And we lived to tell the tale :)

Management Trainee Batch of 2010 :)

With today, I finish 2 whole years in the corporate industry. IT. All my life, I grew up telling myself that if there was one thing I would never put myself through, it would be a stint in the IT field. (No, I never knew what they did then. Yes, there was a time when I never gave a damn about money :P) So post school, when all my classmates went on to slog for four years to earn a degree in the Engineering Sciences, I was playing grasshopper in WCC, cutting frogs and rats open, poking my fingers and analyzing blood samples, volunteering at museums and zoos, birding and wrestling baby crocodiles, camping, trekking and – in a phrase- living the life!

Then MBA happened- out of nowhere. Not that I regret it. I never cry over spilt milk. So futile, I say! I loved college, I – got used to the course. Made great friends, learnt that I could love Marketing as much as I loved animal sciences and literature, and then looked towards getting into an organization where I would “sweep in, earn amazing profits for it, come up with brilliant ideas and turn around the way the place operated”. Yes you can smirk. :P

And then I landed here. My first company. Where I have been hanging around for the greater part of these 2 years. Time sure has flown by! No, I did not get to do all that I had dreamt of doing. I learnt a lot. Some leanings- might be funny, some might be bitchy, and some- downright crazy. But we survived! And that earns me a pat. And icecream.I learnt that- impressions matter. A lot.

People will always speak behind your back- there is acute shortage of conversation topics in these companies.

There are good people around, the world is not a dark, mean place, yet.

Anything, once mastered, becomes a chore.

If you do not have a communicative relationship with your boss, you are in deep trouble.

Smiling helps. Appreciations help more.

One screw up can sweep down a whole year’s worth hard earned reputation.

Building back lost trust is more difficult and tiresome than constructing a space shuttle.

Most people have a problem with attitude. Whoever said despotism died away?

Be judged, or be ignored. Your call. (flicked from Seth Godin)

A bunch of friends make office worth coming to. Laugh aloud, let everybody see it.

Take feedback, don’t ever take shit. People telling you what you can never be or what you can never do qualify as shit.

Respect, where it feels mutual.

Take vacations. I look back on these two years- I remember, more than all the work I did- my various trips- trekking, the Himalayas, Ooty, Bangalore masti, Delhi..

Try to love what you do, try hard.

Salary- is THE motivation factor.

There is life beyond these walls. This is not the end :)