Two and a bit years down the line, I think I should have written more. I think my diaries should have been more elaborate. However, going through these archives gave me a lot of other insights. About my way of thinking back then. My expectations. My life in London. Attitudes. And all such. And I thought I should share some of them with you. I’ll also post some comments that had been posted on my blog then

Just before I left for London, I had written

Hopefully i’ll get some time off from what is supposed to be a busy schedule in London so that I can continue to maintain this journal. Else, the next post will be on June 13th

Finally turned out to be a prolific summer of blogging. Joblessness, especially in the latter half meant that I was quite regular here. And joblessness for some of my classmates at their internships meant I had a steady readership. That was when I think my blogging really took off.

sw_aadisht

is not known as a madman for nothing. During the internship (in bombay) he buys a phone from which ISD calls are cheap and local calls are barred. And he writes this comment:

Cheap guy, mail me your mobile number when you get it. Keyboard in my offce is worshetest, will blog soon either from cybercafe or as soon as I get a replacement.

And one week into my internship I write:

i came to an important decision… if i get a PPO and decide to accept it, i’ll be getting married next april.

And then on a Monday morning following a sleepless night, this:

after 3 weeks of interning in JP Morgan, earlier this morning I called up my parents and told them I didn’t want to become an investment banker. I was told “not to worry too much, try and learn as much as you can in the next few days and enjoy London and tour extensively in the remaining time”.

Sadly I haven’t mentioned any reasons. Looking back I think it was mostly because I didn’t want to put that extra effort people said it required to get a full time offer.

And a couple of days later, I was witness to some football frenzy. A train journey with some Liverpool fans turned out to be contagious. I still root for Liverpool. Especially when they sang stuff like

‘ra-ra-ra-ra-raphael benitez… xabi alonso garcia and nunes… raaafel benitez’ (to be sung to the tune of La Bamba)

‘steve gerrard gerrard… kicks the ball forty yards… ‘ (arbit tune)

apart from You’ll Never Walk Alone, of course. The year I went, JP Morgan hadn’t paid out good bonuses. And one MD was leaving every week. Including the guy who had recruited me. I had written.

wondering how life will be in the fast lane… you get promoted one day… quit the next… no one has a clue of what you’re upto… you don’t have a clue of what someone else is upto… all decisions come suddenly…. just last week this guy was bitching to me about the company he is going to join (of course, he didn’t tell me then that he’s going there). yesterday he had a long chat with me about JPM…

A couple of weeks later, I asked another MD about the heavy attrition.

i was asking an MD today at a meeting regarding exodus of people from our company. he said, “our retention rates among junior and middle levels are the highest in the industry. i’m very happy about that. yeah, quite a few senior guys left but they weren’t doing much work anyway!”

And my midterm review told me that a full time job was likely. Despite me not putting in much effort.

just got my mid-term review. looks like chances of PPO are really good. unless i really really screw up in the remaining time. kinda bargaining for desk now.

next few months, i’ll have to put some real thought into my career. need to consult a lot of people.

And my mom almost set me up with a relative. Rather, the relative wanted to get set up with me and my mom told her to buzz off. There were a couple of other invitations to treat also, I heard. One of them was to get significant six months later. I started hitting on her, and it ended in agony. Clearly the expression of interest was for the investment banking job, it seems.

Another interesting thing I’d written. Still wondering about it.

if i like something, then i’m definitely good at it.
but if i’m good at something, it doesn’t necessarily mean i like it.

During my internship, Anusmaran, the annual IIMB reunion happened. Some thoughts after that, which I think are still very relevant for me.

then, most people who attended had switched jobs at least once, sometimes into a totally different sector and totally different job profile. actually provides hope for me just in case i make a wrong choice on that set of fateful days next march when i have to choose a career and get a good job in my chosen path…?

I had missed the Champions League final in favor of the London Philhamonic Orchestra. One of my biggest regrets so far.

And I remember getting really really pained with the software and the systems. I remember going to my boss and telling him “next year I’ll start a company in Bangalore and make all these packages for you. For cheap. And I’ll maintain them. Will save you some N analyst positions”.

Then, there was peer pressure

all my dear friends have made a decision on my behalf that JPM is THE place for me to work and i’d be committing a grave mistake if i don’t convert PPO and sign out. of course, i have gotten a really good mid-term review, but after that either i’ve been getting no work or woreshtesht work. and if i were to let anyone know that i hate the stuff i’m doing, i won’t get PPO and all my friends’ dreams will be shattered.

In the same post I also wrote this…

most people are like “every job is like that. there is no such thing as an interesting job. come and see our jobs, yours will actually be rocknig. and remember that you’re getting paid a really huge amount”, etc. now, that gives me the impression that since mine is the most interesting job (according to all these people) and i don’t find it interesting, i won’t find any job interesting. which means that i’m doomed to mundane jobs for the rest of my life. which means that after the one year of student life i have left in me (assuming i don’t do a PhD), i’m basically kinda screwed for life. i won’t fit into any organization – i’m too rebellious for that. blah blah…

Some answers

i hate my job. it is extremely mundane. at least if a small portion of it was non-routine work it would’ve made my days. however, that is not the case to be. i mean, it is a really boring job. and i’m not helped by the systems (i’m repeating myself) or the lack of it at JPM. well, i’m really pissed and it’s very very unlikely i’m going to come back if offered.

And some positives

no regrets… has been probably the 2 months of my life where the learning per minute has been maximum… on a lot of fronts… interest rate swaps… functioning of an investment bank… industry in general (my only other ‘industry exposure’ has been at a research lab)… about life in London…

Even the best work couldn’t help it seems

however, when you start hating a place, even the best work that is given to you would be boring. normally i would have jumped at the opportunity to read this kind of stuff. but now i find it boring. it’s something like if the pitch is bad, even a wicketkeeper can turn the ball square. alternately, if you don’t like the ambience in a restaurant, even the most tastiest (i purposely put in the double superlative) food tastes insipid…

I promised to put comments also, but have put only one. Here’s another. Written by the one and only Chiru.

please get a ppo and get out of placements. You are a serious threat to all of us. If u don’t get this ppo, u will take away somebody else’s job and he/she will in turn take some other’s job… you should not be allowed to sit for placements..

And then there was the big thing

contrary to all my expectations, i was offered a job by JP Morgan today. i have been offered in the exotic derivatives trading team (different from what i’m doing right now).

That solicited ‘congrats’ messages from various quarters. maybe the post that attracted the maximum number of comments. And this paragraph I wrote in my last post there sums up the internship

it is the end of one of the most interesting chapters of my life. a period of ten weeks where (as i’ve said before) my ‘learning density’ has been maximum. of course there have been those momeents of frustration, such as when i had to check if the ‘middle office’ had done it’s job properly. some moments of elation – climbing the white cliffs at the isle of wight and watching ‘les miseables’ (i still don’t know how to pronounce the name) and our first ever IIMB outing to canterbury. there have been moments of excitement at office – sometimes when the guy next to me has had me calculating stuff for him as he was closing a deal. when i read about some exotic structures. and sometimes it’s been utter boredom – my weeks 6 and 7 where i did nothign but check mail every minute for non-existent new mail.

And the story won’t be complete without this

So we shall confine ourselves to people who are either stud or fighter. For a start, I guess we need to define the terms. Let me find a way to define them without sounding arrogant (obviously I’m in one of these two categories so I’m biased towards that so getting unbiased definitions of both is tough).

Ok so studs are people who have the knack of finding the easy way out. Who have the ability/knack of figuring out the shortest/easiest path. Who have some god-given ability to do things quicker than others, or the ability to get their work done by others, and the like. You get the drift right? They are basically smart people who can do things more easily than others.

Fighters are those who realize that they don’t have the innate studness that studs have. However, they are extremely ambitious and don’t want to be left behind because of the lack of studness. And they try to make up for it by sheer hard work. They regularly burn the midnight oil, cut down on their “other activities” and focus on the task at hand. And by putting maajor fight (as we say in IITese), they make it.

So on one hand you have the studs who have managed to take the smart way out all their lives. Not that they don’t work, but they do what some people call “smart work”. And on the other you have the fighters. Not as gifted, but with the ability to work like the devil. And with tremendous focus and determination.

Ok so the point is that for you to have a good time at work, you and your boss need to belong to the same category. The basic thing is that every boss assumes everyone is like him. So if he is a stud, he will assume that everyone reporting to him is also a stud. And expect them to work fast, be creative, get new ideas etc. And will put pressure on the subordinate in this manner.

On the other hand, a fighter boss assumes that the subordinates are all fighters. Will expect them to put extremely long hours (which studs are incapable of doing), discourage short cuts (which is what studs live by), are extremely organized and meticulous and even if the subordinate shows off some studness by doing something quickly, the fighter boss refuses to get impressed. The fighter also grows up to measure everything in terms of effort. It’s all about the group coming together and going through a process for him. If you find a short cut to do something, you aren’t putting enough effort.

The same can be extended to the organization level also. You have stud organizations, and fighter organizations, and the characteristic of an organization depend on the characteristics of its founders, its management, and its employees. Once again, a stud would be better off working for a stud organization and similarly with fighters. Corporate finance division (the inside the wall part) of an investment bank is a good example of a fighter organization. Extremely long hours, tedious work requiring loads of concentration (I know of people spending hours making sure all the full stops are in place in a presentation), not much scope for short cuts or easy way out. If you are working for one such, you better be a fighter, or become a fighter, or find yourself a new job!

The shiva purana (correct me if i’m wrong – not sure which text it is) gives us an excellent example of studs and fighters, when Shiva and Parvati ask their kids to go round the world. Subramanya, the eternal fighter, quickly jumps on his peacock and slavedrives it to go round the earth as soon as possible (don’t you pity the poor peacock?). Ganesha, the stud, just convinces his parents that they are his world and goes round them (lucky rat!).

Yesterday’s business standard contains an excellent op-ed on this topic of fighter bosses. Do read it.

The basic concept is that personal life is like the foundation of the building; work life is like the the ground floor and everything else (such as hobbies and extra currics) comes after that (and they can be side by side). Ok so building is a bad analogy. I’ll say tree. Personal life is like the roots of the tree. Professional life is like the trunk and everything else are branches.

Now, if the roots of a tree are weak or diseased, no matter how strong the trunk and branches are, the tree is likely to collapse. Hence, the basic thing required for a decent life is a good personal life. There should be no problems on the domestic front. No breakups, no domestic fights, no bad standard of living, no poverty, etc. On the other hand, an extremely strong root doesn’t help much. It is just that the root needs to be “strong enough” that’s all. So no stable personal life, no happiness.

Next comes the trunk. Again, bad trunk implies tree collapses. Bad professional life can again be a recipe for disaster. If you are working really long hours or you don’t like your work or if there is too much pressure or you are undergoing a phase of no confidence, the “tree” collapses. Strong branches or good fruit just can’t help. Again, it’s not like you need the strongest trunk in the world. All you need is a “good” trunk. And again i’m talking of necessary but not sufficient condition for happiness. So unstable professional life means no happiness!

Now come the branches, which as I described earlier represent hobbies or extra curricular activities. For a start, they are dispensable. A bad branch doesn’t mean the tree will fall. On the other hand, a good flowering branch brings great joy to the tree (assuming a strong root and trunk of course). Given that I consider quizzing as a hobby, if my root and trunk were “at least normal”, qualifying for the finals of the Landmark Quiz would have brought immense happiness. However, doing badly there wouldn’t have affected my life that much. An alternative here is the coconut tree model – in case you have a super strong trunk, you don’t need any branches for happiness. However, considering that palms constitute a small number of all trees can tell us how many jobs out there can provide happiness on their own!

During my NED phase earlier this month, a lot of people advised me to restart old hobbies, or take up new ones. They asked me to quiz more, write more, re-start violin classes, and maybe even learn the guitar. Basic thing was they were asking me to grow more branches. Excellent suggestion, only if the problem is a “just stable root” and “just stable trunk” and no branches. For example, qualifying in the Landmark Quiz was a matter of great pride, and provided lots of kicks. However, the next two days at work were a nightmare! Productivity was near zero! I hope you are getting the drift.

In this context, I think it is pertinent to mention a concept that

bjbalaji

has proposed – the “CMP job”. Since bj has stopped blogging, I might as well explain it. CMP, in the hoary traditions of Indian politics, stands for Common Minimum Program. The basic concept is that no single job can provide you everything you want – good work, good pay. good work life balance, blah blah. So what you do is to chart out your minimum requirements, which becomes the “common minimum program” for the job. And find a job which offers all these (they are easier to come by). Now, this just promises stability, and not any spikes. It is like an ordinary tree with a just about stable trunk and no branches. And for the spikes, you will have to grow branches. Take up hobbies and extracurricular activities. And get the spikes out of that, and that will bring happiness.

To summarize, necessary conditions for happiness include a stable personal life and stable professional life. However, they may not be sufficient, and have to be supplemented by hobbies and extra curricular activities. However, there is a possibility that a great professional life could be a sufficient condition for happiness, but that is only in exceptional circumstances.

Postscript

A proven way of getting out of a no confidence crisis is by bribing people from Jharkhand! Kodhi, if people follow my advice, you can expect to get rich soon.

I have been working on one such for the last six months. The first draft came out in early june. the inspiration for the story comes from a personal experience of course. The characters in the story are BASED ON real people. The story itself, though, is a work of fiction and any resemblance it bears to any real incident(s) is unintended and purely coincidental. I begin.

She took my hand in hers and started gently stroking my fingers. One by one. Starting from my pinky, all the way to my thumb. The time she spent with each of them would put an art movie to shame. Her stubby, yet artistic, fingers trying to connect with my long, slender, clumsy ones. Exuding the kind of warmth I had hitherto felt only in my parents’ laps.

Elsewhere, another couple was trying to connect. Her soft kohl-lined eyes and my small sunken ones were trying to get past the barriers posed by my anti-reflective-coated glasses and her contact lenses. It was about a year since they had last made love, after which they had been cruelly shut out of the relationship thanks to that treacherous invention called telephone. It was much harder than they had thought. Months of exclusion had taught them to stare into emptiness whenever the rest of us connected.

My other hand quietly reached for the bag I had left in the back-seat of my car. Yes, it was still there. A pair of crystal-studded ear-rings – Swarovski. I had won it as part of my literary exploits at college, and mom had taken it away saying she’d give it to me once I found the girl of my dreams. It had taken a whole morning and afternoon of begging and pleading and making up stories to get hold of the thing.

She was similarly prepared. “I have brought this special gift for you, something really close to my heart”, she had announced as soon as she had got into the car. “I’ll give it to you later in the afternoon, when the sun beats down on us at the perfect angle”.

This date was the culmination of a year-long long-distance relationship. We had met a year before, and just couldn’t have enough of each other. That time round, our eyes had created jugalbandi, with our voices merely providing accompaniment. Can’t recall a more blissful two hours. “We’ll meet again soon”, we had promised, but then the forces conspired to keep us in different cities for a whole year.

The evaluation process began soon enough, as we prepared to make the final push. I started mentally filling up the Likert scales that I had prepared for the purpose, and I could sense that she was also doing something similar. It was the first time for both of us. Soon our faculties started cribbing ? maybe too much effort was going into the form filling. The jugalbandi was beginning to go besura, but the musicians didn?t find enough processor time to make amends.

?The flow of thought is just not there. I?m forcing myself to talk to him?, she must?ve thought.

?Last time she seemed so interesting. Don?t know what has happened to her today?, reckoned I.

“Both of us suffer from frequent and violent mood swings. Not good to make babies together”.

“We are both extremely arrogant and individualistic. She wants me to make too many compromises, not sure if I?m prepared to do that?

?No, no, this is not going as planned. Is he the same person I met last year??

?We don?t seem to be connecting at all. Whatever happened to all our beautiful chemistry??

?No. I don?t think this is going to work out?.

?No way will we be able to make this relationship work?.

?I think it?s all over?

?I think it?s all over?

?It?s all over?

?It?s all over?

?

Four hours spent in a daze. Neither coffee nor a long drive through Bangalore’s maddening traffic can help. Our eyes have finally managed to connect, and are just staring into each other, looking for emptiness. My left hand sits limp between her palms, while my right tries to conjure a beat on the steering wheel. The next half hour is spent comforting each other, trying to convince ourselves we’ll find replacements soon enough. She is forced to hold back her tears lest her lenses and make-up are disturbed. I have no such constraints.

Shortly, we drive to her place. The crystal ear-rings are still snug in my bag (mom will have to endure another long explanation). The notebook with her most personal poetry remains in hers. A short kiss and a promise to keep in touch, and I drive away into the sunset. Alone.

It has happened once again. My latest love affair was still-born today. Not a word said, nothing written. Just an avalanche of thoughts, and it was all over. There is still the twinkle in her eyes; her voice is as soft and sensuous as over; I don?t recall her looking more beautiful ? but she is not mine anymore. Something has gone wrong somewhere.

Hope you remember me. We had seen each other briefly during the Landmark Quiz at Bangalore on November 1st this year. The first time I saw you outside the auditorium, when I was waiting to be let in. For the first time in many years (don’t know how many), my heart skipped a beat when I saw someone. I must say you look breathtaking. Gorgeous. And add to that you attend quizzes! Couldn’t be better!

Briefly forgot all about you as i cribbed to Dushyanth about our juniors at IIMB. Then got to the task at hand and cracked the prelims. You were still out of sight, out of mind. And then I qualified for the finals. Was part of the team “vidi vici veni” (or some such stupid thing Dushyanth had come up with). Team 8.

I clearly remember that you were sitting in the second row close to where I was on stage. Remember establishing eye contact with you during the course of the quiz and maybe exchanging a smile or two while I was on stage. For the length of the finals I was up there, I drew my inspiration from you.

Then shit happened. Derek, as is his wont, chucked us out of the finals mid-way through the quiz. I remember hopping off stage and parking myself in the second row, a few seats away from you. We were separated by some guy who’d accompanied you, Shamanth and aadisht. The eye contact continued. I clearly remember us exchanging a few more smiles for the rest of the quiz. I also remember explaining a couple of answers to you. All the pain of not having done well in the finals was erased.

Then the quiz ended. I have this idiotic habit of drinking a lot of water, especially when it is provided free. As a result, I had gotten quite pissed off and rushed to the men’s room. By the time I emerged, you were gone. Lost in the madding crowd. Lost forever?

____ (I don’t even know your name), if you are reading this (I sincerely hope you are), please drop in a comment with contact details. It is after more than a year that I have had a crush on someone. And it would be really tragic if the story I have narrated above didn’t have a continuation.

Lots of love,
Karthik

According to Vinod, rental can be described as a process where a girl and a guy get really close to each other (as close as two people who are gf-bf) but both know that there is no chance of a permanent settlement. Typically at least one of them is already committed, which helps clearly define the terms of the contract.

Have seen quite a few instances of such rentals here in IIMB. First instance I saw was between a classmate with a bf abroad and a senior with a gf in bombay. Then, this other classmate, with a bf in Delhi, has entered into rental agreements with not one but THREE guys in my class. And now that all three of them are out on exchange, she’s entered into a short-term contract with a FOURTH guy. Mahabharata rocks!

The most weird thing i’ve seen with this female who’s actually reasonably close to me. She has an on-campus bf and they’re going really strong. Now, for the past month he was busy organizing a fest and she decided to take his best friend on rent!

For an ‘outsider’ who has never entered this kind of contracts, it seems really funny. But i guess there must be some logic to this. Too lazy to figure it out though!

Yeah, and I think a few people I’ve referred to in this post might be reading this. Researching armor.