Have I Met You?

How do you prefer meeting people for the first time? In person? At a common gathering or a one to one setting? Email? Phone? Facebook?

Apart from the last one, I'm pretty comfortable with any of them. Although email followed by an in person meeting is the best combination. But apparently for a lot of people these days, it's Facebook. And although I can see the ease and obvious benefits, I'm still not comfortable with the fact of befriending someone I will most probably get to know in the near future; on Facebook first. I end up accepting the requests as long as I see common friends and know the context. But I'm just curious at the motivation behind doing so. If I really wanted to talk to someone or ask something would I not rather send her an email? Or if discovering the email id is too difficult, a Facebook message? I just find the 'adding people' without any purpose a little perplexing. I mean, why? No, I don't have any privacy concerns. Nothing major anyway. It's ok if you did so to stalk me. (It would be interesting in fact!)

Well, one thing I can think of is that when we do meet, it would save us the formalities of narrating our basic 'About Me' info. Provided, of course, that both you and I took pains to fill that section and were curious enough to go through it when we became friends AND most importantly, remembered it.

As for me, I still prefer to Facebook friend people only when I have known them for sometime. Why ? Because I'm afraid, I would come out as some sort of a creep otherwise.

Perfect Lazy Sunday. Well, Almost

Of late (and by late I mean the last couple of years actually), my attention span has reduced significantly. I keep moving from one task to another without being able to concentrate for more than 30-40 minutes. To some extent it has been accentuated by the B School life, where you are constantly trying to cram in as much as you can within a given time. But that apart, the two main evidences that it's more than just a passing phase is the fact that I had all but stopped reading and watching movies. Don't get me wrong here. I still go out with my friends to watch Avatar and Iron Man II. But whereas earlier, in my spare time I wanted to update my 'movies seen from the IMDB Top 250' list; nowadays even 90 minutes seems too long a time to sit still and do one task. And I cannot watch a movie in bursts. And reading. I guess this was more because of an actual lack to time. I would manage to read for a couple of hours in a week and by the 4th week, would lose the thread and abandon the book.

I also have a tendency to get bored of the setting of the house/room I live in. So when I woke up today; instead of sitting at home and aimlessly trying to move between watching a movie, reading a novel, calling friends or killing time on the internet (yes, my Sundays are really that happening) - I took my novel and went out to have breakfast. I got my bagel with sausage and eggs and a coffee and found myself a corner. And for almost three hours, amidst murmurs of people coming-ordering-talking amongst themselves, the soothing sound of some jazzy music playing in the background, and a few coffee refills - I read. 

I came home at noon to do some work and went back at 2:00. Ordered a sandwich and iced tea, found the same place and spent another three hours.

The book resonated with a few of the things I have been thinking about (and talking to my friends) of late. What kind of life do I want. What makes me happy. What matters. Choices. It's a little unsettling to say the least, that in less than a year, school will be over and the 'real world' will come back again. Decisions would have to be made regarding everything. And this time around, most of them would be long term. You know, the really important ones. So far, all the phases in my life came with an expiry tag. Even with the job I had before, I knew I would eventually get an MBA (it's cool to say it now that I am actually doing it!). I have a feeling, the next phase doesn't necessarily have one. Not a clear defined one anyway. And no, I'm not saying I'll have the same life for the rest of my life or will do the same job or live in the same place. But I think you get the point.

Which also means that in the 10 months or so that I do have, I should make sure I visit the places and people I want to, soak in as much as I can so that there are very few (if not none) 'Ah, should have done that' experiences, and to use the cliche, make the most of it. With some effort and luck, hopefully the rest will fall in place.

"We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come."

Summer Months

A few days ago a friend from IIT had '9 years' as his Facebook status. Apparently it was 9 years to the day that we had attended our first class. It got me thinking about all subsequent summer months (May, June, July) and how I've spent them. And more often than not, they have been characterized by changes and transitions.

2001 was when it started. College. The weeks leading up to that day in July were amongst the most anxious and most joyous days of my life. It was sweeter because it had come after a year in the dumps. I wasn't quite sure if I was more happy for myself or my parents. The weeks after that very first day, however were memorable in a totally different way. But for the bunch of us who underwent the arguably necessary ritual of ragging; things would never be the same again. Inhibitions were shed once and for all, swear words hearted, physical and mental tolerance levels increased, and a sneak peek given of a world full of quirky, smart, different-from-me, nice, not so nice people that was to be our home for the next four or five years.

2002 was my first 2 1/2 month long summer vacation. A lot of my friends from school had come home. We would later realize that it was the last time we would have such a big gang. Get-togethers happened practically every day at each others' house. Dinners. lunches, movies and just chatting about stuff. I was in the stage where I missed school and my friends and had not yet totally become comfortable with college life. So it was a return to my comfort zone, so as to say. 

By 2003, I had assimilated the IIT culture and known myself a lot more. Although not by choice, I had also realized that I wasn't going to break any academic records. So I decided to pursue other activities and learning the guitar took more importance than anything else. Just before coming home for the summer vacation, I had my friend teach me how to hold the G, C Em and D chords. He told me that if I could play them and do the transitions, I could play practically 90% of all the songs that I had ever heard. I believed him, went home, convinced my parents to buy me a guitar (it wasn't hard in any way though. I had quite a bit of music sense in me and my parents knew that) and spent the better part of 2 months trying to string together Greenday's Time Of My Life and Poison's Every Rose Has It's Thorn. When I went back to college, I had added Take It Easy to my repertoire. It was a thrilling experience. 

2004 was my first real experience with the city of Bangalore. Hard to believe, but I didnt drink alcohol back then. Bad life choice. Watching the Euro with my friends in the common area of the place we stayed in, the trek on the railway track at Sakleshpur, working in a company (the most exciting part was getting the ID and being able to swipe in and out!) and working for a boss, the feeling of getting the first pay check, and for the first time being able to buy something for my parents - those two months were full of first experiences.

It was in 2005 that I finally got to feel the summer heat of Delhi in its full glory. We had to stay back in campus to start our final projects and I was also beginning my preparation for the CAT. The 45+ temperatures forced me to a very scheduled life. Swimming pool at 6:30 followed by breakfast at 7:30. I would then rush to the library or the lab to either give a mock test or meet my supervisor and get some project work done. Lunch was mostly taken at the nearby canteen and I would come back to the library to study or read a novel but mostly ended up taking a nap. It wasn't until after sundown that all of us would return to our hostel rooms which were like furnaces. It was impossible to sleep there. So we would have dinner, go out at times and come back to grab a place in the common room in front of the cooler. It was obvious therefore that finally when it rained in Delhi, all of us just went berserk. Windows were opened to let the rain come in the room as we went outside to get drenched.

2006. I remember feeling a void after my final presentation was over. 5 glorious, memorable years had ended. There was more than a tinge of sadness amongst us. It was relief rather than happiness which was the dominant feeling. I had to pack up everything and send it home to Bokaro. A new life in Bangalore was about to begin in June and I don't think I was looking forward to it. I hadn't achieved what I had been striving for the last year and was utterly disappointed. It was a tough couple of months. Suddenly I felt uprooted and very unsure of myself. There was however, a new job in a new city. And thankfully, a lot of my friends were coming too. And there was the World Cup. July was spent house hunting with my future room mates which was nothing like any of us had experienced before. I started my life as a coder in Java, cheered for Zidane and started discovering the pubs of Bangalore.

My parents left Bokaro in 2007. That was the biggest change for me that year, I think. Home took on a different meaning when I went there for the last time. A year into the job, I loved my life and had actually started to like my job a bit.  But apart from the usual weekend trips and hanging out with friends, the summer of 2007 did not have anything particularly different. The usual highs and lows.

By 2008, I had finally realized that I wanted to do an MBA in the US. So I began seriously preparing for the applications. That was the main theme of the entire year, let alone the summers. And yes, I watched Euro with my roommate. We made french toast and maggi and tea during the half time break. Good times.

And finally last year. Well, Darden happened. I quit my job in June, left Bangalore and really had mixed feelings towards where I was headed. It's always hard to leave behind something permanently. Knowing that there is no coming back. No matter how much you disliked it when you were there. I didnt hate being a software engineer. I just didnt like it as much as I should have if I wanted a longterm career in it. And there was house #40 and Bangalore and all my friends. 3 terrific years of a continuation of life after IIT. It was hard to let go of all that. 

So there it is. I have successfully been able to keep myself occupied for almost two hours now. Which takes care of most of my evening. If you are still reading, you're either really jobless or know me pretty well enough to read through the summary of my summers. This one? Well you already know about it, I guess. It's quite significant in the scheme of things. How much impact it will have on my future is hard to say. But like most of the summer months before, it has been different than the rest of the year.

A Month To Go

At lunch today, a fellow intern said -"I'm ready to go back to school". No, she's not done with her project and I don't think she hates her work. And if I remember correctly, over the last week or so, I've seen the stray Facebook update from a couple of my Darden friends saying the same thing.  It got me thinking. Am I ready to go back to school? Like most things, I don't know.

I miss C'ville. I miss the energy and the familiarity. And a host of other things. But that is for another post. Next year, same time, maybe. 

At the same time, the summer has been an interesting experience so far. A self discovery of sorts. A perfect transition, as far as I can think of - from the no business, all coding software engineer to this mixed bag of technology trends, competitive analysis, consumer habits and the art of converting bullet points to fancy looking shapes which provide second order insights.

Getting to talk to heads of various divisions has been great. Product Management, Business Planning, Content & Services, Product Marketing. They mean more than just titles now. Also, the 'real world' aspect is becoming very clear. With everybody from the OEMs and the Carriers to the Content Generators and the App Developers trying to take a share of the same pie, so often, it's the framing, the positioning, the negotiations and the compromises which see a business proposal through. There is absolutely no dearth of innovation or crazy new ideas in this space. But not every idea is making a million dollars. Not every app is getting a million downloads. 

But enough of trying to sound intelligent and MBA student like. Dallas is like an oven now. And somehow, more than the temperature, it's just the brightness of the sun which fries my brains. There are no evenings. I mean when the sun sets at 9:00 PM, where do you squeeze in the evening?
More alone time has meant longer and more frequent emails to some of my friends. Then, apart from the Despicable Me's and the Inceptions, I've managed to watch an eclectic range of movies. The Visitor, Religulous, The Big Lebowski, Apocalypse Now (I also read Heart of Darkness after it which I thought was too wordy to enjoy or understand in one read).

Exploring good places to drink beer has been fun. And it's given me the opportunity to hang out with my friend from IIT. It's funny how having lead very different lives since our college days and pursuing very different careers, we still have so much to talk about. Some of it revolves round the very differences and trying to understand the other's perspective. Then there's recounting hostel days and people. A good part of it is about our current state of being - internship, bosses, decisions and  the changes ahead. And lastly, there's music and a bit of physics thrown in. I guess the alcohol helps a lot too. Particularly memorable was last weekend's chance visit to 'Bavarian Grill' - a family owned German restaurant in Plano. I had some of the most amazing tasting beer ever. So smooth. There was an old man playing the accordion close to us. Our waitress was super helpful in deciphering the German menu for us and suggesting beers based on what we liked. Even my 'not too hoppy, wheat, kinda light - yes, I like Blue Moon' was enough for her to suggest me a couple. Both of them were fantastic.

And lastly, I read this book. Loved it.

Updates From Dallas

It's my first time living alone. I've always had roommates before this. At undergrad, there were a bunch of us in the hostel (or dorm, as it is called here). After the first two years, we had single occupancy rooms but that hardly meant anything. Most of us would keep our doors open throughout the day and people would be shouting out and walking into each other's room every now and then. Then Bangalore happened and I was lucky enough to find three friends from college to lodge with. It became a mini hostel and anyone that we knew, who came to Bangalore, would stay with us. In fact, throughout the first year there were only a couple of months when only the four of us were staying in the house! Charlottesville hasn't been very different. A roommate, the occasional birthday celebration and the impromptu get together for beer, meant that my habit of having quite a few people to talk to, to eat dinner with or just to go out for a drink on a day to day basis, stayed.

Not anymore. And 3 weeks into this, I have mixed feelings. I'm leading a pretty disciplined life. Office, home, go out for a jog at times, watch football highlights while having dinner, read a book or surf the net and go to sleep. And I can't say that I'm bored or particularly feeling the need of having people to shout out about a FaceBook status message, a news item or some stupid joke. It's a little weird. For the first week, I would go to sleep really early for lack of anything else to do. So then I started reading and have managed to finish my first book in a year. About A Boy by Nick Hornby. Quite liked it.

Weekends are fun. Coincidentally, one of my very close friends from undergrad is also interning at Dallas. We hang out on weekends. I talk about my MBA experience and he updates me on the trials and tribulations of a PhD student.

Work's picking up. It has been a good learning experience so far. Just getting up to date with what's happening in the wireless industry and getting a sense of current and future trends. My day typically begins with going through endgadget, gizmodo and similar websites to keep up to date with the iPhones, the Droids and the EVOs. Have been able to see and play around with a few. And I must say, there's a new found appreciation for non iPhone (read Android) devices. No, I'm not switching anytime soon but it's a really fascinating and continuously evolving space. There are an insane number of things that are being done by the startups and app developers - from location based services to media streaming to content aggregation to social networking. Reading about them in itself has been an eye opener for me because prior to coming here, I  thought that I had a fair idea of what was happening in the Smartphone world. Turns out, I knew very little!

Haven't really explored Dallas much apart from a few bars and pubs. Weekends are pretty much spent watching the World Cup. Praying for an Argentina - Ghana final which Argentina wins 3-2 in Extra Time. Is it asking for too much ? 

Of Ringtones, Crying Babies & Bar Code Scanners

The last 30 days have been a mad dash. After 16 flights and over 70 hours of flying, I'm finally taking a breather. If this even remotely resembles the consulting lifestyle - spending half of your day in airports through endless lines of security checks and waiting in the departure lounge for the connecting flight; making a complete mockery of your food habits and sleep cycle - then I'm glad that I didn't get a chance to try it out.

Interviews, traveling across the world for a $150/day India trip, visiting ex flat mates and  friends in Bangalore and finding the house to be just like it was when I had left and finally the super exciting exercise of packing up for eleven weeks, leaving C'ville and arriving at Dallas - life's been pretty hectic of late.

This first thing which hit me upon arriving at the New Delhi airport after a 15 hour non stop flight from New York were the ringtones. Loud, gaudy and ringing for ages while the owner of the phone basked in the glory of his awesome choice of music. We keep hearing about the telecom industry in India. About the potential and the scope. I think people's obsession with flashy ringtones and caller tunes is a major contributor towards it. Anyway, I clearly wasn't expecting this.  Not after the ordeal which I had just been through. The kid in the seat behind me on the flight had made it his favorite pastime to kick my seat every 15 minutes for the entire journey. My occasional glance and request to his mother would only increase the interval. To begin with he was doing it unknowingly. But I think later he found a sadistic pleasure in it - to see me twitching and turning in order to get some sleep. He knew that I knew he would strike sooner or later. The certainty of the event combined with the uncertainty of the exact moment of the assault was what made it lethal. After sometime, I just gave up and watched Young Frankenstein and a crappy Bollywood movie instead. 

That was not all. There were a hundred kids in the flight and it seemed all of them were seated close to me. What more, they seem to synchronize their crying so that one would pick up immediately after another stopped. And somehow their moms seemed least bothered! Clearly, saying 'Stop crying Beta' to a 2 year old isn't going to work because a) his linguistic abilities are not yet developed enough to process that sentence and b) he's crying because he's pissed off about something (like alcohol not being offered for a second time, say) and the only way to make him stop crying is to find out and solve the problem. Action, mothers. Not words.

It's good to see India beating the Govt. forecast of GDP growth and surging ahead at 7.4%. It's sad to see simple things not being implemented especially when the Infys and the Wipros have had that technology for ever. Take bar code scanners to scan boarding passes for example. Or simple displays to help transit passengers figure out the details of the connecting flight. Instead, at places we have a person ticking off names from a list while collecting boarding passes and another one crying out 'All Kolkata passengers to the left and Amritsar passengers to the right' on top of his voice as we come out of the plane. The result - longer queues, greater confusion, more noise about nothing in particular and pissed off passengers. Having the technology is of no use if we are not able to find ways to put it to use in our daily lives.

Internship begins tomorrow. Should be exciting. New city. New people.

So What Are You Doing This Summer

Caveat: Long rambling post about very personal experiences and views


The most common was "I'm still looking". Or sometimes a blunt - "I don't know". And on rare occasions - "I have applied for this job and am really hoping to get the interview invite"

Then suddenly, first year got over. Toasts were raised and year end parties were hosted. I was still as far away from the answer as I was in August. Did I 'trust the process' or 'believe in myself'. I don't know. I was just waiting for something to happen.

Take 1

So I went in to the interview last Friday with a very uneasy mindset. It was in an industry and function I never thought I would end up in when I started B School. At the same time, it was exciting to be working with a startup in Charlottesville. Add to it that it wouldn't require me to move and I was more than willing to take the internship. And he gave it to me. Just like that. 

"So you're from IIT and have a good GMAT. You also seem like someone who's comfortable in interviews. So why is it that you don't have a job?', he asked.

I almost laughed at it and blabbered something on the lines of spreading myself too thin and actually having no clue why nobody wanted to employ me.

"See, I'm a first impressions guy and I like you. And we need people. So we can shake hands and you can begin working from the Monday after."

I wasn't prepared for this. I requested him to give me a couple of days to think about it and decide if I wanted to take it up or pursue another final round interview.

It felt like a burden had lifted off me. I had something to do this summer.

Take 2

After a series of emails and phone calls over the weekend, I managed to extend the offer acceptance deadline and pull back the final round interview date with the other company. I had to fly out to Dallas on Tuesday and interview back to back with four people. They would tell me their decision on the same day giving me the chance to take either of the offers if I got it. Perfect.

So I fly out at 5:00 PM from Charlottesville and after one of the most uncomfortable and boring 6 hours in 2 tiny, 70 seater planes, crash into my bed at the hotel at around 12 at night.

The first interview is with the same guy who interviewed me on phone earlier. It goes really well. He talks about the team and the long term strategy, his crazy schedule, what kind of manager I would like, what languages I coded in while working, what's my view of the wireless space and people's habits when it comes to consuming media on the go, what excites me. He goes out of the room saying "Hopefully I'll talk to you again" and I know I really need to screw up from there on to not get the offer.

The next two interviewers, however do not give me any such signal but instead grill me about everything from strategies to launch a product, to ways and reasons to prioritize one over the another. 4Ps of marketing, first mover advantage, technology adoption, iPhone, Kindle, consumer surveys, analyst reports, how many mobile phones were sold in the US in 2009, why people change phones, AT&T, Netflix - we touch upon almost everything in the Digital Media / Wireless Telecom space. It's the one thing which excites me and I make sense most of the time.

The last person supposed to interview me is stuck in a meeting, so another guy from his team comes in. We have a very casual conversation. We talk about the food in the cafeteria, housing options in Dallas, wearing jeans to work (yes, you can do that),  having an iPhone, and cultural differences between Nokia, Motorola and Samsung.

The day gets over. I take the flight back to Charlottesville with a stop at Philly. Reach the Philly airport and get an email from the HR. I had got the offer. And it was as close to a dream job as it could be.

So...

what has this process meant to me. 

Has it made me know myself better? No. I knew my strengths and weaknesses and I still have the same beliefs. I suck at faking conversations and being passionate about something which I like but not love. At the same time, I can very easily talk about the fact that I am CS grad, I listen to Pandora, I blog (though I hate Twitter), I like downloading apps on my iPhone, the "cloud" is really just another client server model, Darden's been great because it has made me aware of so many issues while looking at businesses and I want a job which has a little bit of all of this.

Do I understand this process better? Not really. Getting interview invites has been the toughest part for me. And it could be because I've just worked for 3 years and in a field which really didn't involve making business models or revenue forecasting. 

On one hand, it was this small exposure to software development in a telecom domain which I think got me this interview in the first place. On the other hand there were internships which said having such a background is a big bonus but I never heard anything from them. So it's anybody's guess but I'm inclined to believe that 'relevant' background does have a huge role to get your foot in the door. What is relevant, though, is the tricky bit.

Has it changed my view of Darden as a school? No. I came here for an experience. An experience in which getting a job formed just one part. Yes, I would have been disappointed  with something else. But I would have blamed it on things not working out for no apparent reason. That's the way I am. It's too late to become objective, I guess!

Have I learned anything from the process? Yes. There are a host of immensely interesting jobs out there. Whether you get them (in fact, even get to know about them) is dependent on a host of factors which can be grouped under networking, google skills, timing, plain luck and a dozen other. What worked for me, though, is to convince myself that no matter what, I won't go into anything related to Banking, Corporate Finance, Health Care or CPG Marketing. Yes, there were a couple of exceptions but I never got to interview with them anyway!

So finally on Tuesday night, I had my answer. Samsung Telecom at Dallas. 

Calcutta, Bokaro, Delhi, Bangalore, Charlottesville and now Dallas - the cities I live in always seem to begin with a B,C or D. Clearly I shouldn't be looking for jobs in San Francisco, Seattle or New York.

This is why Darden is so unique

This was the last video at the Follies. And clearly it made all of us feel privileged to be part of this huge family. Where else can you find a faculty which is so sporting and cares so much for the students. Even as a first year, it made me a little emotional to be done with half of school. Here's to making the most of the next year.

Of courses, cases, clubs and career

Q4 feels like a mad dash to finish first year. I feel like I've been playing catch up for weeks now. So much for this quarter being the end of the super intense and busy Darden core curriculum!

There's been a ton of group projects and team simulations. Some planned, some sudden. Some enjoyable, some just a burden. It also screws up the calender because you are constantly juggling to meet commitments and reach a compromise as far as schedules are concerned. The courses this quarter have been a mixed bag. Which brings me to the point that even if everybody says a course if helpful and really interesting, you can take it and have a totally different opinion about it. But it could also be the fact that for the first time, in this quarter, I have been slacking off a little. Call it the Learning Team effect. Actually, the lack of it. For the last 3 quarters, by virtue of having the best learning team in Darden (in whatever way you define "best" as), I was always trying to get my cases done and be prepared. With nobody to push me now, I have found time to procrastinate. I have gone into classes with half prepared spreadsheets and unread cases. Which make me ask this question. Am I doing it because the course doesn't excite me or is it the other way round.

The highlight in terms of academics has been the Global Financial Markets course. It's as current and relevant as B-School gets. You have the Federal Open Market Committee meeting during the day and at night the professor emails you the 1 page summary of the meeting so that we can discuss and debate what Bernanke thinks of the fed funds rate. Super cool. We have discussed almost all major economic issues. Greece, European bond markets, currency trends for Korea, Russia, Brazil, the Asian financial crisis, yield curves, price parity. Let me tell you that I am very average in that class. But I love it nevertheless. It's a lot of 'value add' for me. Really. I mean it.

The job hunt mystery continues to be exactly that. A mystery. From optimism to getting excited about functions and companies I didn't know earlier to frustration to anger to I-deserve-this-more-than-that-guy to I-don't-care-anymore to plain curiosity as to where I will finally end up - the whole experience has panned a gamut of emotions. It always helps to talk to people though. And there's a fantastic lot here. Who keep you grounded and give you a real sense of things. It's easy to crib about life being unfair when you have 99% of the things going for you. While applying for B Schools, I remember being perplexed by people at top schools talking of things that were not going for them and were worried. I had told myself I would never be that guy. At times in this quarter, I have come close to being that guy. But time and again, there have been friends - new and old - to remind me of that. And as a second year told me a few days ago I'm just waiting for the CEOs to realize in the first week of May that they need a few more interns!

On a different note, the last few weeks have given me a glimpse of what life in the second year might look like. All that I talked about earlier plus running a couple of clubs. Planning farewells and speaker events, ordering food and taking care of the logistics, getting all the information from the second years' as they prepare to leave and realizing there is so much that could be done. It's exhilarating and overwhelming in some sense. Also, the passion and energy of the guys who ran the clubs before us is infections to say the least. 

They say that the second year is what you make out of it. It's what you want your B School experience to look like. You have the power to design it. With a couple of weeks to go before phase one of this journey comes to an end, I find myself at this crossroads where I have some sense of the next phase but no clue about the bridge in between. But for what it's worth, I'm looking forward to it when it happens.

Spring In C'Ville

The weather's getting better by the day and sitting in classes or home is becoming tougher. I decided to get my cases done this afternoon but ended up spending almost a couple of hours walking and clicking pictures.