Out Of The Frying Pan, Into The Fire

And I thought the initial couple of weeks was bad. My boss is finally here. Thank the lord!!! Or maybe not...

What started off as something to look forward to has now become something I wish had never happened. 2 weeks ago my real boss joined the bank. She was introduced to me as part of the induction "walk around the office". Later she returned to speak to me. I was pretty happy that she was involved as she told me that she already had something for me to do. "Live work!!!", I thought. But that was far from what it actually was. The week that followed was a nightmare.

My boss had a presentation in Bombay to prepare for. A powerpoint presentation had to be sent prior to her departure from Delhi. As she was busy socializing and finding her place in the organization, I was dumped with the dirty work. But I didn't complain. I was getting an opportunity to learn about 3 more sectors than my project would have allowed me to. In addition to Telecom, I was assimilating information on Energy, Metals and Mining. My boss wanted me to prepare not only the presentation, but also documents for each sector which she could read up on and make the presentation. All fair enough. Until she began to criticize everything I did. When I prepared the documents in bullet points, she complained that she wouldn't know the background. I redid the work and presented reports. She complained that there was too much to read and that she wanted bullet points. And she pretended as though she had no idea that that was exactly what I had done previously. As far as the presentation went, I stuck to the format that had been sent from Bombay. That didn't satisy her either. She told me to ignore the format and make my own (which she would later not like).

Instead of commending me for the amount of information I had found and collated for her, she would find insignificant data missing. She was rude and would look for opportunities to yell at me. While looking at her target figures, she asked me to convert a figure from US dollars to Rupees. I did that and she said I was wrong. I checked my calculations and told her that I wasn't. She started yelling, saying that I had no idea what I was doing and that I had made a mistake. I asked to do it herself and check. Well, she realized that she shouldn't have shouted, but no apology was forthcoming. Ok, perhaps I'm asking for too much. I'm nothing much but a silly intern. Certain portions of the presentation regarding sales strategy and stuff like that were out of my purview. She said she'd give me information to insert in those areas. But when the time came for that to happen, she wanted me to "jot down my thoughts" and discuss them with her. How the hell am I supposed to know her sales strategy?

But what really got my goat was when I realized that she thought I was her secretary. Requests flowed in from her end which covered stuff like checking airlines schedules, booking tickets that had errors in them, and the icing on the cake - chauffeuring her around Delhi. The weekend was made worse by her constant messaging on my phone and calling me up at odd times, even when I told her I was not home. She was able to access the internet at home, but wanted me to look for information that she needed. Calls kept coming - during lunch, when I was driving, at dinnertime, at midnight!!! On Monday morning I was asked to come early. Giving myself a good 45 minutes for a half hour journey, my luck failed me and it took me over an hour to get to work. The phonecalls continued. I got really cheesed off, reached office and when my boss began to yell, I yelled back telling her how the work she had given me was not a part of my project. She looked at me as though she had no idea that I even had one. Then she began sermonising about how my attitude was not right from a long term employment perspective and how she had not been informed of the project.

After having given me a piece of her mind she realized that her presentation would go down the drain if I refused to do it for her. She then came to my room and was sugary sweet, calling me sweetheart and what not. She was nice to me the whole day as I worked on her presentation. Once it was done, she called a friend to take a look at it. While her friend gushed over it, my boss almost took credit for it until she realized that I was sitting right there with them. Then she managed to spit out some praise for me. But what made me feel nice was when her friend popped in later to tell me how I had done a good job and how she wanted me to look for some information for her.

Boss left that evening for Bombay. I have seen her now, after a whole week of no work. She came to my room 10 minutes ago to ask me to "jot down my thoughts" which we would discuss for half an hour in the latter half of the day. She wants me to pull out information from other banks with the help of friends working there for the summer. I wonder how she'd feel if someone asked me to provide them with information from this bank. She wants me to go out and meet people from service providers. In the Delhi heat, that is the worst thing that could happen to you, but I ain't complaining. Atleast I get to stay away from this office.

Life has felt useless for the last month. Is this what being a management intern is all about? Did I expect too much from this miniscule internship. Half of the internship is over, and I am yet to begin my project. Why the hell does my boss keep asking me to "jot down points" which we can discuss later???

The Internship From He(L)l

I was excited out of my senses about my summer internship at one of the world’s largest banks ("the world’s local bank", to be precise!!!). It began quite well with me shuttling from L to Delhi first. I took a flight, a luxury permitted only because the bank was paying for it. Instead of reaching Delhi at 8:30 in the morning, I reached at 12:00 noon thanks to delays and congestion at the airport. Another 24 hours later I was back at the airport boarding my flight to Mumbai. The bank required all trainees to troop down to their training centre at Mumbai (Bandra) for a 2-day Induction Program. Out of 13 interns, I was the only one placed at Delhi while the others were working in Mumbai. The odd one out, I was put up (on the bank’s expense again) at a nice cozy guesthouse in Bandra. All this time I felt quite important about myself. After the 2 days of pretty useless training, I left Mumbai with a few cursory friends and huge expectations.

I reached Delhi at midnight and prepped myself for work the next day. My office is about 45 minutes to 1 hour away from where I stay. Office officially starts at 8:30. I diligently reached 5 minutes early, only to be greeted by a deserted office. The guard told me to wait at the reception. An hour later I was still sitting waiting for the person I was to report to. I decided to be a little assertive and approached the first man I saw in formals. He passed me on to another person, who was excited to see me as he is an alumnus of L. I thanked my stars as he gave me a workstation to sit at and advised me to read up on my project. He even handed over a book about the bank’s business in the area I am working in. I had my laptop; they provided me with a lan connection. Other than emails and chat software being blocked by the firewall, I had complete freedom to do what I pleased.

It’s been a week now since I joined the Delhi (oops, Gurgaon) office. I have nothing to do. My project guide is non existent. She is not yet an employee of the bank and will be on board next week. I guess she’ll take about a week to settle in and that makes 3 weeks out of my 8 weeks of internship absolutely useless. Add to that the fact that I feel like a liability at this place. No one is willing to guide me about my project for fear that my actual guide will want other deliverables. I have been pushed and shoved from one vacant workstation to another and have finally ended up in a small conference room by myself in one corner of the office. I don’t think anyone notices when I come or leave. I don’t even think they’re bothered. 2 days ago, the security guard of the building refused to allow me to park without authorization. I brought up this issue at work and all they did was shrug their shoulders, refuse to authorize my car (because there weren’t enough parking spaces for themselves) and told me to fend for myself. Today I parked at a shopping centre close by and walked down to the majestic building I call my office. Lunch is another thing that is not provided here. I bring my lunch from home and have to heat it up here in the pantry. Today some random guy, from the systems department I presume, came over to my room to "order" me to disconnect my computer from the lan. He was the same guy who configured my laptop so that I could access the internet, but today decided that my machine was not authorized. I told him I’d need a PC to work on and he told me that could happen only after my boss submitted a written request. Surprise!!! My boss isn’t here yet!!! The people here are weird too. I have barely spoken to 4 people (2 are alumni from L, one is the dude I was supposed to report to on my arrival, 1 is a lady I am supposed to ask for help, though I don’t really get any). Everyone else looks at me in a condescending manner, including the man who sits in the pantry the whole day. While coffee is being served to everyone, I am conveniently avoided. While everyone’s food is heated for them, I have to do it myself. I am not averse to doing things on my own, but a little bit of politeness can’t be too much to ask for.

People may say that all this is part-and-parcel of a summer internship. But I beg to differ. There are 2 more interns here. However, they are not here through campus placements, or even through official channels. They know people who know people who know people at the bank. Their mouths fell open when I told them I was from L and were even more surprised to hear that I was getting a stipend. But all that is in vain when it comes to treatment. Because they know people here, they have workstations with PCs and seem to be doing some concrete work. While I come at 8:30 and do not leave before 6:30 at least, they saunter in after 10 and leave at 5. They work 5 days a week while I hang around for 6. In the end, I think they got the better deal. They have no PPO to run after. They can do as they please. Even if there was a PPO for them, they would most definitely get it the way they got the internship in the first place.

I don’t really think I want to work at a place like this. For all practical purposes I am an employee here. Never would I recommend this place to anyone. I’m rethinking the PPO myself. I may rather slog my way through next year and put myself through the ordeal of sitting for final placements. PCOM are you listening???