why do people come to do an mba... this is a question that i answered for myself before quitting my job as a software engineer in a prestigious mnc...
it was high paying so money making was not the only criterion... considering the job insecurity that most places were facing we didn't have that worry...
it was a well settled business model and our jobs were very secure, unless of course you had some great inborn talent of getting into trouble and fired... so no worry about layoffs or stuff like that which put you under constant necessity to upgrade yourself and be better equipped with new technologies…
life was chill out there – regular weekend parties, movies, music, biking trips, games, sleep and whatever money and mastercard could buy… didn’t have a care in the world spent lavishly ate the choicest foods at the swankiest places… the restaurant manager even became good friends of ours. So why leave this heaven and do u know what…
considering the fact that I am “lazy” by nature I could not bring myself to put in that regular schedule per day of studying for CAT… I did try to force myself to attend the coaching classes and paid a hefty sum for it too… but then classes are meant to be bunked and this was no exception…
so after all this why the hell did I and probably many more like me land up here to get a mirage called MBA… for the benefit of the uninitiated, it is called PGDBM (post graduate diploma in business management). Yes sadly it is a diploma and not called a degree… though people do recognize it as on par with the other PG degrees.
Are we here for the grades which we could not make in our engineering and that we are going to compensate for the 4 years of romping around in an unshaven countenance and dirty shorts… is that what we “executives” from top notch companies are here for… the answer is a big no…
Let us assume for a second that our grades are the most important take aways from a b-school education… then wouldn’t it be like companies would just come look at our cgpas and recruit us just like that… why the hell do they go through the elaborate process f scanning our resumes and interviewing scores of people before settling on a handful… I can quote numerous examples from my past experience where the bottom of the class gets placed at a company and profile higher than that of the topper… and it is normally the batch topper who takes the longest time to get placed (sorry guys this is just an observation based on many samples and I pray to god that it does not happen).
So now that we have hopefully agreed that the quantitative evaluation is not the single most evaluation criterion let us try to understand why anybody like me or those in the batch who are better than me come to this situation.
An mba is not a destination it is a journey that begins with the decision to do it. Then there is the first step in grooming a manager – the CAT… striking where it is easy and matters most. Attempt the easy questions and leave the hard ones – basically survive. Just achieve the basic objective so that you may enter the next level which is the interview call. Once you get into the interview room they really test your smart thinking and ability to communicate your thoughts and I would like to believe that they are at least 90% accurate.
Now that you are inside, you think you were a lone profile, but when we look around we find that everybody here is a unique person – just like you. The batch is so diverse in terms of background and work-ex that is just amazes you to see such high diversity packed into a small batch of 150 students. And since each one has gone through the same rigorous process of sifting the pebbles to find the diamonds, you can rest assured that each one is stud in his own way…
Now what do you do in a mba class – you share experiences from everybody’s lives… a quick journey in learning from others mistakes and achievements… as an mba you don’t have time to go through all the same mistakes again (just think of how many man hours would go into repeating all those mistakes and learning from them.)
But learning from each other does not make all the 150 into a similar person at the end of the 2 years… each one still maintains that individuality or else what is the use of specialists… some of us are naturally creative – we learn a little bit of creativity from them and in case we need more we know where to find it… some of us are born speakers and we learn the art of making small presentations and maybe a little bit of public speaking too… some of us are born writers and from them we learn the framework for what makes a good document… some of us are naturally studious and from them we learn the theoretical concepts…
it is totally unnecessary for the big guy sitting up there to make each one of us different… else he could have just used a standard die cast.
The concept of RG-giri
Two guys are out hiking. All of a sudden, a bear starts chasing them. They climb a tree, but the bear starts climbing up the tree after them. The first guy gets his sneakers out of his knapsack and starts putting them on. The second guy says, "What are you doing? He says, "I figure when the bear gets close to us, we'll jump down and make a run for it." The second guy says, "Are you crazy? You can't out run a bear." The first guy says, "I don't have to out run the bear. . . I only have to out run you."
That is the story of relative grading in a b-school… which I have consistently failed to understand. Not that I am a hypocrite who condemns a system even though it has actually helped me escape sure fail grades in many a courses. But then the whole logic evades me.
When you select people into a particular course you do what is normally called a normal curve fitting. The idea is that the set of people who apply are so large that they can be considered to be a normal population. Say for example they apply to a college that they know would take only based on their marks and that the application fee is a significant sum. I don’t think a sensible guy who has perhaps made a low score would apply. But still the population who apply is so huge that they fit the normal curve… ?
Ok… let us assume that they do satisfy the normal curve condition, that is some stragglers do apply for that college and form the tail end of the spectrum. Now what is the selection process that is normally adopted ? the top 1% or at max the top 10% are taken in for the course. Now where would that fit in the normal curve ? ( it is the shaded area)
Well actually most of the colleges admit in the top 1% only and that normal curve would look like this.
For ease of understanding and clarity of vision let us use the top 10% curve.
Well, so now we have a group of people who are actually top in the merit list. Of course the bottom of the group is bloated because they are not actually the worst of performers. I don’t think I have to explain the normal curve here. Only thing that needs to be understood here is that even the last person falls into the 99 percentile category and is a very intelligent student.
But what sadly happens is that the grades are probably decided by non-statisticians or we just blindly follow the theory of company policy and we try to fit a normal curve for these 1% of highest performers in the country. Will it be a good fit let us see in the figure below…
As we can clearly see the gap of white area that exists that does not overlap the actual distribution of the students and we have to somehow fill in the blue paint into the white area… now are we doing justice to the low lying areas of the original curve by pulling them up and calling them average, or are we doing enough justice to the people in the bottom of the blue layer who have been unlucky enough to be left out in the tail end. Of course I agree that they scored low marks in a couple of tests, but then was the older blue normal curve wrong should it have been a series of normal curves – like a sinusoidal pattern ?
Anyways this is something that is probably not going to change in a while and since the affected parties are also quite happy with this kind of distribution I don’t think I can do anything about but crib whenever I make a bad grade and feel happy for myself and offer my sympathies when I find that I was “lucky” enough that there were some people who have been pushed to the tail end…
Well what is the solution ? one simple solution is to have absolute grades. this not only keeps the toppers in the top and the bottomers in the bottom, it also gives a clear measure of the student's understanding of the concepts in the course... ok well to some extent as some of you may argue that the student would just mug up stuff and vomit on the paper... but then isn't that what is happening ? what is worse currently is that you do all that hard work of cramming crap into your head and manage to score a mark of 95 out of 100 say... u mite still be behind a 100 people who seemingly had more space in their head and could cram faster and hence make a C grade...
disclaimer: i am sorry for using the crammer word for toppers, but it is only an expression and nothing personal against anyone in particular. i myself wud sit in the bottom end of both spectrums - it is lonely at the top and the bottom too...
That is the story of relative grading in a b-school… which I have consistently failed to understand. Not that I am a hypocrite who condemns a system even though it has actually helped me escape sure fail grades in many a courses. But then the whole logic evades me.
When you select people into a particular course you do what is normally called a normal curve fitting. The idea is that the set of people who apply are so large that they can be considered to be a normal population. Say for example they apply to a college that they know would take only based on their marks and that the application fee is a significant sum. I don’t think a sensible guy who has perhaps made a low score would apply. But still the population who apply is so huge that they fit the normal curve… ?
Ok… let us assume that they do satisfy the normal curve condition, that is some stragglers do apply for that college and form the tail end of the spectrum. Now what is the selection process that is normally adopted ? the top 1% or at max the top 10% are taken in for the course. Now where would that fit in the normal curve ? ( it is the shaded area)
Well actually most of the colleges admit in the top 1% only and that normal curve would look like this.
For ease of understanding and clarity of vision let us use the top 10% curve.
Well, so now we have a group of people who are actually top in the merit list. Of course the bottom of the group is bloated because they are not actually the worst of performers. I don’t think I have to explain the normal curve here. Only thing that needs to be understood here is that even the last person falls into the 99 percentile category and is a very intelligent student.
But what sadly happens is that the grades are probably decided by non-statisticians or we just blindly follow the theory of company policy and we try to fit a normal curve for these 1% of highest performers in the country. Will it be a good fit let us see in the figure below…
As we can clearly see the gap of white area that exists that does not overlap the actual distribution of the students and we have to somehow fill in the blue paint into the white area… now are we doing justice to the low lying areas of the original curve by pulling them up and calling them average, or are we doing enough justice to the people in the bottom of the blue layer who have been unlucky enough to be left out in the tail end. Of course I agree that they scored low marks in a couple of tests, but then was the older blue normal curve wrong should it have been a series of normal curves – like a sinusoidal pattern ?
Anyways this is something that is probably not going to change in a while and since the affected parties are also quite happy with this kind of distribution I don’t think I can do anything about but crib whenever I make a bad grade and feel happy for myself and offer my sympathies when I find that I was “lucky” enough that there were some people who have been pushed to the tail end…
Well what is the solution ? one simple solution is to have absolute grades. this not only keeps the toppers in the top and the bottomers in the bottom, it also gives a clear measure of the student's understanding of the concepts in the course... ok well to some extent as some of you may argue that the student would just mug up stuff and vomit on the paper... but then isn't that what is happening ? what is worse currently is that you do all that hard work of cramming crap into your head and manage to score a mark of 95 out of 100 say... u mite still be behind a 100 people who seemingly had more space in their head and could cram faster and hence make a C grade...
disclaimer: i am sorry for using the crammer word for toppers, but it is only an expression and nothing personal against anyone in particular. i myself wud sit in the bottom end of both spectrums - it is lonely at the top and the bottom too...
Half filled vessels travel the farthest…
Everybody would have heard this age old saying “empty vessels make the most noise”… and it has often been my retort when some wiseguy’s wisecracks have left me tongue tied… I am not here to dispute that… but then today I discovered a new thought provoking statement…
“half-filled vessels travel the farthest”
Well how did that happen ? I got damn thirsty and went up the stairs to fetch a bottle of water… and my great big bottle was taking a real long time to fill… a 2 ltr bottle fills at the rate of 2cc per min, then how long would I have to hold the bottle and also press the nozzle… suddenly some color on the floor, reflected in the beautiful moonlight brought me out of the reverie of solving this IIT-JEE level complex problem… they were some of the 500ml plastic bottles probably left over from some forbidden party, though the party animals have done a good job of making it look like an innocent birthday bash… I picked up a bottle and was in no hurry to get back to my room and into bed… so I decided to fill up the bottle and throw it. I seemed to have understood somewhere that the bottle if it were empty would not travel far, and would probably fall right next the hostel-guard sitting right below the 6 floors… this understanding of physics was not what made me fill up the bottle, but it was the understanding of the guardian angel in me which often got neglected when I landed in trouble… so I filled the bottle – a transparent bisleri-type (it had some weird name which I didn’t bother to read)… then making sure that there was no one on the roads at this time of the night, I threw the bottle as far as I could with all my might… (hey that was an accidental rhyme, I always thought I was a born poet, maybe my next blog I should focus on poetry…)
Well the bottle landed somewhere just beyond the walls of the hostel compound… actually translated to engineering terms, would have traveled a horizontal distance of maybe about 10mtrs… well I could clearly understand that it was a futile throw and I was clearly out of the competition for any shot-put events and so was getting that defeatist attitude… the second bottle was almost lucky, but then I thought “wot the hell, I am already bent halfway to pick it up… “ so I took it and started filling it, but then I lost interest halfway and decided to just throw it away fearing the unlikely event of some poor thirsty soul drinking the dirty water… so I decide to throw it in the similar way as the previous bottle but in a half hearted way…
But wonder of wonders… the bottle crossed the wall and did not stop there… it soared over the road and the gutter on the other side of the road, hit the wall of a neglected landspace and stopped… now I am practical enough to understand that god did not decide to give me such great strengths to throw the lighter bottle so far so that I could enter the shot-put contests… that is when some weird physics logic dawned upon me… the water in the half filled bottle seemed to focus the light bottle to travel that extra mile (er… I mean that extra 5 mtrs…) and the bottle was just light enough for that flight and just heavy enough to travel the distance…
What is worse than the physicswala funda striking me at the wrong hour (if only it had come sometime in my engineering days… not that I would have won a nobel prize in physics, but at least I would have appeared to be alive and thinking in front of my physics profs out there… ) anyways what actually struck me was the parallel to life that I could draw… now my dear readers, I am a daydreamer or visionary as I would like to call myself and I relate anything I think of to the philosophy of life (whatever that means). So you will have to bear the parallelisms of life I write about here… even if it sounds like utter crap please don’t break my blissful ignorance that you are all enjoying my blogs…
So what is this great “tatthuvam” (tamil word for wise sayings of life defining themes)… well let us assume 3 different kinds of people – one who has little or no knowledge, the other a little bit of knowledge and the last is an expert in the domain… let us call them novice, intermediate and expert for the sake of typing convenience…
now the novice knows that he does not have much knowledge and the real fact that he has not much knowledge about the topic cannot achieve anything great in that field… basically he cannot ask intelligent questions and nor can he know much by himself… hence like the empty bottle he makes a lot of noise and also does not travel too far… practically buffeted by other forces he lands in the same place and makes a loud uproar…
the expert on the other hand knows more than the novice and the intermediate and hence would certainly be expected to go far more than them… he does too to some extent… but he falls short because he fails to ask the right questions mainly because he already “knows” the answers… thus he may not get what the customers are actually asking for… instead he gives them what he “knows” they want… and since he is heavy with knowledge, falls flat due to the downward force F = mg which is higher for heavier masses.
the intermediate on the other hand is like the half filled bottle of water… light enough to use the external forces to guide his path and the little weight to provide him the required focus to travel that extra distance… to go out of his way to please the customer and gains in the knowledge… and who are these “half-baked” professionals ? of course we MBAs… we know the right questions to ask our customers and of course the customer is the king…
“wow, dude, you are one of the greatest thinkers this world has ever produced…”, I hear an inner-voice telling me… and I also hear some external voices shouting my name… must be my thirsty roomie. Well some sacrifices have to be made after all such strokes of brilliance don’t come very often… say only about once every 5 minutes…
“half-filled vessels travel the farthest”
Well how did that happen ? I got damn thirsty and went up the stairs to fetch a bottle of water… and my great big bottle was taking a real long time to fill… a 2 ltr bottle fills at the rate of 2cc per min, then how long would I have to hold the bottle and also press the nozzle… suddenly some color on the floor, reflected in the beautiful moonlight brought me out of the reverie of solving this IIT-JEE level complex problem… they were some of the 500ml plastic bottles probably left over from some forbidden party, though the party animals have done a good job of making it look like an innocent birthday bash… I picked up a bottle and was in no hurry to get back to my room and into bed… so I decided to fill up the bottle and throw it. I seemed to have understood somewhere that the bottle if it were empty would not travel far, and would probably fall right next the hostel-guard sitting right below the 6 floors… this understanding of physics was not what made me fill up the bottle, but it was the understanding of the guardian angel in me which often got neglected when I landed in trouble… so I filled the bottle – a transparent bisleri-type (it had some weird name which I didn’t bother to read)… then making sure that there was no one on the roads at this time of the night, I threw the bottle as far as I could with all my might… (hey that was an accidental rhyme, I always thought I was a born poet, maybe my next blog I should focus on poetry…)
Well the bottle landed somewhere just beyond the walls of the hostel compound… actually translated to engineering terms, would have traveled a horizontal distance of maybe about 10mtrs… well I could clearly understand that it was a futile throw and I was clearly out of the competition for any shot-put events and so was getting that defeatist attitude… the second bottle was almost lucky, but then I thought “wot the hell, I am already bent halfway to pick it up… “ so I took it and started filling it, but then I lost interest halfway and decided to just throw it away fearing the unlikely event of some poor thirsty soul drinking the dirty water… so I decide to throw it in the similar way as the previous bottle but in a half hearted way…
But wonder of wonders… the bottle crossed the wall and did not stop there… it soared over the road and the gutter on the other side of the road, hit the wall of a neglected landspace and stopped… now I am practical enough to understand that god did not decide to give me such great strengths to throw the lighter bottle so far so that I could enter the shot-put contests… that is when some weird physics logic dawned upon me… the water in the half filled bottle seemed to focus the light bottle to travel that extra mile (er… I mean that extra 5 mtrs…) and the bottle was just light enough for that flight and just heavy enough to travel the distance…
What is worse than the physicswala funda striking me at the wrong hour (if only it had come sometime in my engineering days… not that I would have won a nobel prize in physics, but at least I would have appeared to be alive and thinking in front of my physics profs out there… ) anyways what actually struck me was the parallel to life that I could draw… now my dear readers, I am a daydreamer or visionary as I would like to call myself and I relate anything I think of to the philosophy of life (whatever that means). So you will have to bear the parallelisms of life I write about here… even if it sounds like utter crap please don’t break my blissful ignorance that you are all enjoying my blogs…
So what is this great “tatthuvam” (tamil word for wise sayings of life defining themes)… well let us assume 3 different kinds of people – one who has little or no knowledge, the other a little bit of knowledge and the last is an expert in the domain… let us call them novice, intermediate and expert for the sake of typing convenience…
now the novice knows that he does not have much knowledge and the real fact that he has not much knowledge about the topic cannot achieve anything great in that field… basically he cannot ask intelligent questions and nor can he know much by himself… hence like the empty bottle he makes a lot of noise and also does not travel too far… practically buffeted by other forces he lands in the same place and makes a loud uproar…
the expert on the other hand knows more than the novice and the intermediate and hence would certainly be expected to go far more than them… he does too to some extent… but he falls short because he fails to ask the right questions mainly because he already “knows” the answers… thus he may not get what the customers are actually asking for… instead he gives them what he “knows” they want… and since he is heavy with knowledge, falls flat due to the downward force F = mg which is higher for heavier masses.
the intermediate on the other hand is like the half filled bottle of water… light enough to use the external forces to guide his path and the little weight to provide him the required focus to travel that extra distance… to go out of his way to please the customer and gains in the knowledge… and who are these “half-baked” professionals ? of course we MBAs… we know the right questions to ask our customers and of course the customer is the king…
“wow, dude, you are one of the greatest thinkers this world has ever produced…”, I hear an inner-voice telling me… and I also hear some external voices shouting my name… must be my thirsty roomie. Well some sacrifices have to be made after all such strokes of brilliance don’t come very often… say only about once every 5 minutes…
the new approach to reservations
How do you feel when you go into a restaurant and find that a table is marked reserved? The manager informs you that that table is booked in advance by someone who is intelligent enough to call on time, before you walked in…
Now consider the situation where the manager informs you that the table is reserved for a particular caste who may or may not come and who may or may not be able to pay for what they are eating and they may actually dirty up the entire place before leaving such that the restaurant’s other customers may feel disgusted to eat there… and that you will have to wait till some of the other limited tables get free…
Why do we need reservations? Are these helping the backward castes in any way? If your aim is to only get them jobs and not bother whether they get a good education or not, why bother with the process at all… I feel there are better ways to counter the problem of uplifting the economic status of these backward classes…
1) the government could levy a tax or collect some fund (similar to the tsunami/earthquake relief) and just distribute it among the people who are registered as the backward people so that they don’t have to work…
2) break India into two countries, one called backward India and the other called OC India. This way there would be no problem and in fact the reservation would now actually jump to equal 50-50 share
3) better still would be to recruit all these backward people into the middle management positions in IT companies so that they don’t have to do any work and they would get all the facilities and good salaries anyway…
4) another way would be to issue backward class certificates to OC candidates who pass a minimum level of negative IQ test so that they can be eligible for these kind of reservation policies.
5) Go on a mass conversion crusade like the Christians and Buddhists and convert everyone to backward castes
6) Send these people on high paying jobs to hostile/competitive countries so that we can encourage mediocrity in those countries and emerge as better outsourcing hub due to relative grading
7) Special homes like blind schools, schools for the mentally challenged and deaf and dumb schools can be created for training these classes of people so that they do not get shunned by society… in these schools we can teach them how being below the mediocrity line will help them rise above the poverty line
And so on… if I can think of these many wonderful ideas for the upliftment of the backward classed, a think tank of eminent personalities drawn from different walks of life like lakshmi mittal, azim premji, narayanamurthy, Abdul kalam, greg chappel, and many more industrialists and leading money makers and social workers whose priority should be on how to start businesses with “people who won’t change in a land of opportunities” rather than tap the enormous intellectual potential based on merit…
Imagine what would happen if the reservation quota was encouraged in say the Indian cricket team… 5 out of the 11 players would be from backward castes and handicapped players… if the Indian team currently considered to be the fittest and stongest team can lose against teams like the windies, we will certainly win with this new reserved team…
Now consider the situation where the manager informs you that the table is reserved for a particular caste who may or may not come and who may or may not be able to pay for what they are eating and they may actually dirty up the entire place before leaving such that the restaurant’s other customers may feel disgusted to eat there… and that you will have to wait till some of the other limited tables get free…
Why do we need reservations? Are these helping the backward castes in any way? If your aim is to only get them jobs and not bother whether they get a good education or not, why bother with the process at all… I feel there are better ways to counter the problem of uplifting the economic status of these backward classes…
1) the government could levy a tax or collect some fund (similar to the tsunami/earthquake relief) and just distribute it among the people who are registered as the backward people so that they don’t have to work…
2) break India into two countries, one called backward India and the other called OC India. This way there would be no problem and in fact the reservation would now actually jump to equal 50-50 share
3) better still would be to recruit all these backward people into the middle management positions in IT companies so that they don’t have to do any work and they would get all the facilities and good salaries anyway…
4) another way would be to issue backward class certificates to OC candidates who pass a minimum level of negative IQ test so that they can be eligible for these kind of reservation policies.
5) Go on a mass conversion crusade like the Christians and Buddhists and convert everyone to backward castes
6) Send these people on high paying jobs to hostile/competitive countries so that we can encourage mediocrity in those countries and emerge as better outsourcing hub due to relative grading
7) Special homes like blind schools, schools for the mentally challenged and deaf and dumb schools can be created for training these classes of people so that they do not get shunned by society… in these schools we can teach them how being below the mediocrity line will help them rise above the poverty line
And so on… if I can think of these many wonderful ideas for the upliftment of the backward classed, a think tank of eminent personalities drawn from different walks of life like lakshmi mittal, azim premji, narayanamurthy, Abdul kalam, greg chappel, and many more industrialists and leading money makers and social workers whose priority should be on how to start businesses with “people who won’t change in a land of opportunities” rather than tap the enormous intellectual potential based on merit…
Imagine what would happen if the reservation quota was encouraged in say the Indian cricket team… 5 out of the 11 players would be from backward castes and handicapped players… if the Indian team currently considered to be the fittest and stongest team can lose against teams like the windies, we will certainly win with this new reserved team…
driving through the journey of life
on the roads of Chennai, hot, dusty and stuck in slower than a snail's pace traffic... i was tired of criticising the system that so efficiently clogged up the arteries of one of the country's metros and biggest business cities... tired of complaining that the bloody government should stop scheming ways to counter the opposition's scheming ways... so i tried getting philosophical - actually got lost in some thoughts...
how many common things between life and the journey that i am taking now... and how many parallels between me and the others on the road with me... everybody has a destination to drive to - an objective to aim for... everybody has their own means according to their economic condition, their jobs, their mindsets, their karma... how many obstacles to reach your destination... how do the others block your path - some mindlessly, some intentionally causing you the frustration over your inability to achieve your aim within your time contraint... you constantly look at your watch, mainly because you have nothing else to do other than fume afterwards...
some take a different route to their destination hoping that it would take them wherever they want to be faster... a risk worth taking while most others would stay rooted to the one dimensional right-royal-routine-route... who is right you never know, unless you can compare the parameters of evaluation throughout the journeys of the risk takers and non-risk takers... there is nothing to do in the coagulated traffic but wait... wait until an opportunity presents itself in front you, opening a gap to move on and move quickly enough so that somebody else does not seize your chance... but even while waiting, there is a lot to do... look around and the world presents you with sights that are really worth seeing... be it on the gearless scooters around you or in the great machines in the SUVs, or the surroundings that you have so painstakingly reached - beauty is everywhere in the etes of the beholder, along with all the smoke and dust... now that there are lots of mobile phones with mp3 players and/or fm radios... listen to music and relax... as their is no point shouting or getting irritated, why not appear cool and be the envy of others... there is never any use in getting tensed or frustrated... in times like this why not plan for something...
the honking indicates i should move on... stopping and day dreaming is allowed, as long as it does not affect the flow of others... an irritated glance showing only pity at what the impatient fellow has missed all along, i move the few millimeters that have been granted by the people who are way up front and moved on...
how many common things between life and the journey that i am taking now... and how many parallels between me and the others on the road with me... everybody has a destination to drive to - an objective to aim for... everybody has their own means according to their economic condition, their jobs, their mindsets, their karma... how many obstacles to reach your destination... how do the others block your path - some mindlessly, some intentionally causing you the frustration over your inability to achieve your aim within your time contraint... you constantly look at your watch, mainly because you have nothing else to do other than fume afterwards...
some take a different route to their destination hoping that it would take them wherever they want to be faster... a risk worth taking while most others would stay rooted to the one dimensional right-royal-routine-route... who is right you never know, unless you can compare the parameters of evaluation throughout the journeys of the risk takers and non-risk takers... there is nothing to do in the coagulated traffic but wait... wait until an opportunity presents itself in front you, opening a gap to move on and move quickly enough so that somebody else does not seize your chance... but even while waiting, there is a lot to do... look around and the world presents you with sights that are really worth seeing... be it on the gearless scooters around you or in the great machines in the SUVs, or the surroundings that you have so painstakingly reached - beauty is everywhere in the etes of the beholder, along with all the smoke and dust... now that there are lots of mobile phones with mp3 players and/or fm radios... listen to music and relax... as their is no point shouting or getting irritated, why not appear cool and be the envy of others... there is never any use in getting tensed or frustrated... in times like this why not plan for something...
the honking indicates i should move on... stopping and day dreaming is allowed, as long as it does not affect the flow of others... an irritated glance showing only pity at what the impatient fellow has missed all along, i move the few millimeters that have been granted by the people who are way up front and moved on...
CAs - the omnipotent
One thing you learn during an MBA is that your engineering degree is as useless (as the adage goes) as a comb to a bald man... and that the commerce you scorned upon when you were in high school are the strongest force here...
yeah the underdogs become the hunting hounds... their performance hounds you... they are everywhere solving any goddamn problem or case - and even if it were something in hard-core chemical engineering...
most of the top ranks, about almost all of them go to the CAs... they solve economic problems and quantitative probability... they can write pages of p&p gas and also write IT-B bullet points... they can solve cases involving chemical sales and also strategise for transformer sales... man give the engineers a chance... the inferiority complex is compounded everyday...
and today was the heights of it... yeah literally the heights...
the p&p tower building contest... our group, as were the others, equally composed (or rather proportionately composed) of engineers and commerce grads... but what happened was a total take-over here too by the non-engineers... though some occasional acknowledgement was made of our existence, we were not even part of the design team... talk of core competency...
so the materials cost was calculated and estimated height of the tower was given... though we did not actually get to build the prototype... all we engineers could not hide the smirk on our faces as we knew that these bloody commerce junta have bitten off more than they can chew... we won't get our hands dirty by pitching in... there was enough chaos already... material costing was their core comptency, tower building was not...
when the 3 minute contest started, the enthusiastic commerce junta pitched in and started building... end of 3 mins there was a shaky and chaotically colored tower from which we took off our hands put their to keep the building from falling after threats of disqualification from the prof...
we went back to our seats and saw that the other groups too had done some good job... and our tower like the rest stood the test of the bench-thumping-quakes...
and the judgement was made - we had missed the quoted figure by half a centimeter... and the others had of course exceeded their quoted figures... but the tallest standing tower was - no points for guessing...
We don't need engineers any more... just CAs are enough...
Engineers beware - your jobs are no longer safe...
(Please note: I got nothing against CAs... I am scared to think where I would have been without the 2 of them in my group... :) )
yeah the underdogs become the hunting hounds... their performance hounds you... they are everywhere solving any goddamn problem or case - and even if it were something in hard-core chemical engineering...
most of the top ranks, about almost all of them go to the CAs... they solve economic problems and quantitative probability... they can write pages of p&p gas and also write IT-B bullet points... they can solve cases involving chemical sales and also strategise for transformer sales... man give the engineers a chance... the inferiority complex is compounded everyday...
and today was the heights of it... yeah literally the heights...
the p&p tower building contest... our group, as were the others, equally composed (or rather proportionately composed) of engineers and commerce grads... but what happened was a total take-over here too by the non-engineers... though some occasional acknowledgement was made of our existence, we were not even part of the design team... talk of core competency...
so the materials cost was calculated and estimated height of the tower was given... though we did not actually get to build the prototype... all we engineers could not hide the smirk on our faces as we knew that these bloody commerce junta have bitten off more than they can chew... we won't get our hands dirty by pitching in... there was enough chaos already... material costing was their core comptency, tower building was not...
when the 3 minute contest started, the enthusiastic commerce junta pitched in and started building... end of 3 mins there was a shaky and chaotically colored tower from which we took off our hands put their to keep the building from falling after threats of disqualification from the prof...
we went back to our seats and saw that the other groups too had done some good job... and our tower like the rest stood the test of the bench-thumping-quakes...
and the judgement was made - we had missed the quoted figure by half a centimeter... and the others had of course exceeded their quoted figures... but the tallest standing tower was - no points for guessing...
We don't need engineers any more... just CAs are enough...
Engineers beware - your jobs are no longer safe...
(Please note: I got nothing against CAs... I am scared to think where I would have been without the 2 of them in my group... :) )
BANG THEY BASANTI
I saw the movie 'Rang de Basanti' and i don't like it... i am a heretic... because i think with the organ i am supposed to use for that purpose... others use the organs that are used to pump blood or something else...
so wot was wrong with a movie that scores no thousands no millions of people are going to like or already liked...
the concept was too good... 5 directionless youth... do something for the country... that is a very socially relevant theme...
the music by ARR... who could deny the greatness of it... not even dissatisfied ones like me can argue with that...
the actors ?... no way man... they were all too good... aamir khan, atul kulkarni, madhavan, and siddharth... and the rest of the gang too... they were all too good and too natural...
too natural... may be that is the reason... too naturally impulsive...
the first half of the movie was interstingly fresh... the build-up for the mega event was good... though the turn of events were predictable the path was enjoyable... so what went wrong ?
i could not digest the fact that 5 + 1 of the nations youth die so cheaply without causing a scratch in the glass... what happens... madhavan dies in the MIG crash... and the corrupt minister denies that there is anything wrong with the planes and that the fact that the pilots are immature and unqualified is the cause for their deaths...
so what happens - our band of heroes get a pistol and shoot the minister down. result: the minister is given immediate martyrdom and elevated to patriotic status. what do these guys get in return - death and a horrible one at that... and the point that they are so casual about losing their lives is very disheartening...
the heroes thought with their heart - very impulsive decision to kill the minister in the first place... without an evidence to show that the minister was guilty of corruption you shoot down a minister - which obviously in today's era of accepted terrorism, the praise went to some unworthy parties.
next - they decided to turn themselves in ? man you expect to kill a corrupt guy and expect his friends to give you shelter and good food and take you to court to testify against themselves - in short commit suicide ?
i really did like yuva... no in fact, i loved it... michael achieves his dream... he gets elected to the house and is now in a position to make a difference... he took the fight to the enemy... and of course he didn't die in the process... though of course he did get hurt... or say Indian (an old movie of Kamalhassan) - he survives and he has achieved what he wanted - fear of corruption... so why do these rebels or revolutionists (as i would like to call them) have to die ? why scare the already fearful population of the repurcussions of their positive step ?
so what did they achieve - the nations students were stirred... the nation was stirred... so what if 5 families have a loss of their son, some their only son... a son who they lavished love and affection for almost 25 years... but it is ok... they are only a small part of the population... the rest have their eyes opened... they have voiced their opinions against the corrupt government... their blood boils and their eyes are full of vengeance... they want change... they want to eliminate corruption...
why they - WE... i am part of this population too... i am also angered with the injustice of corruption... i too am stirred by this movie and am ready for action... so, what am i going to do ? i don't know yet... but i will surely do something against corruption and other society evils...
but let me first settle down in life... let my exams get over, then my placements, then once i am financially secure, i will certainly do something... till then, whenever some idiotic youth takes an extreme step of sacrificing his life to generate awareness, i will keep voicing my opinion...
so wot was wrong with a movie that scores no thousands no millions of people are going to like or already liked...
the concept was too good... 5 directionless youth... do something for the country... that is a very socially relevant theme...
the music by ARR... who could deny the greatness of it... not even dissatisfied ones like me can argue with that...
the actors ?... no way man... they were all too good... aamir khan, atul kulkarni, madhavan, and siddharth... and the rest of the gang too... they were all too good and too natural...
too natural... may be that is the reason... too naturally impulsive...
the first half of the movie was interstingly fresh... the build-up for the mega event was good... though the turn of events were predictable the path was enjoyable... so what went wrong ?
i could not digest the fact that 5 + 1 of the nations youth die so cheaply without causing a scratch in the glass... what happens... madhavan dies in the MIG crash... and the corrupt minister denies that there is anything wrong with the planes and that the fact that the pilots are immature and unqualified is the cause for their deaths...
so what happens - our band of heroes get a pistol and shoot the minister down. result: the minister is given immediate martyrdom and elevated to patriotic status. what do these guys get in return - death and a horrible one at that... and the point that they are so casual about losing their lives is very disheartening...
the heroes thought with their heart - very impulsive decision to kill the minister in the first place... without an evidence to show that the minister was guilty of corruption you shoot down a minister - which obviously in today's era of accepted terrorism, the praise went to some unworthy parties.
next - they decided to turn themselves in ? man you expect to kill a corrupt guy and expect his friends to give you shelter and good food and take you to court to testify against themselves - in short commit suicide ?
i really did like yuva... no in fact, i loved it... michael achieves his dream... he gets elected to the house and is now in a position to make a difference... he took the fight to the enemy... and of course he didn't die in the process... though of course he did get hurt... or say Indian (an old movie of Kamalhassan) - he survives and he has achieved what he wanted - fear of corruption... so why do these rebels or revolutionists (as i would like to call them) have to die ? why scare the already fearful population of the repurcussions of their positive step ?
so what did they achieve - the nations students were stirred... the nation was stirred... so what if 5 families have a loss of their son, some their only son... a son who they lavished love and affection for almost 25 years... but it is ok... they are only a small part of the population... the rest have their eyes opened... they have voiced their opinions against the corrupt government... their blood boils and their eyes are full of vengeance... they want change... they want to eliminate corruption...
why they - WE... i am part of this population too... i am also angered with the injustice of corruption... i too am stirred by this movie and am ready for action... so, what am i going to do ? i don't know yet... but i will surely do something against corruption and other society evils...
but let me first settle down in life... let my exams get over, then my placements, then once i am financially secure, i will certainly do something... till then, whenever some idiotic youth takes an extreme step of sacrificing his life to generate awareness, i will keep voicing my opinion...
MBAs and humility...
"Hi, My name is ... I have done my MBA from..."
doesn't it sound good ? i had always dreamt of this intro of mine (of course ever since i joined my first company and decided that i was too young to get into the job grind so early). in india, it is the general perspective (mine too) that mbas are gods if not demi-gods... they do the work of 10 men, in a fraction of the time and they don't make mistakes... of course they are paid very high salaries, but are we not above all these materialistic pursuits.. :)
yeah baby... being an mba elevates you to super status... people start looking up to you... and why not ? 'I' wrote the painful and toughest test of managerial aptitude - the CAT and emerged on the tops amongst about a hundred and fifty thousand and ever increasing competitors. 'I' made it into a top b-school through their tough scrutinizing interview and GD and group-interviews and essays and psychometric tests and management aptitude tests and what not... and 'I' am among the few that have been selected - with the success ratio being about 1:100, that is something to cross the post-CAT stage...
now enters the first stage of realization and it hits you - there is about 30% of the population in the form of non-engineers who have already done some of the majorly important subjects that you never even had an inkling about their existence... so there goes the 'A' grades.. but that is ok guys, the remaining 70% is with you... and you sleep peacefully...
but whammo, while you were sleeping a part of the 70% had remained awake and gotten the knowledge transfer, though not completely... but still there is enough knowledge in their heads now to at least automatically nod whenever the prof says something in a language like greek or chinese... so there goes the 'B' grades...
now all that is left is the 'C' grades. but what do 'I' care... marks are not everything in life... so chill yaar, there is a lot of time till the exams. party on and watch movies all you like even if it were the worst movie of the century and you are watching it for the 124th time... but come exam eve, you cannot remain awake beyond midnight becos the moment you touch your books you fall asleep - reason NO PRACTICE... but the last part of the 70% have some grit in them and somehow manage this one night - resulting in them getting into a low C grade... bu twho cares: a C is a C is a C...
but were are you ? 'D'rowning.... after all the clowning, wodidja expect ? i am splashing around helplessly and hopelessly groping around for any small tip of a lifeline...
PS. this is when you realize that the part of the 70% that back-stabbed you were not actually turncoats... you failed to read the signals. they were participating in the events and winning prizes and accolades and fame...
what does the first year in an MBA do to you ? it makes you think -
"it is time that 'i' realized how small 'i' am."
doesn't it sound good ? i had always dreamt of this intro of mine (of course ever since i joined my first company and decided that i was too young to get into the job grind so early). in india, it is the general perspective (mine too) that mbas are gods if not demi-gods... they do the work of 10 men, in a fraction of the time and they don't make mistakes... of course they are paid very high salaries, but are we not above all these materialistic pursuits.. :)
yeah baby... being an mba elevates you to super status... people start looking up to you... and why not ? 'I' wrote the painful and toughest test of managerial aptitude - the CAT and emerged on the tops amongst about a hundred and fifty thousand and ever increasing competitors. 'I' made it into a top b-school through their tough scrutinizing interview and GD and group-interviews and essays and psychometric tests and management aptitude tests and what not... and 'I' am among the few that have been selected - with the success ratio being about 1:100, that is something to cross the post-CAT stage...
now enters the first stage of realization and it hits you - there is about 30% of the population in the form of non-engineers who have already done some of the majorly important subjects that you never even had an inkling about their existence... so there goes the 'A' grades.. but that is ok guys, the remaining 70% is with you... and you sleep peacefully...
but whammo, while you were sleeping a part of the 70% had remained awake and gotten the knowledge transfer, though not completely... but still there is enough knowledge in their heads now to at least automatically nod whenever the prof says something in a language like greek or chinese... so there goes the 'B' grades...
now all that is left is the 'C' grades. but what do 'I' care... marks are not everything in life... so chill yaar, there is a lot of time till the exams. party on and watch movies all you like even if it were the worst movie of the century and you are watching it for the 124th time... but come exam eve, you cannot remain awake beyond midnight becos the moment you touch your books you fall asleep - reason NO PRACTICE... but the last part of the 70% have some grit in them and somehow manage this one night - resulting in them getting into a low C grade... bu twho cares: a C is a C is a C...
but were are you ? 'D'rowning.... after all the clowning, wodidja expect ? i am splashing around helplessly and hopelessly groping around for any small tip of a lifeline...
PS. this is when you realize that the part of the 70% that back-stabbed you were not actually turncoats... you failed to read the signals. they were participating in the events and winning prizes and accolades and fame...
what does the first year in an MBA do to you ? it makes you think -
"it is time that 'i' realized how small 'i' am."
In life, you never get what you deserve... only what you negotiate...
how many times have you bought a book from a platform shop for half the price quoted by the shopkeeper and felt happy for some time... only to be shattered by the remark of a friend that he bought the same book from the same shopkeeper for much less...
once on a visit to palika bazaar, i chanced to see the book that i had been wanting to buy for so long... price quoted - 250/- ... now was that a random number that came to the guy's mind or was it really worth it (pirated of course) - it was anybody's guess... still anyways, i have been in delhi long enough to chuck my benevolence and i was planning to do my mba... so i decided to put my negotiation skills to test... and voila i got it for 60/-... a 10 rupees increase from my initial quoted price... then the shopkeeper gave me these final parting words "though i am selling it off at a loss to you, i will make it up with someone else"... that made my day...
to reality - the nego skills prof gave the above statement "In life, you never get what you deserve... only what you negotiate..." on the last day of the lecture and the incident was among the first things i remembered immediately...
the frequent blackmail letters (also known as resignation letters) that are used by people to screw their manager's happiness and spend their vacation on company's expense abroad... man do the silent observers, who don't have the nerve to negotiate hate you for all the privileges that you receive... the bone of contention here is not the company's wish to retain you because you are irreplacable, but the way you adopted to get what you wanted...
how many restaurants have you frequented and how many times have you asked for a discount flashing your company / college id cards... is it because you cannot pay that measly 10% when you can pay the 90% ? or is it the mental satisfaction that the restaurant manager respects you as a customer who can bring in more people... whether he gives you the discount grudgingly or beneath a false smile, a discount is a discount is a discount... :)
right from a measly meal discount to your salaries, you only get what you want if you ask for it... people who evaluate you are both dumb and stingy... you need to give them an easier job of identifying your qualities for which they should pay you, and then make them pay for it...
man i am capable of doing it and i deserved it, but i have to fight for it...
once on a visit to palika bazaar, i chanced to see the book that i had been wanting to buy for so long... price quoted - 250/- ... now was that a random number that came to the guy's mind or was it really worth it (pirated of course) - it was anybody's guess... still anyways, i have been in delhi long enough to chuck my benevolence and i was planning to do my mba... so i decided to put my negotiation skills to test... and voila i got it for 60/-... a 10 rupees increase from my initial quoted price... then the shopkeeper gave me these final parting words "though i am selling it off at a loss to you, i will make it up with someone else"... that made my day...
to reality - the nego skills prof gave the above statement "In life, you never get what you deserve... only what you negotiate..." on the last day of the lecture and the incident was among the first things i remembered immediately...
the frequent blackmail letters (also known as resignation letters) that are used by people to screw their manager's happiness and spend their vacation on company's expense abroad... man do the silent observers, who don't have the nerve to negotiate hate you for all the privileges that you receive... the bone of contention here is not the company's wish to retain you because you are irreplacable, but the way you adopted to get what you wanted...
how many restaurants have you frequented and how many times have you asked for a discount flashing your company / college id cards... is it because you cannot pay that measly 10% when you can pay the 90% ? or is it the mental satisfaction that the restaurant manager respects you as a customer who can bring in more people... whether he gives you the discount grudgingly or beneath a false smile, a discount is a discount is a discount... :)
right from a measly meal discount to your salaries, you only get what you want if you ask for it... people who evaluate you are both dumb and stingy... you need to give them an easier job of identifying your qualities for which they should pay you, and then make them pay for it...
man i am capable of doing it and i deserved it, but i have to fight for it...
working sundays
A beautiful Saturday spent idling around and towards the end of the day let your hair down and party on till late into the night... loud music blaring and ending with a very good movie... some friends over at the house for a pizza party... wake up real late the next day - a Sunday - with no work to do, but rest for the entire day with a light pleasantly painful hangover of the previous night...
crash !!!
sorry to wake you up, but welcome to reality...
you actually sleep late the previous night not because you want to watch a couple of movies, but because you were finishing that nagging Financial Management assignment to be submitted the next day in class... actually the CAs do it, while you sit next to them nodding - sleepy dazed and tired after the long lectures of the day wondering how the CAs seem to be such a bundle of high energy... well coming back to sunday morning, you are actually forced to wake up at 7:30 am otherwise you will have to make-do with deos (this may work out becos your neighbour in class has probably done the same thing if not forgotten to buy the deo 2 weeks before when the schedule actually had a half hour slot free...)... ok "7:30 am !!!" you may ask... well the prof is a visitor so he likes to see discipline - everyone in class by 8:25 for the lecture that begins at 8:30... that is you should have a breakfast by 8-8:15... the prof does not give a break until about 10:30...
now 2 hours of non-stop FM may sound nice on radio, but not live...we can't even switch it off... then after the break which is about 20 extended minutes people drag their feet into class... becos the topmost part of their body wants to sit in the class, however the rest of the body wants to escape... but sorry you are not spared... another 3 hours pass by and you secretly imagine your prof to be prof.Binns (the ghost teacher in the harry potter series, who no one pays any attention to...)
Now it is 1pm and there is a mad rush to the mess... is it becos people love the food... nope... it is just to gulp in some stuff and do some reading for the surprize quiz that shocked our way down the stairs... converting a bunch of slow relaxed happy students into stressed schumachers whose only aim is to stuff in some food for the stomach and also for thought before 2... man it surprises you how much irrelevant stuff u can cram into yourself within that 1 hr none of which is asked in the quiz...
Quiz over, you move on to the next mega ordeal of another set of classes which actually run from 2:15 to 7:55... the accuracy in the timings maintained lending a sense of relief to the masses (but god only knows why...) at the end of the day, it is not over yet with pre-reads, post-reads and mind-reads for the next day's planned surprises...
Man these guys really make you appreciate your ex-boss...
crash !!!
sorry to wake you up, but welcome to reality...
you actually sleep late the previous night not because you want to watch a couple of movies, but because you were finishing that nagging Financial Management assignment to be submitted the next day in class... actually the CAs do it, while you sit next to them nodding - sleepy dazed and tired after the long lectures of the day wondering how the CAs seem to be such a bundle of high energy... well coming back to sunday morning, you are actually forced to wake up at 7:30 am otherwise you will have to make-do with deos (this may work out becos your neighbour in class has probably done the same thing if not forgotten to buy the deo 2 weeks before when the schedule actually had a half hour slot free...)... ok "7:30 am !!!" you may ask... well the prof is a visitor so he likes to see discipline - everyone in class by 8:25 for the lecture that begins at 8:30... that is you should have a breakfast by 8-8:15... the prof does not give a break until about 10:30...
now 2 hours of non-stop FM may sound nice on radio, but not live...we can't even switch it off... then after the break which is about 20 extended minutes people drag their feet into class... becos the topmost part of their body wants to sit in the class, however the rest of the body wants to escape... but sorry you are not spared... another 3 hours pass by and you secretly imagine your prof to be prof.Binns (the ghost teacher in the harry potter series, who no one pays any attention to...)
Now it is 1pm and there is a mad rush to the mess... is it becos people love the food... nope... it is just to gulp in some stuff and do some reading for the surprize quiz that shocked our way down the stairs... converting a bunch of slow relaxed happy students into stressed schumachers whose only aim is to stuff in some food for the stomach and also for thought before 2... man it surprises you how much irrelevant stuff u can cram into yourself within that 1 hr none of which is asked in the quiz...
Quiz over, you move on to the next mega ordeal of another set of classes which actually run from 2:15 to 7:55... the accuracy in the timings maintained lending a sense of relief to the masses (but god only knows why...) at the end of the day, it is not over yet with pre-reads, post-reads and mind-reads for the next day's planned surprises...
Man these guys really make you appreciate your ex-boss...
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