How does it feel?

How does it feel when you come to know that you are not with the people who need you most? Or you were not there when they needed you most? Or even when you feel like you can not reach out to those who need you? Well, for me all these questions will remain unanswered for long long time to come. I guess that time spent out of home has toughened me but then I guess that its high time now to take that long overdue break and go home.

Hooked on to Maula Mere Maula..

The music of the movie Anwar is different from the rest and that's why perhaps "Maula mere Maula" or "Tose Naina Lage" sounds a lot better than the normal bollywood songs. Since last few days I am quite hooked on this music. Atif Aslam is again the one whose voice stands apart from the crowd. His songs Yakin, Doorie and Tere Bin are the songs I am listening to frequently. The lyrics of "Maula mere Maula" is touchy and poetic. I think that in the last few days several movies have released their music but still Anwar touches my hear like no other song. Hope to download some more nicer hindi songs. Honeymoon travels sounds promising but only the track sung by Shaan and Shreya ghosal "Jaane wo hai kahan" sounds good.

Well. incidently this is my 100th blogpost. Cheers. Planning to sleep early actually and that's my idea of celebration as a B school student. Sleep as much as you can.

My sales blog..

I thought, it could be a nice idea to pen down my attitude, emotions and behaviour towards sales job on one page so that the sum total of everything can be a nice HR case (or atleast first hand salesman's experience). So there came the idea of a separate blog for my sales experience which will benefit me in keeping track of my own performance as well as those poor souls next year who will have to venture into similar territory. I really dread the sales job and I am wondering where do I fit given my zero knowledge of Tamil and Chennai roads.

But well, I have started working on it and have to improve my knowledge about Chennai, the psychology of people, their buying behaviour and then also have to make a serious attempt in learning the language. I do not fear the heat as my skin is sun screen ready (given the dark tan complexion I have) and neither the hostility of the shop keeper as I have nothing to loose (sales people are supposed to be dignity less people for the first two years on job).

So, you can guess what's waiting for me this summer but well I will pen down or pain-down whichever sounds appropriate everything from perception to emotion and attitude to moments of solitude (if any) on my blog. This will be accessible at http://honestsalesman.blogspot.com . I guess each one of us should do a similar thing. This will help you accumulate thoughts and contribute towards the making of bigger picture in form of knowledge repository.

Summers..Surprise..

I woke up at 10 'o' clock in the morning as it was an unusual friday with the whole day off (academically only as you have whole lot of assignments and cases piled up for the weekend). I asked one of the placement reps that can I bunk one of the interviews as I wanted to sleep some more but got a No for an answer. So it's time to kickstart another day. Got up from bed, took a bath, spent 15 minutes on cleaning up the 3 day stubble from my face and then dressed up in the formal wear and excitedly climbed three flight of stairs down to reach the interview hall.

Well this is the company where I don't want to go actually and I applied to it seriously because I wanted to keep backup as well as I was thinking about being a parasite on finance guyz. But then, given all my friends are placed, so that leaves me with no any options other than to take the interview (half heartedly) and on the other hand pray (whole heartedly) that these people don't make a hiring mistake. Anyways, I came with three button suit on in blistering summer heat of Chennai to hear that I am out of placement process as I have been selected by some company.

Should I feel happy that I am placed without an interview? Or should I feel sad that I didn't get a chance to get into the company that I thought? Should I feel happy for the brand (relative term) or rather feel sad that I got a sales profile? What was in my CV which they saw and which was not there in anybody else's CV? So, it was a surprise but I am not sure whether a good one or bad one. My prof. says that a part of growing up is to make your own decisions and to be ready to face the consequences. I didn't decide that this company won't pay stipends, I didn't decide their selection process and I didn't decide that I won't be getting the liberty of knowing about the company and the job profile from the horse's mouth, I didn't decide about not holding any interviews and I did not decide about behind the scene activities. Well, I decided about only one thing and that was to apply for this company thinking that they will atleast fulfil some basic expectations of the summer interns.

Anyways, so here I am, willing to take on the world and to face the consequences of not only of the decisions that I made but also for those decisions which were made by others assuming that they are being generous in working in the students' interest. Anyways, I am well prepared to work in sales selling things and working with some of the people whose institutes do not demand high CAT %iles for admission but still make sure that their students should be treated well in companies.

Well, I am seriously happy for myself that I have a challenging offer waiting for me this summer and something which I always dreaded to do. But this is not a story of individual. This is the story of summer placements where all the things point to a similar trend that everyone wants cheap labour and beggars better not be chosers. Some HR implications are there. I am happy I am growing up..

What is there in the name?

Though IFMR has finance in its name, I think HR is one of the institute's core strength. With only 1 girl planning to major in HR it leaves the student:faculty ratio to 1:4, best in India or in that sense I guess any where in the world. And given the pedagogy of those professors, one place to be for HR is IFMR. Each one is a class act. For example one prof. leaves you with so many doubts lingering on your mind that you feel angry, and try to learn as much as possible whereas the other prof. leaves you like its so simple. You always knew this, its right there at the back of your mind and you have to appreciate how much you know. Add this fact that these two complimentary teaching styles are offered one after another which makes it a thorough affair.

Management Humour..

Q. Why you need HR Manager in an organization?

Ans:- To handle people and execute the different HR functions.

Q. Is it possible to replace people with system?

Ans:- It depends on the nature of the business. Like complex surgical operation where robots can do better than human or a machine is more efficient than human (in reading xray and ECG reports)

Q. Imagine that you are ill or some loved one is having a heart surgery and you are standing near a computer which tells you to move right, you don't know your right or computer's right. Then it instructs you to walk five steps and lie down on a bed. Then you see two robots coming with scalpel and surgical instruments. Will you not be scared? I mean won't you want some personal touch or something?

Ans:- Then I guess this system is not for emotional people like you and me, its for those people who appreciate technology.

Well, the discussion continued further with statements like then it's only for animals I guess.

Sir, Humans are the most civilized animals.

These are the excerpts from one HR guest lecture at IFMR. Mr. Abraham who is HR manager at Kevin Care was really humorous but then he has to appreciate that though there were only 19 people attending his session, most of the time he was caught off-guard by sharp minds at work. Overall, the session that he took was quite entertaining and full of humour but then end of the day I think I got one more sample to prove this hypothesis that HR is more about applying Common sense and less of mugging up theory.

Management Dilemma Continued..

Understanding People:- Why this is so difficult?

I have heard some of my good friends saying that the best way to live life is that don't expect anything from anybody. The irony is that they are the one who will crib most when their expectations from others are not met. They feel hurt even a simple things go wrong against them and they always end up with a bitter feeling about others even when you disagree on simple things. The reason is that though they believe in the philosophy they still hate to practice it and they do expect a lot from others. Any deviation from this expected behaviour can make them feel bad about this world in general and that person in particular.

Well, then people have said to me time and again that they don't get hurt on stupid things as these are part and parcel of life. Everybody make mistakes and one shouldn't get hurt if the deed is unintentional. But then, they are the people who are most vulnerable to even smallest of your misdeeds. You do one simple thing and there they go, reacting and over reacting. I mean sometimes you wonder that where their sense of humour is actually? They will start misinterpreting things and will be ready to jump guns on even a small disagreement. I wonder that where is the knowledge of OB 1 and OB 2? Is it really sinking in our heads?

Anyways, I guess I shouldn't feel bad about all these things but then I think I am one among those who themselves are difficult to understand. I can't deny that I expect a lot from those who I think matters to me a lot. But then, this closeness thing is a relative and vague term where each one has their own definitions and criterias.

Well, this behaviour leaves me with endless questions about friendship, relations, expextations from each other and predictability of behaviour. Gosh! I guess someday I will get some answer to some of these questions at least.

Five things that have changed over last 3 months..

Well, difficult to find out but I am feeling sick that I am unable to find even a single reason which have helped improving me my grades. Anyways, am starting from the things that have changed over the past three months.

1) Sleeping schedule:- Last trimester I use to sleep for like 8 hours on average. I was very serious during the first month (was excited about MBA actually), was attending most of the lectures (most of the subjects were new and confusion level was low as I didn't know a thing about them). This trimester I utilised for sleeping. The average stood somewhere around 10 (a conservative estimate, something greater than this figure exactly).

A possible explanation could be that when you sleep more, you feel fresh and active and have a better retention capacity (but only when you study something, so ofcourse this explanation is a crap).

2) Going out:- The frequency increased and the interval got shortened, Twice in a month became once in a week and sometimes two, three times a week. The number of DVDs increased in my room and not a single one of them is educational. Spencer plaza and Sathyam cinema looks so familiar now, thanks to the second trimester.

3) Mobile Phone usage rate:- Drastically increased and it seems that I discovered suddenly that most of my friends are working professionals now and they are unable to forget me. So my phone can't stop ringing and then Mukta (you will keep seeing this name more often in my blog) contributed in her own special way. Poor girl, she had to endure all those OB theory and marketing Jargons though she has nothing to do with all that. But I am glad that she stayed there and went through all the blah blah blahing of mine and the worst part is that she was paying for all those 30:01 minute calls.

4) Bunking rate:- If not comparable to my undergraduate days, at-least it increased over the last three months. The one and only obvious reasons to bunk was to sleep.

5) Study hours:- Well, surprising they also decreased. The only subject I studied was marketing where I ended up getting a B+ (the highest grade this time is B+) and that too was more like "Say nO tO Kotler".

Well, so these were the five major things (apart from my grades) that changed over the past three months. Though many more things have changed but then "Whatever happens, it was bound to happen" so its okay. Life teaches you many things and in the process it makes sure that you remain up on the learning curve. You see people changing, their beliefs, faiths, perceptions and even loaylty changing and then you see yourself becoming a part of all this change. If you resist there will always be a repulsive force from the opposite end and if you don't you run the risk of loosing your real self.

Anyways, one serious thing that changed in the last trimester was that I got rid of my illusions about a MBA with finance specialization and settled for a major in marketing. On a casual note, my level of confusion about HR issues also drastically increased. God knows, its for good or for bad.

Grade Conscious..

So finally the dilemma is over. Grades for the second trimester are out. Last time it took only few days before the grades were announced, this time it took a little longer. But the irony is that last time, the shitty feeling that you normally get after getting grades stayed for a little longer than this time. My god! it's only 6 hours from the announcement and for most of the us, the feeling is long gone. So I guess we are all either becoming too professional or too unconcerned.

I remember this trimester starting with a small debate against forming a marks cartel and then out of all people I was blamed to be grade conscious. Man, I remember how emotions came out pouring down from everywhere, every corner and even some of the best of my friends went all the way to convince me very sweetly that I was wrong and what I was doing was essentially a marks cartel.

A sneak peak into my engineering days and my grade consciousness:-
I never tried to find out my rank there as I knew that out of 60 odd people I will be somewhere between 30th and 40th students. My father never enquired about my rank and I never mentioned it to him. 70% was an illusion (for students like me) kind of thing and I was surprised to receive honours on my grade sheet as somehow I managed to crawl past the 70% barrier. I ended with 70.013%. So, the idea is that marks or grades never really mattered to me not in school, neither in college and was surprised to learn that people (some of the close friends here) thought that all I care about are grades.

Well, so my wise classmates made sure that no such formation of marks cartel can take place and they lived happily attending one group meeting for one subject and four other meetings for four different subjects. Time and again, our HR professor tried to prove her point that we should focus on team building approach and not just waste our time and energy over resolving group issues and scheduling meetings. But then, MBA teaches you also that "HOW NOT TO BELIEVE OR TRUST YOUR PEERS".

I was branded grade conscious (which anybody who knows even a single bit of me will strongly object to)and I am thinking now that what was it which brought me 3.4/4.0 GPA. Was it my hard work? I am not sure for that as I don't know such a word like (Hard Work) existing in my daily vocabulary. Can't attribute any specific reasons to this jump in grades (from 3.27 - 3.4) except that there is a strong positive correlation between the number of hours (in excess over last trimester) I spent napping this trimester and the improvement in the grades. Also, I went to more number of movies, shopped more and then played computer games for more and more.

Last but not the least, I remember this famous quote from one of my classmate that "Books don't help much, in the end the only thing that helps is your brain". I guess that clicked for me fine.

Surprise..Surprise and more Surprises..

MBA is full of surprises. You expect the lecturer to finish 25 slides in 30 minutes and he takes forever to complete that. Next you expect 40 slides in the presentation and you are surprised to see there were only 21 and they got over within 2o minutes. Suddenly you are full of energy because of an early end to the finance lecture (I guess finance people won't agree with that but guys you have seen me yawning in the lecture right??) and start discussing about the next HR lecture. A pleasant surprise is still waiting as you prepare for the presentation plus a HR quiz scheduled at 2 pm and you get a mail on your outlook that both the things are postponed till tomorrow. So here we are, free on a monday afternoon (I know most of you like me hate mondays so friends this indeed was a awesome thing to happen) and nothing to do for the entire day. We were ready for the quiz and presentation so its okay, we can breathe easy for the day.

Now come round 2. I am truly amused by the way day has unfolded so time to surprise your friends. I call up Mukta (this really cute friend of mine, most of the guys here will of-course agree to this "cute looking claim") and ask her out for a movie for which she replies that her house is about half an hour by auto, the show starts at 12:45 and there is no way she can make it as she didn't even had her bath. Anyways, I hurried up to the Sathyam complex to get the tickets and she was there exactly before the movie started. Now, I always play a spoil sport to her plans but today everything happened at amazing speed. We missed lunch as she has to catch up with her office (where she was only 2 hours late) but then sometimes you just let it go for one moment of togetherness where you are at complete peace.

Man! I am still wondering that how come a lazy guy like me can make it on time and that too for "a not so interesting" (okay type) movie. But yeah! it was a surprise and we did enjoy the popcorn and coke. Wait the day is not over yet, there are many more surprises still there waiting. One was my dearest friend getting placed in Deloitte and then I ended up on the winning side of the volleyball matches, teased and fought with another friend (well that's not a surprise as it's kind of mandatory for both of us to fight at-least once a day), got to eat banana chips again (which I honestly don't like and whcih is more like a evoked need as I see everyone around me liking that). I guess there might be another surprise waiting for me in the form of mess food.

The day is not over yet. I am wondering what next?