Month: October 2006

Guide to Socialising

update: I met a couple of ppl appreciative of my blog and I like that! but here is my official position for this year: I intend to get it on with books and studies at INSEAD – nothing else. So I wont be blogging much.

First off, I am unwillingly posting this blog. One of my friends said to me “HG, you are on your way to become a great consultant, will you please analyze why desis don’t seem to get it on with ppl?”. In a weird way, he did make sense. Nevertheless, I intend to keep this short and sweet. Actually the heading should have read “for Desis” in the end. But I recon some of my advise would be applicable to many other communities (of FOBs) as well. You as a reader will probably have the following questions (in the following order). Here are my answers:

“Genius, what credibility do you have (concerning the topic) ?”
Having lived in the US for about 5 years, I have mostly used my time to learn the culture. The culture, in brief, is all about socialising. I was a part time DJ in Dallas (I actually just helped setup equipment and changed tracks when the main DJ went out for a smoke) and got to meet some of the most wonderful ppl.

“How are your experiences relevant to what I want?”
My experiences are not relevant to you if you fall into one of these categories:
(a) You are a desi nerd whose idea of outing is going for groceries to the Indian store
(b) You are happy dating your computer
(c) You linger around other desis and talk to your male friends hours in a row. I am an ardent follower of Friedman and his “The World is Flat” theory. I think the only other “force” he omitted to mention was the force of friendship between people of different races.

“Ok, I can barely wait, what were you going to say?”
First, please burn your beliefs – walking with your stomach out, chewing with your mouth open, feeling up your male friends, smelling like onions, staring at body parts, talking loudly on the phone, etc – is not sexy in the global context.

Second, join some kind of community classes or activities…that way you will not only learn a lot about the local culture but also meet terrific ppl. If you are really in a hurry, join the alcoholic anonymous groups – these groups always have ppl looking for a shoulder to cry on. Don’t take my word for this one – I’ve heard this from someone.

Also, I guess, what I am saying is that “let ppl speak” and be a good listener. Read this:
http://eteraz.wordpress.com/2006/08/04/

Well, I did not mean this to be a very long post. I just wrote this quickly in a couple of minutes. To give you last words of advice: be true to yourself – contrary to what others think, I don’t believe its important to know in advance what you want out of your relationships with friends and family.

 

MBA – A Haven for an Escapist Or A Bigfoot Step to $$$?

Here’s a list of top 3 “eat-shits” in my life:

1. Obliging a complete moron with status reports, etc. Because he happens to control 15% of the variable part of my salary
2. My absolute loneliness. Coupled with growing frustration (these are related so I will not have separate points for each)
3. The fact that I am growing older without enhancing the quality of my life

You, avid reader, obviously identify with the above or at least think “genius-at-large is fecking pathetic” but you are certainly not without a myriad of feelings. So 3 months ago I decided to change my frustrated life. I started working out because one day I saw 2 of the prettiest girls in the gym, as I was walking by. On my second day at the gym, I lost my iPod. Since then, I can’t bear to go towards the gym because it just reminds me of what happened to me when I thought “positive”. “Positive Thinking” is the latest “eat shit” in this world. People should learn to see things for what they are not what they look like when you cover them with icing.

So I tried staying home. I tried getting certified in Project Management Certification. The people at the PMI.org interchanged my first name and last name and 2 weeks into negotiations, they were still not convinced of their mistake. (Added on 31st Aug->) As it turns out, there was a major confusion about my records. The certification is a stringent process which requires you to have managed projects for thousands of hours and also undergo a formal training in PMP. The procedure is organised. And I finally got a green signal to take the exam, that I scheduled for 31st Aug.

INSEAD: To cut the long story short, I got my offer letter today! Now I look at the facts. It’s going to cost me way more than a ferrari. Then, getting a >$200,000 job is not guaranteed. Worse, I’ll have to move from the US, sacrifice my green card.

My life has certainly taken an interesting turn and lets see if I make millions or if I eat more shit.

Why are Stupid People Talkative?

About 20% of you will believe in the title. Other 80% of you reading this post are talkative.

I am a small town guy who found himself in a big town school one day. And before I could say “Wha…Where…?”, I landed in one of the biggest cities in the world, NY. I needed things to slow down so I took a step back and got my boss to transfer me to Chicago. There, I got all the time to do what I always wanted to do. So I googled these keywords:

harvard admitted students class of 2006

And one of the links that showed up on the first page was “A Day in the Life” I was re-directed to this site:

http://www.hbs.edu/mba/studentlife/lwilliamsditl.html

Okay, so I see Les singing “Hallelujah!” to his life in Harvard:

7:00 a.m. The alarm blares. I hit the snooze button.
7:07 a.m. The alarm blares. I hit the snooze button.
7:14 a.m. The alarm blares. I hit the snooze button.

As you can clearly see, the 3 very things that he does even before he wakes up in the morning are done with precision one after another. Lets skim right to 8:30

8:30 a.m. I high-five the cafeteria workers as I navigate through the fresh fruit bar and the English muffin station, grabbing a cup of water and a to-go bag as I dance out of the cafeteria in a frenzy. I was so wrapped up in e-mail this morning that I forgot about my study group review, which began at 8:10 a.m. No worries, I’ll catch them tomorrow.

Like Les says above, why worry about studies at Harvard; I am sure he based his decision on the fact that an alumni of Harvard is the President of our country, and “he is talkative, just like me!”

Okay, readers, lets go to 10:20 a.m. now where Les draws a parallel between a corporate high performer and a professional sportsman! Here, I have no words of praise for Les because his reasoning is flawed. He overlooks the basic fact that the first example talks of Employer-Employee relationship and the parallel he drew (very proudly) was of a Colleague-Colleague relationship.

I was devouring the “Day in the Life” of Les at Harvard when at around 12:00 p.m. my ADD took over and I impulsively closed his blog. Before doing that, I couldn’t help going through the word “grab” in the post. If you do a word search, you will see Les has “grabbed” food articles and weights about 5 times in his “Day in the Life” at Harvard.

An INSEADer’s Point of View

(I had posted this on 11th August. I realised that many who had received admits from INSEAD were trying to make up their mind. I did not want to influence their decision in any way so had withdrawn it…)

Two weeks into spending hours researching INSEAD: its, alumni, philosophy, mission, etc, I can solemnly say “INSEAD is the business school for the world.”

To all future MBAs let me tell you what you will miss out on if you don’t go to INSEAD:

1) Making Friends from Everywhere in the world. My batch has representation from 70+ countries

2) The most diverse professional backgrounds. Every time I go through the “selected students” message board, I come across amazing profiles. For example there is a guy who was a team member of the US 2004 Olympics team. There is also a top model in my class. (I am already sharpening my math skills to be able to help her out)

3) An MBA in a year! It is strange why the “Ivy League” schools are still stuck with 2 year MBAs. Things have picked up since the easy paced days of the Victorian Era. You should he enterprising enough to get it done with your MBA in a year

4) Have I mentioned the fact that though it is considered to be the best “general management” school in the world, it has the best finance professors too

5) INSEAD’s December batches have had comparable placements with the US top 5 – Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, Kelloggs and Chicago

6) You can stop having nightmares about loan sharks following you for the $110,000 that you need for the US top 10. INSEAD will get you a World Class MBA for about $70,000 inclusive of everything. And then you start making $$$ one year early (US Top 10 are all 2 year courses)

7) Your job is not dependent on any economy. If you graduate in a year when US economy is slowing down, you’ve had it unless you are an INSEADer – because companies from all over the world come here

8) And companies that visit US Top 10 also visit INSEAD and pick an almost equal number of folks

9) Female ratio is the lowest in INSEAD. Is this something good? Well, INSEAD selects people on basis of merit rather than to maintain a healthy sex ratio. Then there are 2 schools of thought. One, if you are a guy, you will be less distracted in your studies. Two, if you are a guy then you will make efforts to impress the one female in your group and study harder! If you are a girl, you will be oblivious to what’s going on and you will study harder to catch up with rest of the group

10) Since I want to make this a “10 reasons why” list, I will combine 2 points to make one. INSEAD gives you a fair chance to go to Wharton for 2 months. Second, you have a choice of going to Asia for a part of your course – it has a campus in Singapore too

My ever esteemed readers, the negative part of your thought machinery is saying “How did genius-at-large get through to INSEAD in the first place?” But then I implore you to listen to the fast diminishing positive vibe in your machinery saying “genius-at-large has again lived up to his name; INSEAD must be the best business school in the world but then would it add any value to this already well established consultant of consultants?” (Ok, I admit no one is thinking that)

And to that, my ever humble answer is “Yes, my friend, yes.”