Life and Times of a Management Trainee in Sales & Marketing

Hello ppl,

Well it has been over 5 months since I passed out of college and joined my company as a Management Trainee in a Sales and Marketing role for a home grown FMCG.

I would like to highlight the life of an “MT” with the help of a conversation held with a few of my friends.

Before that, I would like to mention that the following conversation is totally a figment of my imagination and though some parts of it are true..most of it is imaginary and though confirms to reality deals with no one in particular as such.

Let me introduce you to the characters of the conversation:

Gogo: That’s me and I am employed with a FMCG in Sales and Marketing, currently undergoing a stint @ Mysore and whenever time permits…and even when it doesn’t, I rush to Bangalore.

Bodo: The character is employed with a B2B marketing firm in Bangalore.

Vikiya: A character employed with a leading IT firm in the role of Finance..oops IT..oops..Consulting may be… in Bangalore.

Kapoor:  A character employed with a telecom major in the field of marketing in Bangalore.

Karan: A character who has passed out from the same b-school as the above but has opted out of placements to start his own firm in Bangalore.

One important convention for the most integral expletives :

‘#’refers to Bhen%^od

‘G’: G#$nd

So here it goes:

As usual, Gogo rushes off to Bangalore whenever possible and even though his job requires him to work 6 days a week, he has done some “setting” with his depot manager @ Mysore (finally showing some management skills) and takes an off on every Saturday to rush to Blore.

The context is post one such booze sessions that all of these have had:

Gogo: # saala life kya ho gya hai #...# depot mein 5 din G ghisne ke baad # kuch mann hi nahi karta hai karne ko.

Bodo: (With half his eyes closed and trying everything under the sun to open them) # G mara gaya hai #...kya karein saala…ajeeb ho gaya hai life #

Gogo: Saala u r atleast blessed to be in Blore…mera soch # Mysore mein..# kya bhaasha bolte hain # kuch samajh nahi aata…aur phir bhi kaam karna padta hai…# PG mein reh raha hoon #..room mate ka chehra dekhte hi KLPD ho jata hai…maa kasam..kya din aa gaye hain

Bodo: Abe office ka kya scene hai…koi bandi pata le…time pass ho jayega

Gogo: # bandi ka naam mat le…1 hi bandi hai office mein..# naam hai “Chandra Kala”…# jaisa naam waise lakshan…# frustration ki seema paar ho gayi hai

Bodo: # sahi mein…kya soch ke Marketing kiye the…saala yeh din dekhna padega….# pata hai..college ne bigaad diya saala..JLT karwa karwa ke…kutta bana diya…saala college mein hi aisa hona chahiye tha humare saath…# tab akal aati..# din mein 1 time khaana cancel karwate…aur roz shaheed nagar ka chakkar lagwana chahiye tha…# tab pata chalta Sales kya cheez hai…

Gogo: # tu yeh sab chod..mere dad tto bolte hain..kyun itna padha likha..jab bada ho ke..ghoom ghoom kar sabun tel bechna hi tha

Kapoor Interrupts,,,: To gogo: # tu kam se kam FMCG mein hai…tera future bright hai.

Bodo: # mera bhi yahi haal hai…saala..dar badar ki thokre kha kar..ghar lautna padta hai..baar baar yehi khayal aata hai..ki saala aaraam wala job chun lena chahiye tha…# G mara raha hoon main yahan par…sab ajeeb lag raha hai

Vikiya in the mean while…has given no shit to the conversation and is in his own world.

Gogo to Vikiya: abe tera kya scene hai…describe ur day in the office…

Vikiya: Kuch nahi #..koi kaam nahi hai mera..10 baje uthte hain..11 baje tak office..phir sutta maarne nikalte hain..phir thoda random net surf karte hain…phir lunch…phir sochte hain kya kiya jaye…isi tarah time pass karte hain…aur 4-5 bajte hi office se nikal jate hain.

(Ladies and Gentlemen…FYI Vikiya earns atleast 30 grands more than what Bodo or Gogo earn per month)

Hearing this..Gogo goes berserk

Gogo: # vikiya…#..koi openings hain kya teri company mein

Kapoor: # Gogo..IT mein kaam karega…kuch tto sharam kar

Bodo: # Life ajeeb ho gaya hai kuch nahi samajh aa raha..kabhi kabhi lagta hai..# Karan ya Shenai kitne khush hain…life apne terms pe jee rahe hain…# mereko bhi aisi life jeena hai..# Gogo..kuch ghapla karte hain be..Land scams etc etc..aur paisa kama ke kuch dhandha shuru karte hain be

Gogo: haan be…frustrate ho gya hoon #..depot stint ke name pe Mysore bhej diya hai…# lunch mein 6 rs ki thali khata hoon…dinner ka pata nahi….aur # har din 20 baar Kannada Gothilla bolna padta hai….# the other day sumbody asked me my name…and I replied..Kannada Gothilla

Karan: Guys..I offer you equity in my firm…come and join me…lets do sumthing…

Gogo: # I wish I had a cushion in my life the way u have…# I assure..I would have resigned this very moment…

Kapoor: # gogo…tera future to bright hai…tu FMCG mein hai

Bodo: # sab materialistic hai bhai….sab kuch…mereko yeh kaam nahi karna bhai..koi bacha lo…# kal  Monday hai…phir se wohi kuttagiri shuru

Gogo: # chup kar..abhi 2 baj rahe hain…mujhe subah 6 baje ki train pakad ke Mysore jana hai..# kutta ban gaya hoon

Kapoor: Gogo..tu kyun tension le raha hai…Tu FMCG mein hai…tera future bright hai..

Gogo: Maa behen ek kar doonga…phir se kisine yeh sentence bola tto…# jise apna dukhda sunao…ek hi baat bolta hai..”Tu FMCG mein hai…tension math le”…# kya mazaak hai.

By this time.Vikiya and Karan have slept already…and others also doze off..leaving Gogo wondering..whether he should actually get up @ 6 in the morning to catch his train to Mysore.

Beyond the last blue mountain

hi friends,

Beyond the last blue mountain

Sometimes it is too difficult and sometimes completely worthless

Still with a ray of hope..he decides to keep giving it a try

Turning and twisting till a thought strikes him, leaving him spell bound
 “Who the fuck wants to sleep when I can see you with my eyes wide open”

A flicker of an eyelid back, he used to own her, playing a pauper to his princess

In no time, the joy of being around has been superseded by a world full of responsibilities

With a quest to find herself, things have taken a different turn this time around

Will it matter then when she loses him having herself found

It was characteristic of him to keep fighting and keep chasing his dreams

After all he had dreamt an entire paradise out of their lives

But the cracks were too immense to resurrect with the glimmer of hope gone

Accepting his fate, he set out on a different journey altogether

Still at times he finds the wind blowing the other way

Reminiscent of memories from the past

Making him long things that won’t ever last

And then it becomes unbearably tough to bear the pain

Because he has seen what lies beyond the last blue mountain.

Cheers

Nishit

Quizzing : My First Love

Hello all,

Yah it has been a long long break since I last posted something…and in the mean while a lot of things happened…a lot of things changed..I became a post-graduate…left my college and the 2 most awesome years of my life behind..and here I am a couple of weeks away from stepping into the corporate world..which shall be my second act into it.

Today I shall talk about Quizzing, practically the only religion that I follow. For everyone of us there is something that excites us, inspires us, keeps us going…at various stages of life we have something that plays that role for us in our lives….as a kid a bar of chocolate plays the role…as a teenager…sports play that role…Quizzing has played that role for me ever since I dived into the fascinating & unending world of Quzizing.

I owe it greatly to my school (St. Mary’s Convent School, Jharsuguda) and more specifically to my G.K Teacher in standard-7, Mr. Asit Panigrahi for it was he who introduced me into the world of quizzing. He used to discuss current affairs with me every day and that propelled into me a habit of reading a Newspaper every day. The privilege of having a half an hour chat with him was enough of a motivation to keep me going. Soon I started loving it. The 2^nd most important thing to have happened to me at that age was that one day I was just flipping the channels of my TV and suddenly spotted a Quiz show being hosted in one of the channels…I watched the complete show and to my utter surprise, I knew the answers to most of the questions..From that day onwards, Mr. Derek O Brien became my role model…and Bournvita Qujz Contest became my ulterior motive.

Then one day, a strange thing happened..NIIT came to our school to select a team for some inter-school Quiz Competition that they were to organize. It was then that I realized how many more such kids were there like me..who wanted to participate…the competition was intense..They first conducted a written G.K test to select 12 people..and randomly formed 6 teams of 2 each. The team winning the quiz that was to be followed, was to represent the school for the inter-school thing. I was delighted to be in one of the teams. But we lost the quiz that followed. We came runners-up. Ofcourse we got a pat on our backs for coming this far and a round of applause from the crowd. That was not to satiate me. As finalists of the intra-school quiz, we received invites for the inter-school quiz that was to be conducted. I, very religiously, went to the venue as if we were going to be one of the teams on stage. I chose the first row in the audience to park myself and was waiting for the action to begin…with a hope that I am not going to leave any question that passes to the audience. Destiny had it that, one of the teams coming from a nearby town could not make it to the venue for some reason. The organisors were in a fix as to what to do now. I don’t know what struck me. I got up and went and spoke to the Quizmaster and requested him, literally begged him to allow me to fill that missing team’s gap. They could have gone ahead with one team less but the desperation on my face moved the quizmaster. He asked me if I has a team-mate with me, I replied saying Yes (though I still had to figure out who that team-mate would be). Then he okayed my idea. I rushed into the audience segment and requested a guy from my school to become my team mate. After a lot of convincing, the guy agreed.

I remember each and every moment of that quiz. I was overjoyed. We won that quiz by a huge margin, thumping a tough team which was tipped as a favourite. The audience gave us a standing ovation when the quiz master revealed how we had made it into the stage. The Quiz master then came and hugged me…and surprised by my zeal and passion, whispered something to me..which I can never forget..”Keep Walking” were the words he said.

That was my first win in Quizzing...those days I used to have a bi-cycle..Only I know how speedily I rode the bicycle back home to show the cup that I had won to my parents.

That day onwards, it was no looking back for me. Quizzing, in a way, has become the motive of my life. I owe so much to Quizzing. It taught me to face my ecstasies and agonies alike..taught me to deal with the intense competitive world out there…and more importantly became a facet of my life.

Since that day I have kept walking…religiously, honestly and passionately…and even till date the sight of a question mark excites, inspires and keeps me going.

Adieu for now

Capt Krunch a.k.a Nishit

Stop, Look and See

Hello,

It has certainly been quite a while since I have been active on the blogging front. Blame it on my curriculum or my way of living. Perhaps it is aptly said that B-Schools are breeding grounds for break-ups and if u have survived one then there can be only 2 implications: either your love is strong enough to place you in the same bracket as Romeo-Juliet or weak enough that you don't give a damn about it...both cases are weird to me. Whatever it is I have nothing to do with it and quite evidently i have digressed right at the beginning of this post. Lets shrug off these trivial things.

The Title of this post has been inspired from a Ruskin Bond chapter that I had studied in my standard 8th, ICSE. Well do not jump the gun by calling me a moron for remembering a rain-drops-falling-on-a-corrugated-tin-roof Ruskin Bond chapter. It somehow struck me when i woke up this morning and this has made me blog today.

Past couple of months have been crazy and suddenly this morning i get up with a thought that we have precisely 4 more months before we pass out with flying colours (never understood this goddamn phrase in my 23 year life till now) and become a corporate slave. It is then that I made ammends. The thought of leaving the campus, friends and sacrificing the freedom we enjoy here completely blows me away so i will stay away from discussing it. What is more important is to hold oneself back for a while in this time-poor life of ours and realise a few things. For me it has always been a comparision with the objectives I had set for myself before joining this college and see how much I have been able to fill the pot. Before joining this place, I had always thought of MBA as a great value addition in one's life both in an economical as well as spiritual point of views. It certainly is a great value add but more off the class than in it. It is what you learn from colleagues, friends, circumstances, fire-in-their-ass profs, non-sensical deadlines and unjust timelines etc. that counts.

I, as a matter of fact, find myself struggling to satiate myself when it comes to acquiring the gyaan that the textbooks flaunt or most of the profs teach. Well thats an ongoing process and I believe (an optimistic asshole that I am) I shall manage to do well enough to put myself decently. An element that I have been fairly satisfied with myself is being able to connect well with people around me. That quotient has pleased me right from the time I have been into this campus. The ability to deal with people, in most cases, is the key to a successful career in management (This shall soon be corroborated when a jobless American comes up with a book stating this and the entire intelligentsia will go gung-ho about it as if it was something as elementary as newton's laws). And this satisfaction, I think, is being projected today because last night i slept as a satisfied soul..satisfied with our efforts of..making a bunch of diverse thinking and unlike individuals come together as a team and curtail the distances among them. That moment of truth when i saw all of them rejoice..made the young boy in me jump out of jubilation...accentuating yet another intance where I have been happy with my ability to deal well with people may be.

A lot is in stake in the next 10-15 days...a prelim for a management game to be made, 2 online Quizzes to be prepared and publicity to be handled, preparations for the PPI which happens just before our college's fest. The next couple of weeks might as well decide a lot as to what is in store for me in the future. Right now just killing time and got reminded of a great quote which has enabled me to go my own way at things, beating several apprehensions:

"Those who danced, seemed to be insane to those who could not hear the music"

Cheers

Nishit

Figments of My Imagination

hello,

My midterms were on the verge and I had screwed up big time till then as far as my marks(Class Tests) were concerned....but nevertheless...discovered the poet in me that day.

Situation: FIM class was going on....and everything was going overhead...and the commerce guys were nodding their heads as if the Prof was teaching 1+1=2. Not finding anything interesting to do...I suddenly realised that my adrenaline levels were down because of the usual poor sleep i had had the night(morning) before....so I took the generous decision of going to sleep even though I was stupid enough to sit in the 3rd row.....Invariably just like othr classes...the Prof caught me and asked me to go wash my face and come.
I did tht and came back....now I had the dreadful task of attending the lecture(40 more minutes were left)...with all my senses wide awake....Suddenly I started writing..........

(by the way FIM stands for Finacial Institutions and Markets for the less/more privileged who haven't had a shot at it)

Here it goes: It is titled "FIGMENTS OF MY IMAGINATION"

Among the banks, big and small,
I want to say shit and fuck them all.
The class has been dead and awefully boring,
At times we find the Prof. sulking.

Then come the mighty stock exchanges,
Selling Stocks and bonds like oranges.
But pardon me they have big brothers,
SEBI and RBI are like dung in the feathers.

He looks like a prince who holds his head high,
And God knows why does he look at the sky.
At times we fiddle and kick his ass,
No No, it isnt the Prof. but Arun of my class.

The term is over and the marks come out,
Ocassional scare covers me round about.
I flunk big time and fuck my grades,
My Poem sucks and so does everything else.

My dawn arrives as soon as I sleep,
Ending my freedom with the alarm's beep.
I rush to the class amidst humour and tension,
Wondering whether these are facts or figments of my imagination..........

Adieu,
Nishit

I need serenity....

Alright…I kno it has been like an epoch since I had last posted here.better late than never. Couldn’t resist the urge of posting today/night…I dnt know wat to call this time of the day…its like 5:14 am and still I refuse to call it day since sleep follows this post….Yeah…I have returned to campus..which is an absolute bliss sans the seniors who I had bonded like a family….the junis have taken their place but only on the records…thrs still a long way to go for it to happen….
Anyways…was off to Bombay/Bangalore/Hyderabad for my summers..did it @ LOreal…burnt sum calories..on the streets of Blore and Hyderabad…and finished the summers with a decent presentation @ Bombay….enjoyed a lot in the experience though….returned to campus a fortnight back…and the strings of nightouts and academic loads have already started taking a toll….
Its raining out here in bbsr….it gets really amazing in the monsoon…especially wen u r awake @ 5 in the morning and the clouds jst pour it on u….nature at its best…

Sleep has ditched me for long now
To give me some more time to myself
But the more I give it to myself
The more cynical I become

There are ups and downs
and there are crests and troughs
Its becoming such a whirlpool
From which I shall never emerge
And if at all I do,
I ll hav to lose myself and become new

Right now no more thoughts come to my mind….just getting used to becoming comfortably numb….numb with the void tht exists deep within and questions everytime I lay on my bed and look at the scary ceiling.

Shall keep u updated regularly henceforth…okay I ll atleast try to.

Cheers n Adieu

The Cucumber Seller Of Chennai By Subroto Bagchi

hello all,

The following is an article about a real-life incident which happened with Subroto Bagchi.

Read and feel blessed....

(November 1, 2004)

"At peace with himself and with the world rushing past, this man was dressed in poverty. But in his presence, it was I who felt poor "

On a hot July day, my colleague Moses and I were trying to locate our car on Chennai’s Nungambakkam High Road in front of Nalli Silks when I saw a roadside cart laden with cucumbers. The seller was vacantly gazing at passersby. Clad in a white shirt and a dhoti worn in the traditional Chennai style, he had long hair and an unkempt beard. I did not know Tamil, and asked Moses to find out the price. One rupee apiece, came the reply.

We wanted one piece each. The cucumber seller began deftly slicing them to put salt and the delectable red chilly powder on the neat halves. As we bit into the cucumber, I asked Moses to tell him that his pricing was too low, and that he should raise it. Moses conveyed this. The seller shook his head, and replied that “customer satisfaction” is more important than extra profit. The words ‘customer satisfaction’ were in English. I gulped my patronising comment. At this time, Moses excused himself to find our car. After a few moments, the seller asked me in English where I was from. From Bangalore, I replied. What follows here is our conversation. His statements are highlighted.

Isn’t the Karnataka budget due to be presented tomorrow? Yes, that is true. Living in Karnataka, it was easy for me to concur on this.

I wonder how the governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will ever solve the water-sharing problem. Man cannot solve this problem. It has to be God. After all, it is an issue of how much rain is going to fall! I nodded. I was not sure if I had a view at all.

See the way the monsoon is progressing. It does not look good. The progress of the rains is leaving a ‘V’ of a dry patch as the clouds move north. Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and the states up north will have problems. Politicians are the ones who use such problems to create a divide among people. They always do it. They use water, religion, anything they can, to create a divide. Look at the way Amarinder Singh of Punjab is taking a stand. I looked at him, in part admiration and part disbelief.

You’re from Bangalore. Things are going well for you folks. But I don’t understand how people with shady business interests can become representatives of public opinion there. It was part complaint and part observation.

At this point, a fellow peddler arrived — helped himself to some of the cucumber, and the two had a quick conversation on some issue I did not understand. After the other person left, I asked him if selling cucumber was his full-time vocation. He told me that right now it was. Earlier, he sold lottery tickets, the trading of which has since been banned. As a result he had to switch his business to selling cucumbers on the wheeled cart. No complaints and no issues. Meaning to engage him further, I asked him his religion. This drew an instant look of disappointment from him: “Sir, I am an Indian. That is my religion. In my eyes, all people are equal, and it does not matter to me at all.”

The clarity of his response and his conviction took me completely by surprise. His net worth was probably equal to his day’s turnover. The newspaper and magazines he reads, to keep abreast of things, wipe off the disposable income he generates. Bare feet on this busy, dusty road, he sold a low-value, perishable product from a rickety cart. At peace with himself and with the world rushing past, this man was dressed in poverty. But in his presence, it was I who felt poor.

We are not complete if we are not connected. It is only when we are connected that things make sense. Only when things make sense, we can form an opinion. Standing there, I wondered how many in the corporate world know who the chief minister of Punjab is, and about the progress of the monsoon! How many have an informed view on river water politics and budget proceedings of another state.

Soon, Moses appeared with our car. It was time for me to go. I shook hands with the nameless cucumber seller of Chennai. Actually, I wanted to touch his feet.