Why MBA????

Well now that I have officially put in my papers at office and have less than a month of notice period left to serve I decided to start blogging again. I can admit without any shame that I don’t have any work to do and have a considerable time for introspection. The first thought that came to my mind was what am I going to do with my life. I am about to start my MBA in a month and till now I had not given a serious thought as to why I am doing it. I had prepared elaborate answers on “why MBA” to bluff my way through the interviews, but at the bottom of my heart I knew they were not true. I still imagine how I managed to say with a straight face “yes sir, I am open to going back to the same industry I m working in after my mba, I m here just for value addition”.

The real reason is I am bored of the industry I m working in. I guess that’s an old problem as after 4 years of computer engineering I realized I was not cut out to sit in front of the computer and type code which would be a nightmare for any debugger.

So after engineering I joined a telecom mnc in sales & marketing profile. The reason I chose it over a more secure option of TCS was a better pay (of course) and an opportunity to try out something interesting. Later I realized the profile that was offered is usually given to MBAs with considerable work ex, it was really challenging and exciting but soon I realized there should be more to life than convincing companies to buy expensive equipment and infrastructure they don’t really need.

Now again I m at a threshold where my decision will have a long lasting impact on my professional life and I might not get an opportunity to redirect my career. As I have already ruled out technology and marketing as options I m left with FMCG, Finance, Consulting and perhaps a few other. FMCG requires you to travel to small towns and villages in initials years so even that is almost out. Consulting requires considerable work ex in the field you decide to consult so that people who seek your advise are convinced that you know what you are talking about, I guess that gets ruled out also (damn I m running out of options). That leaves me with finance which I have heard requires a lot of hard work and considering my natural tendency to look for the easy way out it might prove to be a big ask.

I am going to stop here for now as office folks around me are getting curious that, “what is he typing for so long, he must be up to something”

God Bless

Sameer

Last 1 year

Hi Guys i am back again :). one of my colleagues recently started blogging that reminded me that even i have a blog and the last entry on it read dec 26, 2005 i.e. exactly one year back. It is one of my new year resolutions to blog as regularly as possible and hopefully this time i would stick to it. Neelu, Manan and Ohri take a hint and get started ASAP. i cant believe that u guys are livin it up in US and still dont share your experiences. Parag is probably the only one who managed to find time to blog.

I was wondering what should i write about, my new year resolutions?? then i thought that can wait till jan1 then maybe about my boss thanks to who i never managed to find time to blog, then i thought i would just summarize the last year when i didnt write anything. Frankly speaking last year was one of the most boring years of my life most of which was spent catering to the whims of my boss. (boss if u r reading this i didnt mean you, i was talkin about some other boss). second half of the year was spent preparing for CAT. at first i started reading novels just to improve my speed for cat but i got hooked and now despite the fact that i have screwed up cat and it would take a miracle for me to get a call from a decent b-school i am addicted to reading and usually finish a novel in a week no matter how hectic my schedule. the most memorable book i read last year has to be The Kite Runner by Khalled Hosseni, i would strongly recommend u to read it. The most important lesson i learnt last year was that no matter how hard you try there is no guarantee of success.

Thats all for now hope my next post comes within 1 year :)

Take Care
Sameer

I'm back

Sorry guys/gals (if any), i know i am writing after a looooooong time so to make it up to you i will write a looooooong post. so getyourself some chips/popcorn and make yourself comfortable.

i will start with how i managed to start again and why i decided to start again. well the reason i am able to write this post is that i bunked work today as i had to work during last weekend. i had a meeting in bangalore (or bangaluru), and due to the shitty fog i could not sleep properly during the last 4 days as my flight used to get delayed/cancelled while going to bangalore and i faced the same problem while coming back. as i was in no position to go to work today and got a whole day to myself after such a long time i decided to do some writing.
now i will come to what motivated me to start again. as soon as my meeting got over i decided to meet all my friends working in bangalore. of all the people i called 4 finally showed up at a pub called enigma. one of the guys i met was harmandeep (the sexy sardar), i tried shashis number but it was switched off. while discussing the old times harman asked me about an incident he had read in parags blog. parag had mentioned people as A,B,C to protect their identities. harman had managed to guess who i was but he was a bit confused about other two, so i explained the whole incident to him in details. later i realised that now that all of us are scattered all over the place and hardly get time to talk to each other let alone meet, blogging is a good way to keep in touch and it especially means a lot to guys who have moved out of delhi.
after coming back to delhi i surfed through ohri, neelabh, parag and manans blog, i was surprised to see that all of them had started blogging again and i was the only moron who had not written anything for the last 6 months.
so much has happened during the last 6 months that i dont know where to start from. shud i write about my job? no that would be boring. about my malaysia trip? no i would write a seperate post on that when i am in a better mood. about my friends? no that would require some heavy retrospection which i am in no mood for right now. so i would write about whatever crap comes to my mind. as i got a free day after a long time i started thinking about which way my life was headed and which way i wanted it to go. what were my dreams my ambitions. kisi ne sach kaha hai- khali dimaag shaitaan ka ghar hota hai. i have realised one thing though, money does not mean happiness. in college when i never had more than 100 bucks in my wallet all i wanted was to get a high paying job, now that i make enough money i really wish i could have the care free college days back again. now i get to eat in fancy restraunts but i miss the fights over the last piece of samosa in canteen. i get to have fine wines and scotchs but i enjoyed the daru parties at the theka near our college more, i stay at 5 stars wherever i go but i feel those night outs in hostel doing mindless GC all night was more fun. what the f*** am i writing. let me drop the morbid topic.
to change the mood let me add a picture of petronas twin towers, the worlds tallest.














to give a personal touch let me add a pic of me and my colleagues. if you are wondering why nobody is smiling thats becuse this pic was taken when we were waiting outside our hotel for the tour bus to come and we were frustrated after 40 mins of waiting.


(L to R: mehta, vivek, me, sudeep, gaurav)

dont feel like writing anymore. will write the next post when i m in a better mood.
good night

First week at job

Hey folks
i m back after a loooong week which seemed as if it would never end. i have managed to survive the first week at work. during the induction period my work hours were supposed to be 10 to 5:30 but to avoid the gurgaon traffic my cab reaches office by 9:30 and due to the long discussions and feedback sessions that followed the lectures i was seldom free before 7-7:30 and reached home after 8. during the first few days the biggest challenge i faced was getting up by 7 in the morning, i would blame my college schedule for this as for the last four years my body had been programmed not to get up before 9 in the morning. another problem i faced was that due to a small batch bunking or sleeping in the sessions was out of thequestion.after this week i have realised how woderful a weekend is, spend most of saturday sleeping and went on a satsang today that reminds me guys plan something good for next weekend. my batch consists of 10 people, 6 from nsit 4 from dce including me. batch has 3 girls so the sex ratio is 3:7 probably the best by a huge margin of all the firms i know of. most of colleagues are the bond ghissu intellect types so i dont see myself getting a promotion in the near future here. most of the managers n directors here have an iim degree attached to their resumes.
now lets move to the work. in case u dont know i have joined as a sales n marketing exec, a choice based more on my hatred for coding and being inept at any sort of programming so i was a bit anxious as of what kind of a job profile would i get but after a week here i have a feeling that i made a good decision.the profile seems very attractive but i guess only time will tell what my future holds. before joining my vision of an office was that there would be employees working endlessly and a boss who would thrash them from time to time. being an mnc the scene at my office was quite a contrast as everyone called each other by their first names, so i was expected to call even the directors by their first names. it was odd at first as in college we even called guys one year senior to us as sir but now i have got used to it. i will be allotted a mentor on tuesday and actual training would start after that. my job profile involves a lot of travelling and i m looking forward to it .my friend suvir is starting work tomorrow all the best to you dude and do let me know how was it. will stop now as i have to get up early
take care
sameer

Pangs of Nostalgia

Hi dudes ( n dudesses if any)
got the biggest attack of nostalgia this week as i decided to visit my school once before starting with my job.
for the uninitiated i m from SPV -sardar patel vidyalaya, located at lodi estate near bal bharti. i hope u dont get a bad impression of the school because of me, its a school known for good results. the claim to fame of my school is the number of cricketers it has produced -ajay jadeja, vivek rajdan, gagan khoda, murali kartik n many more who didnt get much famous. before i start with todays post let me give a brief introduction of my school friends
ankit sethi ( aka petha) a good natured friendly guy with a huge appetite thanks to which we never have to worry about food getting left over.he did his engineering from karnataka.
chirag adatia ( aka c******) a nice guy with an amazing sense of humour. doing his mbbs from ucms plans to do mba next.
rishabh saxena( aka gaddha, not donkey but as in a deep hole) another sweet guy just finished his engineering from itm gurgaon.
we decided to go to school this thursday, another friend who came along was ankit mehta whos doing his mba from pittsburg. me n gaddha reached earlier than others and as our class teacher was taking a class then we decided to take a walk around the school. to my utter disbelief the peons, teachers even the canteenwaala recognised us. next we moved to the junior building for nursery to class 5. looking at swings and sand pit a got a sudden attack of nostalgia of the carefree days of school. all of us were in this school from nursery to 12th and even today no matter how busy we are we make it a point to meet at least once a month. the drizzle started to turn into a heavy downpour so we decided to move back to the senior building. the buidlings had changed a lot n our first reaction was "yaar now there are so many places you can hide after bunking class", we used to get caught every time we bunked.i got sudden flashbacks of all the fights, all the mischief, all my crushes .by now our class teacher banerjee maam was free. i was a bit scared as i had come after about 3-4 years and thought i was gonna receive a severe rebuke but instead i got a pleasant smile. we discussed the old days and what other classmates were doing for sometime and then took her leave.
only party this week was kanikas belated bday bash. we were a bit concerned as we thought will she be comfortable being alone with 5 guys, but i guess after 4 yrs in an engineering college she is hardened enough to handle such things in her stride. her treat was probably the most generous one in the last 4 yrs n she didnt ask us to pool in anything as is the norm with all our parties, infact i felt we were taking advantage of her sharafat. the only unfortunate thing that happened was that for the first time we got thrown out of a pub for being underage.
well guys thats it for today. i m really delighted by your responses to my blog, i have even received 3 requests by people who want me to write an analysysis on them. i also enjoy writing them and i m gonna save all this and when u guys have become rich n famous i will compile ur full biographies n they r bound to be bestsellers. will write next analysis as soon as i m free.
tomorrows the first day of my job and am both anxious n excited. hope it turns out fine. i m gonna follow the tips u guys have given me like- dont talk unnecessarily (ohri) greet everyone nicely (parag )
feel free to add any office advice from your experiences. i dont know how hectic my work schedule is gonna be but i will try my best to squeeze in a couple of blogs every week
god bless u guys( n me too)
sameer

Sex Ratio Problem

hi guys! last week was pretty boring . did some shopping of formal attire as i will hv to follow a dress code from next week onwards . i m learning how to wear a tie as it was not a part of my uniform in school and during college placements my dad used to make the knot for me, i remember that just before one of the interviews while playing with my tie i messed up the knot, when i asked my friends to help i realised they were as tie illitrate as me finally i had to borrow someones tie.
the only high point of last week was the party thrown by ohris company at radisson, noida. i was told that in case anyone asked i had to say that i m ohris brother as his invitation read-all employees and their families are cordially welcome. the dj was a sardar so the numbers played were good. the bar menu was impressive and unlike the other parties they were not stingy in their brand selection. i cant comment on the food there as by the time we decided to have some food the place was more or less deserted with no waiters around and we couldnt even find plates to eat , someone eventually managed to get a plate and we took a bite of whatever was left.
the only disappointment was the realisation that sex ratio of the company was worse than dce and the handful of girls present were married and had got their husdands along. i feel this is a problem totally ignored by the government and something needs to be done about it urgently. to tackle the problem all forms of quotas and reservations should be abolished and instead these seats should be reserved for girls, this would help immensely to improve the dismal state of female education in our country. instead of helping the govt takes senseless decisions like opening girls only engineering colleges like mahila institute which worsens the situation. people get so worked up when they hear about the imbalance in sex ratio of the country which is something like 900: 1000 but i think its high time they considered the case of engineering colleges where the ratio is something like 30: 1000 and in branches like mechanical or production etc its even worse like 10: 1000. immediate steps need to be taken in this direction if atttendance and productivity of both the students as well as the lecturers in engineering colleges across the country is to be improved. studies have shown that a all boys atmosphere can have adverse effects on the orientations and preferences of the students. a solution to this problem should be found urgently as the future of the engineers of the nation is at stake . if any one of u finds a solution do let me know

take care
sameer

Hi guys
i m back, was pretty busy during the last couple of days. finally received my joining letter, job starts from july 11th so i guess my days of masti r numbered now , just 2 weeks more before the monday to friday 9-6 office routine starts. might b busy this saturday so sunday ko neelabh ki party ka kuch mast plan banate hain. neelu please state ur budget so we can plan accordingly.
ohri bhai how do i add links to other blogs n chat box n other fancy stuff to my site to get that professional blogger feel. how r the people in flextronics doing? any news of the infy guys?
theres nothing worth watchin on the tv nowadays, even sania mirza is out though the match was close. i came across this sunil shetty movie while channel surfing, the movie was really crappy but its villain had a great attitude there was this scene where the villains brother comes home all black n blue after being beaten up by shetty, he says " arre munna ye kya hua , tere ko kitni baar samjhaya hamesha tension deneka leneka nahin" i found this phrase really catchy it has so many deeper meanings.
started reading a book called 'dont quote me' about stupid quotes like einsteins teacher telling him that he was a duffer n would never amount to anything. the one i liked the most was when a football commentator said while wathing a boring match that if a goal is scored now i will eat my hat , within seconds of his saying that a goal was scored and after the match people confronted him and he actually ate his hat.
my dad freaked out after seeing the phone bill, i somehow convinced him that a broadband would b more economical, doston suggest a sasta n tikau connection.
take care
sameer