the top 3 business schools worldwide. The book is about the struggle to cope up with the academic rigor, to get used to the cut-throat competition, to worry of not getting a job and more importantly the struggle to survive. And finally it also tries to answer the question and it would be a lie if I say that I don’t agree with it. We will come to the answer later. First of all lets see what an MBA is and what an MBA actually is. 

So what does an MBA from XYZ school provide the graduates with? Is an MBA more of a fancy degree than some real stuff? Is the school matters more than the education itself? Will the graduates end up being at the same position 5 years down the line had they played Golf and boozed instead of learning how to run a company at the school? Will it be fair to say that all a business school does is put a higher price tag on its graduates? The answer to all these questions is YES and NO. What I feel is that an MBA is both. It makes you sellable, it creates demand for you but that demand is also right. An MBA student learns 100s of different things during the course of 2 years. He is among the crème-de-la-crème when he enters a prestigious business school. He is already one of the better brains around, so he deserves all that he gets after his graduation, every penny of it. But it is also true that an MBA is a bit overrated. It’s the experience and sweating out in the corporate battlefield which ultimately separates chaff from the wheat. Its just that the odds of an MBA being the grain are higher than being the chaff. 

Coming back to the question, Why MBA. I still don’t have an answer but I would like to quote from the book itself.  It diversifies the outlook of an individual, forces people to learn about everything ranging from IT to OB to marketing, gives people poise and self-confidence, and more than everything gives the power of networking. The contacts made during the two years last lifelong and reap rewards continuously. A business school gives an opportunity to mingle with bright, business minded classmates and to give serious thoughts to all kinds of business careers. A business school doesn’t take anyone to paradise; in fact it teaches that there isn’t a paradise.

So now, is a business school worth the effort and the investment? I have already taken a decision and till now not repenting it. So, decide for yourself…

I am back!!

Some of you might have been wondering about my whereabouts since a while. Well, I met with a terrible accident which impaired my right hand from functioning normally and typing. Now things are getting back in place and hence I announce my arrival back. Right now the only thing I can say is that I am at IIM Kozhikode and I am having fun here with the beautiful weather around. It looks more like a honeymoon resort than an educational institute of excellence. Will write in detail about life here some other time.

Right now its time to sleep and I am preparing for an extended saturday morning sleep.