Economic Times - The Corner Office

    "There is no shortcut to the corner office. Or is there?" went the ad in the paper. 2 hours and a short ride later, sitting in one of the assembly-line cubicles in the big blue building, the question ran across my eyes like an invisible ticker. I had to know the answer. Standing up, the corner office was in clear line of sight. About 30 feet away, shimmering with all its sharp-looking furniture and with all the attention that a wealthy tourist in Bangkok gets. It surely wasn't the corner office I aspired for - this one had the printers, brochures of our products and services and other 'intellectual capital' stacked high as the eye. If there was a shortcut to this office, I didn't care about it. I guess the ads weren't talking of the literal corner offices but the metaphorical ones.

    The advent of HR as an important function made redundant the premise of the ad. Corner offices weren't physically corner offices anymore. Everyone followed an open door policy and on those rare occasions when the senior management wasn't canoodling a client, you could always walk in and take your annual quota of 15 minutes from him or her. This was the childhood equivalent of getting chocolates from the 'America Uncle' whom you barely knew. America Uncle would forget you the moment he set foot on foreign shores. And so will the senior management. But you still had the chocolates. The metaphorical corner office lay not on the x-axis but the y-axis. As one grew in the organization, the floor on which one's office is located goes up by storey-by-storey.

    The ticker ran again in front of my eyes. Economic Times promised that becoming a Young Leader would change things forever. A leading daily and one with strong views on the economy - perhaps they had a view or two about career progression as well. I didn't see myself as a guy in a hurry. 'Give it a shot' said the voice inside. South Indian meals for 40 Rs. at the canteen upstairs - drowned the voice for 4 hours straight. The next morning without much of a thought, I went to the portal and completed the activities. One round followed another and nearly 3 months later the results were out. 22, yours truly included were in the list. A visit to Bombay for the panel discussion and grand dinner ensued. The long-term impact is still too early to be gauged. But in the short term, we had a chance to spend 2 hours talking to some of the top honchos of Corporate India. Completely worth the experience.

    2 days from now I set off to ISB, Hyderabad. 'Accelerated Management Programme' says the word document sent by the program organizer. 'Accelerate' - the old message on the invisible ticker running across my eyes, is replaced with this one word. Maybe this is what I need to step on the pedal. To draw in a little more of fuel from around and get that extra boost of energy. Either ways, I know one thing with certainty - the course alone is not going to change anything beyond being a refresher of what I learnt (or feigned learning) 6 years ago. I look at the Young Leaders as a fantastic platform; one that makes you run faster and with more stamina and certainty towards a goal. There are however, no shortcuts to the corner office.

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Bite the Bullet

The last two months have been trying! The project having gotten underway, it prevented me and my team from doing anything but that which consultants do - namely, ask for data, reject data given to us, sulk behind the client, clean the data over 70% of the period of the project, (filtering through xl does it well I've realized, though a colleague discovered an easier and more assured way using a P & G product; he refuses to divulge further information and needless to say, was assigned most of the cleaning), build wonderful models using xl sheets and give them names like "Return of the Mother - X-series - V1.1.xls".

In a desperate attempt to discover/invent silver-linings for ourselves in those bleak times, we ran up a very good bill at the local condiments store (being Mallu, he has a wonderful take on diversification and sells tea, tea estates in Darjeeling, low-cost labor for tea estates in Darjeeling, filter coffee, coffee filters and cycle chains). The silver-lining was quick to be seen, when he told us our daily bills. It appeared as a multi-Z shaped cloud right above the head when paying up and some wonderful reverse peristalsis on a jam bun.

That's not all the silver-lining I could bring up. On a personal front, I realized a long-held wish and a near-impossible hope. I bought the Thunderbird that I so much wanted. A-haa, not an old one, but a new one that depleted my savings account like a Las Vegas casino might when dealing with a bad hand at the cards. 'Near-impossible', I use the phrase due to the kind of pressure folks @ home put on me.

"Minimum mileage should be 65kmpl" said Dad.
"Should the vehicle run on water or is milk good enough?" came my reply.

"Its a very heavy bike!" said Mom.
" ". I didn't have to say anything. With arms outstretched I let her take in my complete picture and she quickly figured out where all the butter dosas she made went.

A week after the purchase I fuelled up. I filled myself up with 3 litres of trepidation at the first intimidating traffic junction and headed out to the nearest Ganesha temple. In these days of reckless riding, nothing like some help from upstairs I thought. Parked beside the temple and awaiting the coconut-breaking ceremony was a Pulsar (due regards to the Bajaj family and their pet peeves). The vehicles seemed to have a sense of competition between themselves and I could distinctly feel a rumble from my bike, which told me that it wanted the Pulsar for breakfast and if left over, a brunch! (minutes later I realized the sound was due to the fuel levels having reached reserve and me not acknowledging the fact).

With some clear hand-signs I interrupted the priest's hymns and made it clear that coconuts needn't be broken on bikes for blessings and the road was built for just that purpose. Having settled accounts with Priest Sir, God sir and a pantheon of other god-fathers and god-mothers, I set out to fuel the bike.

It was here that the first of the acknowledgements from society dropped by. Though the bike is very personal, nothing like a bit of Maslow's higher layers pitching in to make one feel good. Fellow-rider of a Bullet started his bike a short distance away. I glanced in that direction without giving it a thought. Bullet-man before taking off, raised his hand in my direction with a leather-gloved thums-up sign. A silent nod of his head later (a vertical nod, indicating respect and approval, not the horizontal one, which indicates non-approval and flies around the head) he went his way. Tough men don't smile I said to myself. I looked at the mirror of my bike and smirked hard instead. With a thumping kick to the start, I rode back home.