Month: March 2007

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from H. My previous employer was likely to make him an offer and he wanted my opinion. I started off by telling him “two months into that firm, I decided to quit”. And then went on to tell him why I quit, and the good and bad things about that job.

Finally it was time for him to make a decision. Despite my pleas of “i’ve told you what i’ve to tell you; it’s up to you to decide now”, H wanted my advice. After a couple of minutes of thought we decided that it’s best he “plays it safe” and “accepts the offer”. After all it would be “better than most day one jobs” (yesterday was day zero at IIMB).

Now, I had had a really tough time in that job. It was almost traumatic. Ended up screwing both physical and mental health 😛 And when i quit, I’d taken a vow to “do something horrible to the firm” and “actively negatively campaign against them so that no one joins them next year”!

And all that goes for a toss. The slotting system is supreme. It defines a hierarchy. A commonly accepted hierarchy. And if not anything else, it is “safe” to follow the slotting system. I’m in awe of it!

Another factor was something like “i hated that place, but I shouldn’t deny this guy his chance. Let him go find out for himself”. I think this was the overriding factor as to why I finally told H to take the offer.

I’m also wondeirng how I would’ve reacted had he approached me immediately after i’d quit that job. Maybe i would’ve been angrier then, adn much more against the firm. Maybe I would’ve advised him then to not take it at any cost. Hmmmm…

Yesterday I approach a group of autos at Kundalahalli Gate and find one of them vigorously waving at me. And he is the only one who is willing to just ferry me across the (Marathahalli) bridge so that I can take a bus from the other side. The guy continues smiling as he sets the meter and then says “gottaaita saar?”. My first reaction was that he must be some mad guy and just kept quite. Then he said “IIMB. Hostel. Night Canteen”.

“But what the hell are you doing here driving an auto?”

“Illa saar, alli set aaglilla. Bitbitte. Nimm jotegene bittbitte” (Things didn’t work out there, so I left. Along with you. At the end of last march)

Upon further conversation, Channavel (not sure of the name – saw it on the auto display board and don’t particularly remember it) told me that the IIMB authorities didn’t allow him to continue working two shifts as he had been doing while we were there. They said that he would be allowed to work only one shift and his salary would be halved. No amount of negotiation worked so he left.

“Auto nimmdEna?” (is this auto yours?)

“Howdu saar. Bank financu.” (yes sir, bank finance.)

While on the topic, he never mentioned “saala” (loan) but always said “bank finance”. Maybe for those people, loan is something bad that you take from moneylenders. This was “finance” for him, not a “loan”. And he was bloody proud of it. And he said that even after paying off the EMI, he now earns much more than what he did doing two shifts at the IIMB mess.

It was a short ride – i just needed to get across the bridge, remember – and no sooner than I had gotten into the auto, I had gotten down, paid, bid goodbye and gotten into a Volvo bus. Then suddenly I realized I hadn’t yet placed him in the mess. His face was definitely familiar but where was he in the mess? What was he doing?

Halfway through the bus ride, it dawned on me. There is a shop within the IIMB mess where you get biscuits, chocolates, light snakes, soft drinks, etc. Everyone has an “account” there and whatever you buy gets directly charged to your mess bill. Recently (= towards the end of my stint at IIMB) that “shop” had diversified into making coffee, tea, fruit juice, maggi, etc. And I remember there was one guy who used to be there right from morning till late in the night. Two shifts, now I remember. The guy was a fixture there. And here he was, now, driving an auto!

An annual ritual in IIMB is the “ATF Attack”. ATF standing for “arbit task force” – the group of people who lead the ritual, something like the priests in a temple. Plebians are also allowed to participate, and if they show enough bhakti to the arbit cause, they will also be promoted as priests.

The objective of the ritual is to visit all discussion boards on the IIMB internal messenger (BRacket) and have “arbit conversations” on them. In other words, spam all boards with talk that is totally irrelevant to that particular forum, rendering it useless. An immensely fun exercise, where the fun grows as a linear function of the square of the number of participants!

But what before BRacket, you may ask, since BRacket was founded only in 2003. Dibyo tells me that in those prehistoric days, people used mail instead. The entire ATF converges on the computer center (those days, not everyone owned a comp) and one guy starts by sending a mail to “@IIM”. And soon a series of reply alls meant that people would have immense fun when they opened their mailboxes the next day. However, since profs and admin were also copied on those mails, this had to happen only after the convo!

One of my greatest regrets in IIMB is to have never been part of this esteemed ritual. I don’t recall why two years back. Last year, I chose that particular time to call up woomaan and put blade. And yesterday (yeah, alumni are allowed to participate), I had left my comp in office.

Immense grief happens.