Two down !!

Somewhere around the same time of the year in 2008, a couple of firsts happened in the world of sport. The Indian batting order badly collapsed in its first encounter with mysteryman Ajantha Mendis while Rafael Nadal showed how you don’t need to be God to beat the God to clinch his first Wimbledon. Travelling in Sampoorna Kranti Express from Patna to New Delhi, I missed them both. A couple of days later, on 9th July 2008, I along with 18 “budding (or rather budded)” engineers started my professional career in a two wheeler manufacturing company.
As I write this, there are 13 of us still left in the company, and while this was not something totally anticipated by many back in college, I have indeed managed to be a part of a professional organization for two full years, (even the “professional organization” has managed surviving in my company).

Here are a few excerpts from the first two years of my work life:

1. As per plans, I should have been unemployed by now, reading management at perhaps an IIM. Reading I still am, but the books are not management, they are my 'paths' to management.

2. GETs (Graduate Engineering Trainee) are a royal lot. You can get away with the worst of offences with a simple line- "I am a GET."

3. A fresh engineer (never mind the college) wouldn’t know half as much as a simple bike mechanic.

4. At times I wonder why a worker is paid lesser than me. And then I am told it's my engineering degree. But isn't it that I am just fortunate that my parents could sponsor my education in an engineering college, and the other chap's parents could not, I wonder.

5. At times I even wonder if being educated is a boon or a bane. The labourers at my workplace threaten to stop work in the event of finding conditions not conducive to their requirements. We come across similar situations on numerous occasions, but since we are "educated", we continue to 'manage' ourselves to adjust and work according to demanding circumstances. The rewards.... keep wondering.....

6. In an automobile company, there are many things to life beyond a four-stroke engine. Those things are Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint, and there is not much to life beyond these.

7. To excel at work, you need to excel at Excel first. There are times when you feel Bill Gates is the biggest villian of all times.

8. All you guys out there reading Overdrive and dreaming about automobile engineering, loving automobiles and slogging in an automobile factory are two different things.

9. Some habits remain intact throughout your life. In spite of waking up at 0630 hours everyday for the last two years, I am still not comfortable doing the same, or rather I am just not programmed to get up early in the morning.

10. Never approach a Japanese without data back up.

11. There's a very important two-second unspoken rule at work. When confronted with a problem, you need to come up with a reason within two seconds stating why the problem is not your problem. Fail to do so, and you're dead meat.

12. It's my fucking body and I am not paid for the stupid 5 min morning drill. I JUST DON'T WANNA DO IT.

13. I hate the fact that hungry or not hungry, I am forced to have lunch at the 1235 bell.

14. And finally, no company is bad company (pun intended). It's just that the company is not made for you, or vice-versa.