Category: Work

5 years hence

Prasad Ajinkya5 Comments

When I was an engineer, the campus placements were on full swing … well, not so full … it was the Dot Com Bust of 2002, remember?

So a new firm had come to campus – IRIS. And I was intent on getting placed. The interview was going well and I seemed to have the technical part of the interview clinched (whew!). Now the hard part … the HR round. Some weird questions were thrown in, but I got them or dodged them safely … then the head HR (Jayaraman, as I would soon find out) asks me, “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

I had not thought of this question (I was green under the gills, cut me some slack here!!). The smart alec inside me wanted to blurt out … “On the other side of the table” … I did not. I gave some simple minded answer and that was that.

5 years hence, I am taking interviews … and I AM on the other side of the table.

I for Implementation

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I was watching the idiot box when I was at home, when I saw the new IBM ad. Here’s its original one.

And then it struck me. How true is this? Especially for IIM grads :-). When we were at IIM-Indore, we had this urge to name almost all initiatives with the letter I. And all the initiatives would have some words starting from I to connote the message, mantra, dictum, et al.
Always it was something like ideation, incubation, inspiration, innovation, etc. etc. … you got the drift right?

What we did not think was I for Implementation. That word strikes us right in the middle of our eyes the moment we start our work, since up till that point the majority of us are involved in theory and not practice. Hence ideas, innovations, strategies, etc… and not roll-out plans, implementation plans, work schedules. Even as I am typing these words, the earlier ones seem more glamorous than the later. Its not that we made out elaborate plans and never fulfilled them when we were students, we managed to get them done as well. Just, that it amuses me that most of us are geared to do the strategies rather than the execution.

Interesting, huh … sort of like Lions for Lambs :-), just a 6.2 on IMDB.

Meetings

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Its 4pm today (read day-before-yesterday), when I have started doodling this blog post. Yes, I am one of those people who sometimes write their blog post on paper before they digitize it. This is being done in the throes or should I say meanders of a meeting. It had started 2 hours ago, and I am getting shudders remembering it. From the start, all of us knew that it was going to be a monster of a meeting.

Still, we managed to touch base upon pollination of flowers, onion and potato rates and how interesting the commodities market is becoming. We had assembled to finalize SAP process flows. We are a retail merchandising firm. I love meetings.

The ideal number of people in a meeting is 3-4, the moment it goes above that, you are asking for trouble. You will have atleast one person (like moi in this case) who will be doodling on a piece of paper.

Focus Prasad!! Focus!!!

Its 8pm now, and we have managed to cover some ground, but it looks pretty glum from my end. I decided to put together a small list that people like me can do when they end up in meetings such as these –

  • Think about the more recent interesting stuff you have read
  • Start a screensaver in your mind, I personally like the Hufo’s Smoke on a linux machine
  • Butt into the meeting with something that borders between sense and incoherence to make your presence felt
  • Try listening for a change and even add “value” to the meeting
  • Try playing your favorite tune in your head
  • Send stratified SMSes to your loved ones
  • Make lists such as these, preferably with a straight face
  • Think about new ways to customize your blog and your website
  • Order for coffee and biscuits
  • Move about the meeting as if people are calling you out for something important or the other
  • Drink enough coffee/water that you have to visit the water closet

Got any more? Do drop me in a line then!!

Cheers.

Wager!!

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Hectic day today … no seriously! Have a late night conference all regarding work. Hope it finishes within an hour or so, while my roomies (who are all single and loving it) are celebrating the V day, I will be discussing business and revenue models.

Read a nice post on entrepreneurship, here.

Today, I made a wager on the daily sales of one of your brandstores. We had launched a sabse sasta din offer on Sapient Brandstore. My MD was saying that the daily revenues will barely cross a lakh. I informed him that it would be much more than that. Rs. 500 more to my CTC!!

Lights out!

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lights

Well, here’s a little about me on the professional front. I manage the entire technology of a small corporate merchandising firm. People ask me (that includes my mother as well), what the h3LL is an IIM grad doing managing technology in a fledging firm? Arent they bred for big corporates?

Answer is simple. Do what brings a smile to your face at the end of the day. Web Retailing it is. Now, managing something which always tends to move forward out of your hands is turning out to be pretty tricky.

If you can manage to foresee programmer hiring, feature roll-outs, unexpected leaves, budget constraints, server crashes, everything, and a lot more … believe me you definitely are not prepared for light outages!! Hail the Government of Hyderabad :-).

What should happen when the lights do go out? Well, somehow since the computers are not working, it becomes a technology issue.

The day the lights went out, an IIM grad became an electrician.