To He(L)l And Back

It's scorching! We've all been bad and I'm sure we've sinned. But it feels damn good to be back!

All's Well That Ends Well

After having raving and ranted about the 2 months I spent at my internship, the one thing I have learnt is to always see the bigger picture. For 2 months I have focused on the negative and that took over my life. In hindsight, I’m satisfied with how things finally shaped up. Surprised? I’ll explain.

As I type this entry, I’m on a plane to Delhi from Mumbai. Sudden travel plans came up 3 days ago when I was asked by the bank to come down to Mumbai to make my final presentation. Humiliation was the first thing that came to my mind. I would be the laughing stock of the bank if they saw what I had been doing for 2 months at their expense. Reluctantly, I sat myself down and began preparing my presentation. At the end of the day I realized that I had learnt a lot in 8 weeks. I won’t bore you with details, but I will tell you that I was proud of the work I had done and the project that I had given shape to, single-handedly if you may. I actually had recommendations to give to the bank and to the panel that would be evaluating my performance. I also had some “live projects” to boast of.

So off I was to Mumbai. The bank booked me onto a great airline which truly gave meaning to “the joy of flying”. I left in the middle of the afternoon straight from the office, corporate style!!! The flight was delayed, but I’m not really complaining. In the airport lounge I saw news reports on the television about a downpour in Mumbai and hoped that all would be well weather-wise. I do not have a fear of flying (was too lazy to look up the phobia for that!), but I hate turbulence. I spoke to a friend in Mumbai at that point in time and was thrilled to hear that the rain had stopped. Happily, I boarded my flight, convincing myself that the delay was a good thing. After getting into the aircraft and hearing the announcement of the clearance for take-off, I strapped myself in. As the plane moved on the tarmac, I saw a distant dust storm brewing. I could hardly see the airport building anymore. It was then that I realized that the plane was moving due to the wind. It started drizzling and the downpour that followed was something I have never seen in my almost 23 years of existence. The winds were strong and the plane rocked to and fro. Finally, we managed to leave and reached Mumbai after a moderately turbulent flight.

A friend met me at the Mumbai airport, and thankfully so since I had no idea about how the city worked and had to make my way from the airport to my hotel at Marine Lines. An hour later I had freshened up at the hotel and was on my way out for a cheap dinner. I love trying out new things and was adventurous enough to take a bite out of bheja fry. Not too exciting a dish, I decided to stick to my bhuna chicken! A brief walk to the Taj and the Gateway of India made my day and I was dropped back to my hotel to retire for the night.

The next day was important and I was jittery as I woke up. A quick bath and after getting ready I headed down to the hotel coffee shop for breakfast which was an impressive spread. I reached the office early and waited around for a bit until it was time for my presentation, which went off pretty smoothly. I then caught up with the other interns who had spent their summer in Mumbai. From Churchgate I then headed to Bandra, all alone on a Mumbai local train. Met up with my friend again and went to see the boutique he is opening with a designer friend. A little bit of shopping and a lunch later I was on my way back to Churchgate to change and head for the intern party. With the bank’s biggies at the party along with us interns, it was a great do. We even managed to catch the Australian band Taxiride at the club we were at!!! I had initially thought I’d feel awkward around everyone since I was the only one outside Mumbai for the summer. But nothing like that happened. I got along really well with everyone and am happy to say that I am “richer by the dozen”. I have 12 more friends to my credit!!!

The next day I spent 5 hours at the Mumbai airport listening to announcements over announcements of my flight being delayed. I did get to eat a “batata vada” at the airport though!!! I’m now back home, making the most of the 10 days I have here until I get back to L. I still haven’t got my stipend yet and will be heading to office tomorrow to get that and some reimbursement done. Funny thing is, after the bank having treated me so well, the contrast shows in how my boss still expects me to be in at work early on Monday morning. She has no clue about my project and is not really bothered by the look of things. But I had a good time in Mumbai, and the title of this post describes how I feel of the entire summer episode. I’ve broadened my view and have realized that the people at the bank are great. The interns, the alumni from L, their colleagues, the senior management, everyone is really nice. A bad apple here and or there is inevitable, and it was just my luck to have been subjected to that. Don’t judge a book by its cover; you never know what’s inside.

Ray Of Light???

Met with my boss to discuss my project. Woo hoo!!! I have a tonne of deadlines and deliverables staring back at me from the notepad on my table. I'm suddenly on a work high. Most of the stuff is reading up on articles and stuff. But I ain't complaining. I finally have a smile on my face. I hope this lasts!!!

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???