Friday, August 05, 2005

Summers Diary : Contd

Day 4

Brand Re-launch at Marriott. Relaunch of FAL, POCT, PADDOC, and WALP. Figure out these brands yourself. Feel very important and privileged to be part of something so big. Load my bag with free samples.

Day 5

Holiday. Lunch with guide and brand manager of S**f. Very Enjoyable.

Day 6

Day Long meeting with the ASM task force for my project. Am amazed at how everyone is concerned about how much the summer interns should learn. It’s a great heritage, interning here and joining the company. Almost everyone around knows how it feels to be an intern, and they take great pains to make sure our stint is mutually beneficial. The project is planned with a major part of the work allocated to us. A helluva lot of money is riding on this pilot and everything depends on our inputs!!! Most of the ASM’s are women, surrisingly.The company is consciously trying to increase the number of women in the system. Understandable, considering most of their products are oriented towards women and even those that are not are those whose purchasing decisions are made by women. I cannot see a bunch of guys running a L***e, FAL, or even a S****k.

Dinner on the house at Marine plaza. Blow up a cool 9 grand. Delectable desserts. Try to walk a bit down Marine drive before catching a cab back home to burn away some of the guilt.J

Words of wisdom from my guide, whom I have quite come to like.

“You can have a job that involves your mind, your body and soul. But this is the only one that involves your b***s.”


Day 7

Holiday. Sleep most of the time, go to Juhu Beach in the evening with dad. Convince him that traveling by locals will not kill him

Day 8

Watched with pain and agony with the entire nation the Indian team botch up yet another series. Nariman point in the evening.

Day 9

Public holiday but went on the sales stint.

This wholesale market in the heart of Bombay. Null bazaar.

Amaaaazing experience, but to be fair to the salesman, only for a week or two. The dude’s been doing this for 12 years and I can only feel for him. Makes some of us who quit plush jobs in air-conditioned comfort, because it wasn’t “challenging” or “stimulating” look like a bunch of spoilt brats.

Day 10

Sales stint in Buleshwar. Downmarket are. This time with the chemist’s outlet.

Chemists in Bombay are by and large less organized, but have not explored the entire city, to be fair to them.

Day 40

Well, day 10 is all I got to till I could sit back and maintain my diary everyday. Today is day 40, I am mostly done with the initial study, reports and recommendations. We have given our first ppt to the task force which will be driving this project ahead nationally. It’s been a tiring, breathless and exhausting journey. But it’s been exhilarating. I’d take that any day.J Everywhere the term management trainee is used interchangeably with summer intern, much to my relief. Has a good ring to it.

If you ask me one word to describe the internship here, I would say “Empowering”.

The interns are the blue-eyed boys of the company. You are treated like royalty. You are given a car wherever you go. You fly all round the country. The R.S and the salesmen treat you almost like a brand manager. (I was the guest of honor in a particular event organized for the sales force in Bangalore and had to distribute prizes!). But that’s not even close to why this place is the best place to intern at.

Summer internship here is a great tradition. It’s part of the culture here. You are assumed to be competent and qualified if you are an intern. Most of the people you meet have been summer interns here. They know what you are going through. They know the initial insignificance you consider yourself bestowed with, they know your fears and apprehensions and can empathize. But again that’s only part of the elegy that this post is turning out to be.

You are treated part of the system. YOU ARE NOT INDULGED. Your suggestions and inputs are only as valuable as the logic that is backing them. They do not carry the baggage of coming from a novice, neither is there an artificial attempt to humor them if they suck.

“I’M JUST AN INTERN”. This does not exist in this company. The logic is -

“ You have been selected from a rigorous process that we trust. You have been given the greatest opportunity to learn. We back you to come out with good inputs. If you do, you will be appreciated. If you don’t, do not expect to fall back on I’M -JUST –AN - INTERN line”.

1 Comments:

Blogger Shiv said...

hey dude
this summerz diary of yours is simply awesome. a true inspiration for every b schooler to pen down the day 2 day happenings of every day of our lives ...

Shiv

8/16/2005 9:41 AM  

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