the rolling stone

Subin... I am looking at ur profile wondering if its true !! dramatic change

i saw this on my FB wall last sunday. people will be surprised if u change your job 5 times in 18 months. well all of them were not proper jobs, still i drew salaries from 4 different places already.

this time i am moving to Mu Sigma, a business analytics firm in Bangalore, hoping i wont move out of there for at least a few years.

I passed out of college in may 2009. roamed around trivandrum for a few weeks. settled my scores and reached home by end of june. My joining date was still 4 months ahead and sitting idle was definitely not on my list.

I joined GreenLemon. Its a web solutions provider in calicut. Stayed for almost 45 days as an intern. the job was really good. i learnt SEM, i learnt analytics, web designing, web hosting, joomla, droopal, php,i know what a suckerfish is, I talked to clients, i learnt the difference between first fold and second fold. went on "official tours". i loved it.

All of a sudden i got my M&M offer letter. the joining was still 3 months ahead and auto passion boiled my blood. I joined a garage as a mechanic. I wanted to learn about cars. i started with changing the number plate. then bumpers, tyres, brake pad, exhaust, spark plugs, ignition timer, steering system,... and finally the whole engine. I have to say, in one month i learnt more than what M&M could teach me in 8 months.

Finally, the much awaited day arrived and i left for Nasik. Joined M&M. and it was a disaster. One week of senior management week was the most boring days of my life. they talked and talked and it never ended. 2 weeks without non veg. If maharashtra stop making Pav, the whole people will die of hunger. and after a fortnight when i went to Karim's and had a bite of chicken, tears rolled down my cheeks.

I have seen elimination rounds in reality shows. But M&M showed us new levels of elimination. every friday the HR will call up a meeting and say they have a requirement of n people to some xyz department. either we can volunteer or they will choose. even now i dont know how they choose. Shop floor training was good. R&D induction was useless. what is the whole point of telling what all are there if you are not allowed to choose. Its all business requirement. HR finally became a nightmare.

Finally i ended up in R&D engines group. i dont want to say what happened in the coming months, but anyways i resigned after a few months. I had a good insight about the indian auto industry and decided not to go back. A small advice to all autopassionate engineers, please dont join an indian OEM.

I have been working as a lecturer for the last few months, and i love what i do. now its time to move on again. its inevitable!! i could have tried for this while i was at college itself. But as bible says, there is a time for everythin, a season for every activity under heaven.

A prayer

I feel her love more and more as days pass by. For one moment I thanked god for everything that happened in my life, both good and bad. And prayed for strength to love her as much as she loves me, and to make sure that her eyes will never be wet.

Love forgives

All this life I heard love forgives but never felt it. Today I saw tears rolling down her cheeks for what I did. But the next moment she said its ok and smiled at me. If this feeling that she has for me is love then I dont know how to love.

CTCNC part 2

If i had written a blog each at every office i worked, this would have been my 5th blog. 2nd in 2010. my last office didnt give me a chance to do so. either i was so busy working or i was too busy enjoying the small breaks which i got in between. Siting at this i dont miss my office or work or my cars or any damn thing. but i do miss my friends. i miss those friday nights. I miss those marathon beers. they were the people who made my life worth living there.

C_T_C_N_C

Its been a long time since i took some time to jot down a few words. Even my personal diary has a lot of blank pages this year. Lot of things have changed between my last blog and this. I dont have any doubts regarding what was the most happening event in my life during the last one year. Others nee to be sorted out.

A Wednesday

Whats special about wednesdays? Why did Neeraj Pandey name his movie "A Wednesday".  It could have been "A Friday". Fridays are not considered to be great. Its said wednesdays are good to start good things like an academic year.

Where am i going. I am not concerned what day of the week it is unless its a sunday or a second saturday. I get a day off on these days. A movie at the 6 pm show on sundays at Crown has become a habit. A good way to make up for a loss. I do miss my 'up to 3'movie  schedule which ate up my hours during college days.I saw Harry potter, I saw Luck> I was lucky to watch Condemned on star movies a few days back.

Again i am going somewhere. My friends used to tell me to elaborate my answers during my university exams. I never did that. And i guess dats the reason for my poor perfomance compared to a few people who took lessons from me!! I always scored less than them. But now here i am, already wrote three paragraphs and still didnt reach anywhere of what i intended to write. To tell the truth, i have forgotten a large part of what i had in mind when i opened this notepad file!!
 
So. Its a wednesday. I have been siting in my chair since 8.55 in the morning. i reached  office 5 minutes early. Not a usual thing. and i am reviewing the results of my project. I am doing this marketing campaign and the its been almost a week. Havent got  the expected results yet. And the campaigning has alreday started to drain my pocket throught the hole it put few days back. In Business terms there is no ROI. I learnt this term 29 days back. Its been that much time i working here.

Where am i?....yeah.. its a wednesday and i am bored. I booked my ticket for my Nasik journey 
in october.  its been only 4 days since the booking started and the tickets were sold out last night itself. May be because its tuesday. We had a few phone calls regarding the trip last night. Today morning my friend called me to say the happy news that we got a reservation. I had to check myself to realise its in the waiting list. So i booked one for myself. Thats the thing i did today that can be called useful. Had my lunch, which is again useful. Afternoon is boring. 

My cubicle is in a corner of the office after my 2 transfers and i disturb Prashok who is really serious in his work and whoever is siting next to him (which changed a few times in a few days) every time i walk around for something(which is very very important in my work!! oops.). Today i havent disturbed Prashok much. so with sajeer. Atleast they are having a good time today!

LEARNING THE CORPORATE ETIQUETTE

The time interval between the last day at college and first day at office is the period to learn the corporate etiquette, they say. I don't support the idea completely. You can learn it at office. i like to call it "learn while you earn" program. What you should do exactly is, buy a few pairs of formals, which is a requisite in most offices. Those who don't need that extravaganza at office are really lucky. Your favourite blue jean which hasn't been washed for at least 2 months because you were so busy with exam preparations and biding adieu to your friends, can finally have some rest.

I completed my four years of college life (hoping i wont have to go back to college for a few compulsory improvements) and my joining date is still 4 and a half months away. Ah.. let me say this at the first place itself, I am lucky to have a job in this hard times of sub prime mortgage crisis(oops.. what a beautiful term!!). My joining date has been extended to 27th of October against the expected mid august. But anyway i am happy that i still have my job.

Met my friends, said good bye. Also a few acquaintances whose faces i remember very well, but not names. Those last treats at college were enjoyed which is all about giving and taking. Finished the unfinished business. And at last packed my stuff and got on a bus to return to where it started.

I reached home the next morning. A few chores and i slept till 12. It takes a while to change the time tables. Decided to take a look at the newspaper for a change, and i came to notice the opportunities page. I was wondering what i am going to do for the next few months and i saw this ad, which i felt, would be perfect. A major Automobile showroom is looking for SMART people for its sales team. Auto passion boiled my blood and i dialed the contact no. The interview was on the previous day(till then i didn't notice that i was reading an old news paper) but anyway they asked me to come for an interview in the evening. I went there, attended the interview, got the job and i could join on the next Monday. But a small problem. They need me to stay back for at least a year, which is not possible. I called the manager the next day to tell him that i cant stay that long. that's it. I lost the job. Easy come Easy go, that's what i call it. i asked him if there is anything i can do in the mean time and he was kind enough to say he will look into the matter. LESSON n.... this is the corporate style of telling something is not possible. (definitely this is not lesson1, i lost count)

Next attempt was entrance coaching centres, which are plenty in the market. I got an appointment at a major coaching centre in the city. it a weekend job. to fill in the weekdays i decided to give tuition for B. Tech. Fortunately for those innocent people out there, i forgot the appointment while i was enjoying the hangout with my roommates at ernakulam. Forgot to mention, I had also responded to an ad by a bank looking for sales people. Good for the, i forgot that too.

Finally my cousin who is a senior project manager at a software firm in calicut (that's my home town) came for the rescue. He suggested my name for a vacancy in their marketing wing. I got the interview call and attended it. i took the print out of my resume at the same office and i should thank my roommate who mailed me that at the correct time. My boss gave me a material which i was supposed to learn before i join. The typical CET mech completed the 150 pages in 2 hours the very morning i was supposed to meet him. I already told you it was "tour d ernakulam + kollam". I came back the second time and got the job.

The new chapter in my life started on 1st of July 2009. I should say it was a Topsy turvy in my life. I haven't seen the first hour in my college for a few semesters, and the same person reports at office at 9 in the morning. (Back at hostel i would be still sleeping. Thanks to Sarin and Bino that i could attend the second hour.) i woke up at 7. Please get surprised, that's too early for me.

One thing my room mates always complained about me was that i could sit at a place for long and do the same thing. I remember i walked away out of the MIL office twice during my 3 weeks internship and my friends had to pull me back because i was the only person in the group who knew VB coding and and had an extra edge due to my elective subject. sitting in the exam hall for 3 hours was a tough job and i rarely did that. But i had no other option other than to sit in a chair from 9 to 6. But i have to tell you, its better than siting idle at home. I realised it was not required to that extend when my cousin finally came to me and said i could walk around sometime. (LESSON n+1: you don't have to work always)

I work in a small office of 40 people. I made friends. all kind of people. I heard about people who really care for their colleagues. I met people who really work their hearts out. I saw people who work st office till 11 in the night on a saturday while the office time is till 6. I refreshed my photoshop fundas. I learnt how to adjust your lunch timing to meet the timings of the near by girls' school. I learnt office is the place to exchange movie DVDs. Realised its the place where I can write a long blog like this when you dont have anything else to do. Learnt a bit of technical terms too!!! I met a girl in my office and it took me 3 days to realise she was my school mate during 12th. But after i realised that we talk fairly enough!!!. I heard a lot of perspectives about life, about girls, about work, about almost anything under the sun. (LESSON n+2: Socialise, Use tools like orkut and G talk effectively)

My job demands me to be online during my office hours. It keeps me in touch with my friends. Work was not exactly what i had anticipated, but i like it anyways.(LESSON n+3: please dont assume what your job will be before you join). I went for "official tours" and its was great experience. I got two transfers in one day. (dont think too much. I changed places twice. thats all)

The best part of the job is working with a person who is an alumni of my dream institution. My boss is Shamanth. He is the VP and he is an alumni of IIMK. A real down to earth person and there is a lot to learn from him. Really helping. Whenever i make a mistake, he says be careful the next time. we don't use the word "sir" here. That's not required, i think. It give a feeling of being in a group, of being friends. (LESSON n+3: it s not important what u call your colleagues or your seniors, but what u really feel about them)

Each day teaches something new. and its great to be here. Its not the lessons we learnt that counts, but whether u follow them or not.