Polemical

Heya...! wats up...!

Its nearing a week that I wrote and am feeling the itch to write... a bit scratchy on wat to write... but the week's been a mixed bag of actions and reactions so a lots a talk about...! :P

Well the week began quite awfully on a Monday (a day that I will spend one seventh of my life on). Now Mondays are quite hectic for us as we got a whole lotsa updates and reports to send through. Busy as I was with the updates, I realised a sudden pain come through... it was my banker who had come early that day and had sent a huge request as 'Urgent'. Now believe me this is particularly painful when u working on an update with a deadline and gotta deal with another request with an 'Urgent' tagline...!

Neverthless, I took up the request only after the update. And as I am working on this request... there’s another call for a meeting for all of us who joined within the last one year to discuss the group structure to be and our 'progress trajectory' in the coming years of our stay and blah blah blah...! With little hopes, we got up to go to the meeting room when the convenor of the meeting said, "Ronak, you need not join us" ... :o .... am not allowed in the meeting despite being in the invitation only because m a resignee... what the hell... am still a part of the organisation and if u dont feel so then why make me work...! :P …Ne ways.. i got time to complete the request and was happier working than listening to some incongruous, anachronous and difficult to decipher progress trajectory...!

Although I don’t like back biting anyone… but this is my space... and I would take a little bit of it here to speak about the Convenor, who has certain marvelous idiosyncrasies and tales to him...! a bad leader, a terrible decision maker and a totally funny guy.. he was one we oughta have looked up to....but things went quite contrary to expectations... No one quite agrees to his plans (well, more often than not at least) and look upon him as a mere administrator than leader...

Once a guy in our department, who had just had a baby boy, went in his cabin to share the good news.... "Well I've just got a boy and I've become a father..:)" ... Convenor: ... "Oh, Congratulations!!.. so wat is it a boy or a girl...?? !!!" ... :o

He would come up with weird concepts such as creation of a 'motivation' team which takes care of the group motivation or a career development team… I mean this is something people expect a leader to do for them... he is there not to execute things but to ensure that group is motivated enough to work or they have a right career path within the organization... this is necessary to incentivize them to work... gives them a goal...

I look at it this way...There are three broad factors for a department to work well or so to say to create an incentive system... 

1. Market prices: …which is to do with the remunerations being at par with the market rates or may be a bit higher for MNCs at least... this gives them an incentive to adjust the quantities they supply with the demand
2. Rights, laws and regulations: ...which ensure that necessary policies for governing employees are intact
3. Exchange programs: ...which is to do with appropriate secondment opportunities and other trainings or on-shore opportunities etc

I guess we’re working badly on all the frontiers that I defined... :P

If a scholar has to repeat his words, it would either mean that he was not speaking solemnly or his audience was not impressed by his wisdom. Similarly if a King were to repeat his orders, it would only result in plummeting his authority and respect. (Please don’t mistake these words to be mine… they’re Chanakya’s… :P)

Now the convenor had told us in December that he wanted all of us to move to our new workstations (within the same premise but a different location from the current secluded and haunting one) within two weeks…. Come February and he orders a phase wise relocation until mid March… come March and the first tranche was to settle onto their new workstations by 20 Mar… (well, one of our Team Leaders was all packed and prepared for the relocation.. he had emptied all his drawers and stuff into a box and informed his banker of the ‘event’… he would remain busy for hours packing his stuff and collect his belongings in case they lied scattered around or with someone else… probably he only awaited orders to move)…. But alas.. the orders never came.. we’re yet in the same place with the same damn PCs and drawers and same neighbours… :(

I was pulled out of the India team on the pretext of being assigned to the Spanish M&A team and was shown a glorified learning path beginning from valuations and modeling and target finding and evaluation and a whole lotsa richies in terms of experience…. Once back to the pool I was working on an Ad Hoc basis for two weeks and finally was assigned to the UK based equity capital markets team…. :|

Another good thing that Chanakya said was “ One whose anger inspires no awe, whose getting pleased results in no gain and one whose authority can pass no punishment or grant any reward; are of no consequence” … I guess we all should dig it…!

Nevertheless I will stop commenting on him here lest you feel that anyone of little knowledge or little evaluation power trying to belittle a learned person is no surprise…

Coming to the better things during the week was the Porsche Panamera…. Oh boy! wat a car… I wonder if it would even classify to being called a luxurious car.. its beyond imagination.. Magnificent is not the word for it… it’s a magnum opus in the car segment… Selling at 1.7 crores, this car is a dream run… My friend and I went there to check it out and were completely thrilled with the experience… amazing interiors with super rich technologies… scintillating and most fascinating design… huge tyres with super cool disc brakes… a sun roof… I mean it feels so good wen u stand tall by this car which, just by the looks of it, would tear apart the rest of the cars next to it… the seat was so low and the ambience was so good… the backseat was like my dream sofa and the dickey had four suitcases (like the ones in Transporter) and worked on hydraulics…. WOW…! The manager there was so enthusiastic in explaining all the features of the car and at the end of it he was also willing to explain us the financing schemes… :D …probably a few questions remained in my mind like wat are the discount schemes available… wat about refinance… and Test Drive..?? and wat about the scratch guard… could we check it…?? :D ….

We left in sometime having become a fan of this ‘monster on roads’ and decided that in the next 10 or 15 years or so we will come back to grab this car (in the meanwhile we will keep visiting there… just to keep a check.. :P) Probably one could just sell ones house and stuff and just live in the Panemera… or imagine this… u buy the bloody car and drive it as a proletarian.. crash it somewhere yet somehow u manage to learn driving by the time u do this and then u say to the whole damn world “Ive learnt driving on the fu**ing Panamera…” :D

Nonetheless, the week ended with the same morbid load of work and graphs and charts and case studies n crap…

Just waiting for an awesome weekend…. :)

Hope you have a good day…. Lots to share yet… keep visiting… keep reading…! And also… keep commenting…! :)

Style Check...!

Hi…! Wats up..!

Nothing particular to write about today but just felt the urge to write something…! :P

I was sittin idle the other day in office wen one of my colleagues walked upto me and said ‘… Main… SAMAY hun..”….. :D His voice resounded in my ears and I broke into laughter…! The way he said was hilarious, as if he was the one who narrated the Mahabharat….! :D … the guy is a real mimick..! he can mock anyone with their exact idiosyncrasies…! He has his own uncanny style though…!

Speaking of style…. I really cant understand what these glitterati and glamorous people define it to be… “Style is something u carry and feel comfortable in…” …. ‘Style is being you…” … “Style is not wat u wear but the attitude….” … “style is being comfortable in wat ever u wear where ever u are…”…. Blah blah blah….!

With these definitions ‘style’ surely seems to be a figment of imagination…! “dimag ka fitur”…. :D
I feel style is wat makes you look good, bad or ugly…. Style is a premonition, a set of defined structure in terms of clothes and looks that varies as the place and situation changes… they are protocols that one has to adhere to so as to fit in the crowd…. Its like .. jaisa des vaisa bhes…! Style is no where close to being yourself… or even carrying urself in wat ever u wear and are… you are clearly not accepted if you land up being a completely different person to reckon with in the group…!

The other day, we had to wear formals to office… some random gora was coming into our premises and we being analysts serving the on-shore bankers (KPO that we are in, we hardly get to be bankers ourselves) had to dress in full sleeves and ties and stuff..! now the Team leader had put in a mail to us thrice during the previous day… and the usual ignorant me at work, I overlooked the mail thinking it was some arbit gyaanbaazi from the TL which would only be a waste of time to read…! So I proudly saved my time and deleted the mails…! Besides I had enough work to bother about than mails from TEAM LEADER…. (team leaders are nothing but third year analysts who have, for some reason I do not know, not been able to make it to the front end in the last three years that they are in KPO.. and to respect their seniority and ease the VP, the biggest duh in here, of his burden, have been assigned with some administrative jobs like approving requests from and leaves of and managing a bunch of unrecognized talents like me… :P)

So the next day, unaware of the situation that it was, I landed in a jhatak orange, red, yellow, checkered half sleeved shirt over a brown trouser with unpolished absolutely lame god forsaken Bata shoes….. shabby and clumsy hair style with a maroon specs to add to the disgrace….the watch in my hand was a black rubber strap Bikers collection Fast Track (sasta maal from Titan)… in all… I was lookin like a complete Bozo…!

Now the problem that had happened was that two days before this was that I had lost my ID card.. and since a new card would cost a penalty of 300/-… I avoided getting one and decided to call upon colleagues every day at the gate to get me a visitor card…. U c I had resigned by then and was least interested in any further loyalty…! ;P So wen this girl landed to get me a visitor card (after much persuasion).. she stood awestruck at my ‘hoolia’ and asked me.. ‘didn’t u have ne better formals to wear’….! I was a bit surprised too to see her unusually in a formal code…! But I never bothered to think deep as to what was goin on..!

The minute I entered the premise I saw people wearing ties (quite an unusual site in a KPO).. I thought may be they had some of their events or stuff..! as I proceeded further.. I saw eyes starring at what I was wearing…! I was a bit taken aback but then they were not people from my department so it did not really bother me much…!

But the minute I entered my department (secluded place that we sit in.. we feel proud that we can identify ourselves from the rest of the KPO.. we’re TO BE investment bankers after all…) I saw everyone around in pure formals….! I was shocked…! I suddenly realized I was up for a mess as there was a dress code for the day and I had not followed it…! I inquired and realized that the mails that I had proudly deleted were an intimation to wear formals today….! Now this firang was supposed to be there anytime between 1:00 to 1:30 in the afternoon..! I had reached office at 12:45… so to save my grace and save the department from disgrace… I ran into the canteen to stay there until 1:30. Visitors card that I had, I also had a defense with me…! :P

Incidentally… this firang seemed to have been deeply influenced by the Indian culture very early.. he was half an hour late…! I got this news at 1:30 wen I went back to check if he had gone…. So I headed back to the canteen…! This time I saw him proceeding towards the department…! So was assured that within next half hour he will take a ‘culti’ from there…>!

All in all… I wasted my two hours of precious work (half an hour extra coz that’s the time my PC and I take to boot and settle down respectively)… but that’s wen I realized that all these definitions to style , as given by our superstars, are all misleading, misguiding, career threatening, jaanleva, and above all FALSE NOTIONS…! Yeh sab superstars are ‘doba salla’ only….!

I mean had I stayed there and flaunted what I wore and then argued that “boss… yeh style hai.. I am comfortable in what I wear and am being myself”.. toh toh band baj gaya hota ….I would have been fired before even serving the notice period..! it would have been helpful though but before that I would have been humiliated, insulted, smeared and sulked upon so ruthlessly that I would have begged not to be fired… probably I would have bought a set of formals then n there and gone to back to show that ‘I can and I will make a difference’ in formals…! :D

Moral of the story….. Don’t take superstars for granted…!!

Main…. SAMAY hun…! ;D

Incoherent Rant

Whats up..!

Its been a boring Saturday and could wait to vent it out…!

Job search is such a pain and m sure most of you would agree to me except the lucky ba*****s….

About a month back I called up the HR at JMF and asked them if I could apply for relevant opening wen the outright said that there were no openings… just yesterday I got to know from a friend that three days back an ex-colleague of his joined JMF in their Equity research as an analyst….! Man… that was annoying…!

There were openings in SBI where I tried to apply…. A week later wen I tried to follow-up.. the female tells me that although my experience is relevant, I do not suit the profile requirement… I wondered why….

I tried in BMR in their M&A department… now this was one thing I was a bit confident to get in as I am a CA and BMR being a CA firm, would prefer me over others, given the fact that I have some exposure to this stuff.…! a week later wen I tried to follow-up, the female tells me that I am not eligible as I am a CA… :o ….. A CA firm saying this was a complete shocker for me…. But then she explained that the policy of the company was to hire CAs only at Associate level whereas the post on offer was of an analyst level where they take only MBAs…! :P

Today again when I spoke to a senior to direct me through this job hunt… all that he could say was that I am not an MBA and hence would be a herculean task to get in anywhere with a client interface….!

Boss… gimme a break…! I mean wat is this whole fuss about me being a CA and hence not being the right guy for a job in any damn finance field…! The very selection criteria of these jobs seems faulty and biased… the search here should be more talent based than degree based…! Its not an MBA that makes a difference but the knowledge, enthusiasm and hardwork that does…! In the entire history of CFAG (my department), the only guy who’s been able to make it to the UK in the healthcare front end is a CA, CFA…. The guy who was next offered to join his onshore team, who unfortunately rejected it for god knows what, was a CA… (apparently, this guy left the team and I replaced him in here… but he is still respected and sought after by the UK team and very much respected in here as well because of his tremendous knowledge in ECM)….

When I was working with the India M&A team, I was given a task to calculate some weird ratios… I had made an assumption as regards some data in one of them wen I got back to my senior, who apparently is an MBA, trying to seek his consensus over the same, …. Now the ratio had something to do with the Net Assets of the company and what I had done was to calculate it the straight way by finding the net worth in the absence of any current data available…. When he realized this he was a bit disturbed and started arguing wid me that the method was wrong as Net Assets cannot be Net Worth of the company…! :O …. I tried explaining him it effectively the same thing but he wouldn’t budge…! I stopped there…. But was this a point to argue..>! ?? :P

I mean why is an MBA given so much importance… there are people in our department who being MBAs are looking forward to their second MBAs… why…. Is one not enough…. :P…. there are graduates in our department who earn at par with these uber-cool MBAs and probably deliver better stuff…! Even now when they hiring, they roaming around in MBA campuses trying to rake in talented young people… but they yet do not consider CA campus recruitments….! L …. CAs in our department are merely 7 out of a total strength of 40 …!

After the above lambast, you probably may feel that m quite anti MBA… but that’s not the case.. matter fact .. m planning for one myself….. ;P…. Not that I aspire to be an MBA.. but a couple of things that I look forward to such as :
1. Campus life
2. business model innovation
3. revenue models and projections (and last but not the least)
4. trying to meet the demands for career growth…! ;P

To sum it all…. I am not here on a debate on whether an MBA better or a CA…. or who offer more growth.. or even who makes more successful bankers… but I only feel that the industry should give us a fair chance to compete than be biased over which school / institution we belong to…. We should be judged upon our grades and how promising we prove to be for the organization… Neither is it that an MBA makes you a superhero or an omniscient fellow who has solution to every problem in this world….

Moral of the rant: Dikhawe pe mat jao… Apni akal lagao… :D

Starters for Weekend...!

Whats up….

Been a long time now that I think of blogging… but never really got the chance to… not that I lack the stuff but work and studies simply prevent the execution of the whole damn thing..!

To introduce myself is not much to write …. Matter fact its just one line… ‘m a struggling analyst…’ :D

Quite often I come up wid weirdest of the topics to talk upon as most of my colleagues and friends would agree….! None da less.. to start I would just share an old expression I wrote in June 09 for a friend in NY… I was searching for a job then and was waiting for some responses from place I had been interviewed at… hope you like this too… don’t know how much you would connect to this.. but you’ll surely read this once…! ;D

Well how does one spend an ideal weekend..??

Of all the conclusions that I could gather from my friends lying here n there, there seems to be a mixed reaction. Some sneak out for a long cruise or some for a movie, some catch up with a book or two, some help their dads at their shop, some simply plan a small get-together while still some simply hold onto their beds until the bed needs a bed to rest…..

Can we say this has been an ideal weekend for me….???

Well the week's been quite a busy one… a one I am not accustomed to nor quite in the awe of it being so…. What Have I Done..>!! Well slept, slept, slept, n slept…. That’s quite tiresome n u gotta believe me, nevertheless that’s what your profile is wen you’re designated as Lazy Executive at Stay Home Enterprises.

Its June already but all we hear from the weather department is that the rains are not even on their way yet, forget them reaching here on time… now that’s quite disappointing for any human being who’s had a tuff time under the scorching sun in Mumbai (I dont know how people sitting in NY claim that they miss the summers in Mumbai… I would suggest they better miss it for the rest of their life…)… to add to the grievance, we deal in Umbrellas…! I don’t needa describe the pain ne further….. (now the umbrella market has a trade settlement day that is 30 June, n so since the rains have been delayed to no ends, the market has slashed its raw material prices n there’s quite a cash crunch amongst theimporters.. blah blah blah…but that’s the trade n I wont get much into it….) But come Saturday n we have a half an hour of rains in the wee hours of the morning… well the Principle of Favorability surely works but much to the chargin of the tradesmen, it rained in the WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING….

However, as the Saturday was an extension of the same week where I been sleepy all throughout, out n out, beyond ne doubt, like a stout … I was sleepin the said Saturday morning n missed all the action that the rain gods indulged in…. Now the slumber carried on even after I woke up n had had a good breakfast (perhaps that adds to the laziness) … I tried completing the HDFC B/S that I had sworn to myself that I would complete before the weekend began… but a jobless brain is the Kumbhakaran’s brother n so I was fast asleep on the B/S…

Now this is considered to be uncouth n unacceptable that a young lad like me snores to glory while a hardworking dad like mine is in the office…. So there we are, shaken up to reality… up there goes gravity…. Abuses received in charity… mind in ample clarity that I needa work man…! Now the thing was that the bank was about to close n a cheque had to be deposited to keep the W/Cap Mgt intact… but to my failure the bank had already closed for the day with the shutters rolled... this brought along with it a diatribe that almost killed me… but we’re of the buffalos skin n unaffected by small drops of rain….

Nevertheless the day was spent in the shop. Uncles in the trade did persuade me to get into the business but I said No, No Chattri for me please…[8)].. Come night n I was back with my PC networking within the circuit that I have on these sites that help enhance ones social acquaintances. But it should look like it’s a weekend, n that’s not complete without a movie…. So there we are at 11:30 forcing a studious brother out of his books to join me for the screening of Kung Fu Panda…. Wat a movie man….! I just love it…!

The next morning I was suppose to go for a walk. But me is me…. Sleep comes first this week… but then again there were showers of insults and this I am not gonna share with you lest you go logophobic of your mother tongue…

However the Sunday began well with doodh chivda (that’s cornflakes with milk) n I was enthusiastic of not wasting this one…. So I got onto my PC n started looking out for a book or two out of the long impending list of books I had planned to read since Jan `09. Called up a few friends to help me but they were sleepin too (birds of a feather flock together)… so after an hour or so I get a call again “Haan yaar tune call kiya that.. abbey main soh raha that yaar, bol kya kaam tha….” Me: “Arey I was looking out for Alchemist if you had, or gimme that site address you said has all the good books free, wat was that”
“abbey Alchemist toh mere pass se le lena, abhi mail kar deta hun, the rest you can go to this site called *******, just register over there for free n jo karna hai kar…>”

I strongly believe that there’s no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness, so I kinda download all the good things for free rather that spending my hard earned Vitamin M on the same….SO there we are with a copy of The Alchemist in the mail box and The Secret downloaded from *******…

I decided to pick up The Alchemist. It was brilliant. The day was spent glued to it without even a nap in the afternoon. As I am a huge fan of Eminem, I did hear a song or two of his in between, but I managed to complete 70 pages out of the 116 pages purple prose. You see this week has been stupendously sleepy so when I compare myself to Eminem now I feel he’s such a Rap Star n I a Nap Star… but that’s over for today. In the evening I met three of my school friends who have been my best chumps. One of them is an automobile engineer, the other a ranker all throughout n now completin his Phd in Chemical Enginneerin from Massachutes Institute of Technology (matter fact he is the only Asian in his Batch of 8 selected across the world, bloody brains), the other a Civil engineer from IIT-Delhi n now into analytics in ICICI Pru, you know me….

So the day ended peacefully. Quite an exciting Sunday as it was. And now coming back if I have had an ideal weekend, lets c.. we’ve had a nap (quite a nap), we’ve caught up with friends, with been to the shop, we’ve read the book (3/4th though, but I would take the credit for this okay…!), okay wat remains is the long cruise, but that’s okay man, in india 50% is passing….so I guess I qualify….! Yippee… ! We’ve had an ideal Weekend…! (thank god I saved my grace from having to claim it to be an idle weekend)

Anyways… hope you’ve have a good week…
Keep in touch n keep expressing…!