Life's like that

First days in job are always special. One thing is that you are obviously exited and "fire in the belly" factor is in place. You yearn to put all those skills in work which you had learnt in B-School. You are ready to take on the world and rise the corporate ladder. fast. You want to implement strategies, redefine visions and shift paradigms of every concept that you encounter. You are also worried of people getting laptops and attending Visa interviews within first month. And you start comparing your corporate future with them.

After Induction, I joined the office at MG Road. No posh campuses for me. Just a plain old building. As I press the button for 6th floor, the lift shook but my confidence didn't. Some handshakes happened and the HR lady introduced me to my practice head. I spent next two days in setting up comp, changing passwords and exploring intranet sites. Some ppt based trainings on data warehouse started after that and time flew.

Some time in my second week, I was asked to provide help in pre sales. That was a welcome move. No coding for me at least. Now for most MBAs in IT, coding is as outrageous as foreplay for any self respecting Indian. Anyways, So I was asked to put together a presentation on our capability in some domain. I googled, used some other resources and came up with a strong mind boggling, thought provoking corporate presentation. I used all my learning which was taught in my Managerial communication classes during MBA. prof Nutty must have given me at least B+ for that. (This was great by mine and good by any standard)

I sent the ppt to my manager and waited for appreciation mail. Then I dreamt... What if he copies BU head also while appreciating my effort. May be BU head will Fwd to whole SBU with words of encouragement for a young MBA with less then one month in business and such a great vision. The CEO will in CC. I imagined a mail by him also before evening. What next then..... some great business wins because of my vision, great client benefits, me getting some best employee award, meteoric rise on corporate ladder. Hmm....

"Please come over"...I came back to earth as I saw the mail from my manager. By the time I reached his desk and could understand the meaning of his smile, my Arial Black Font 18 was converted to Verdana 8. I digested a comment on my incremental framework slide........ "Aisa lag raha hai ki machaliyan ud rahi hai."

That was painful, specially when you are an MBA and think that your knowledge about ppts and client presentations is much more then a techie. My (un)learning started as my manager edited and redesigned the presentation. (I respected what he created in next 30 minutes.) I learnt a lot from him in next 5 months, then handled some stuff on my own. And till date, the mentorship and respect is maintained.

So those were the days, funny days. I did some real serious and intense work in last 2 years. Consulting on an area where I had Zero knowledge, Leant a tool called HFM and implemented it. Managing account was next. Some times I was working 15 hours a day for months, and sometimes absolutely no work. I got some appreciation mails. And once " Guys, you are a bunch of Em Bhi Heys, You seriously need to put your sh!t together" :)

One company ,two eventful years, three beautiful countries, four states and five assignments.
What next??