New beginning - Researcher in the Making

Well Friends,
After over a year in the industry and some toil to get admission to a good Ph.D. program I've finally got admission to a prestigious college in India. Will pursue my research in Marketing with an aim to benefit the industry through my work. Have learnt a lot about life in the time when I was without job and was trying for some good opening. One generally tends to learn more from failures than success. Success gives you a confidence and a will to do things but it is failure which teaches you about life and how to deal with it.

SM

Dan Pink - Gr8 Commentary on traditional incentive models

Former US immigrants find better life in India

Top American graduates heading to India for employment

Warren Buffet - Collection

A rare collection of Articles and reviews on The Sage of Omaha at:

http://www.scribd.com/document_collections/2599080

Success follows the 'Brave'... Ooops Sorry the 'Slave'

The past one year of my Professional career (also happens to be my First) has taught me a lot. A lot about life, life's strife and people. These days have been eye opening and certainly hard work. But most of all it has been an experience which has brought me back to my senses and shattered my perception that struggle ends with a Masters degree. Actually, the real struggle starts there. During the course of the year I have had the fortune to work in diverse companies of various shapes and sizes. My current employment is with the biggest organization in the country, which would be the government, prior to which I was with a leading Business Daily and before which I was in IT. Hence, I can safely say that I have had 'varied' experience. Earlier I had a very different picture of how work would be but now having experienced it, I would have to say it is not quite what I thought. It is a lot less fun and a lot more slogging each and every day if you want to keep going and growing. Otherwise, you would end up in the mass of unemployed and under employed skilled workers. It takes a lot more than good grades because good grades can get you to the interview but to pass through and actually perform needs a lot more than just technical knowledge. It needs a cool, calm and patient mind which has the strength of a Pressure Cooker and the superconductivity of ultra-cooled Mercury to let the unnecessary heat received from superiors to disappear into the environment without inciting a reaction. It also needs a person to be able suckup to people like a hotel waiter would to a generous tipper as part of his Personal Relations initiative because it is ultimately relations or rather relations emanating from mutual benefit which count and end up in the business category of the Blackberry contacts list. One should be ready to stay in late unnecessarily and may check his mails and perform other unproductive chores during the day so that he may appear diligent and hard working to the management by burning the midnight oil. It is also required that one may absolutely abolish one's sense of integrity and self importance in front of the superior and be on his toes to do everything frivolous and meaningless which may or may not (but is expected to be done) be asked of him. It needs to be mentioned that one has to be clearly ready to be underpaid if he wants to lead his life successfully without incidence in the office or else he would have a hard time finding or sticking to a job. One should have an understanding that the job responsibilities mentioned to him during the recruitment process are only indicative and one may deployed any place required as one is a 'Paid Resource' and not a 'Human' employee and moreover from the company's point of view putting you out to do anything is what it meant by giving you a broader experience and exposure.

For me these are a lot of things to ask for. I fall short on a lot of the above mentioned requirements especially on the sucking up and the peoples part and hence am yet to be counted as a 'Star' on the BCG matrix. Till then let me be happy being the 'Question Mark'.

Till the next time....
Adios

SM

Wisdom Cliche'd

An infrequent writer I may be but to think that I have given up expressing myself would be incorrect. Well to update my last few months have been filled with triumph and tribulations. More tribulations than triumphs but each one has in its own way taught me something. I say all this at the cost of my thoughts being labeled as cliche'. Cliche' they may be but the relevance of each of these cliche's has just hit me and I am a perturbed by the incapability of man to learn from old wisdom falling on his ears until having faced the situation himself. Had the homo sapiens been able to learn from past glories and fallacies then may be the history and course of events of the world might have been different. Hitler might not have lost WW-II learning from the fate of Napoleon's army in Russia and the world would certainly have been very different from now. The German empire would have reigned supreme.

Would the world have been better or worse? For one Europe would have greatly flourished but in a selective fashion. US would have to play second rung to Germany and considering that the Nazis would have won over Moscow they might well have had the might to make US succumb too. The possibilities are endless and on another perspective India would have gained independence through military battles rather than non violent means as the Azad Hind Fauj would have got support from the advancing Germans. What they would have done with the won India is certainly beyond the realms of my imagination. Japan would still have been very strong as it is today but not only financially but militarily also. But the fate of the Allied nations and its inhabitants would certainly have been horrendous.

Well just another line for you to think upon. I will continue with my personal story in the next post.

Till then...
Adios
SM