Quite honestly let me admit at the very beginning, my blog has been the experiment chamber for my writing stint, prior to coming into B school life. But,as they say the schedule never ever allows you to do something else than savouring the sumptuous delicacies on the platter of a B school life.
This is the unedited version of one of my assignments-Employment Relations they call it(yes, unedited,because what I present here could not have been given to Prof as an assignment. In that case I would have got a Gross Grade Point....!!!)
I found the subject as interesting as the name of the subject, not because it talks about the relationships and all which gives enough scope for the gossip for the fertile minds at a place like XIMB, but because it has allowed me and many others like me to self google(A term derived by very dear friend of mine, Akash). The Prof.asked us to write an assignment on 'Tell Me Your story'.
What happened to you in your school, college, what decided your career path and what made you land here in Bhubaneswar, you can tell all that, but what matters is how do you make decisions in your life in regards to your career(and personal life).
Well now that really seems interesting, first time an assignment on which I spent more time thinking than doing(This deduces that I have been doing lot of assignments without much of thinking).
I have not been shy of forming opinions even if they differ from the crowd to an unmeasurable limit and believe in setting up my own contours. Perhaps that is why some of you call me whackily insane. And here at the Xavier square,they have started calling me BABY.(pun not intended)
Ever since I grew old enough to realize that my opinions matter, I started forming them with much more conviction, but I think the part of putting them forward also came out very strongly in my personality, even if I have to put them across to my family, the details of which I will be sharing in the latter half of ‘my story’.
Let me first of all take you back in the flashback and give you the reason for the career dilemmas I faced and still facing in my life. My father wanted to be an IAS officer, he even appeared for it once in 1984, but due to some family problems he could never see himself realize his dream to be in the civil services. After that he got into job because he had a family to support, which got followed by his marriage and more responsibilities i.e. ME. !
My father used to practice strict discipline at home (which made me an obedient child) most probably because I think he had a fair idea what it takes to groom an IAS officer right from the childhood. I was very much convinced that the IAS is the only profile for me and thus after my schooling I am going to concentrate on my preparation for competition.
At the time when most of my friends opted for science after 10th standard, I opted for commerce; just because of the simple fact that I had decided that commerce was going to be one of my subjects for the civil services examination too. So, that was one of the important decisions of my life which I took without even realizing what I wanted to do.
But that was the time when India as an economy was growing and also the corporate salaries. Media bytes about high salaries and placements in B schools attracted my attention. Suddenly I realized that there are much more than IAS as a career opportunity.
My urge to be successful in corporate career and earn lots of money came out explicitly as my interest gradually starts shifting towards a career in corporate sector. I informed my father about my intentions of doing the management course. But as was expected, it was hard for him to see me going on a different career path altogether. Had I told him that I don’t want to be a babu but I want to be an IPS, then he would have accepted that somehow.
But my intentions of moving into the corporate sector, made my father astonished as for him the ‘government jobs’ are any day better than ‘private jobs’. But I was sure what I wanted to do, so in order to convince my father I decided to bring some modifications to my plan. We both decided that I will first do my management course, but after getting my MBA I shall sit for civil service examinations atleast once.
My decision about my career path made me land here at Bhubaneswar (nearly 2000 Ks from Chandigarh).
Having realized my dream of getting into a B school of my choice, the focus is now on the future. Candidly admitting, my short term vision was to enter into a B school, get some good marks in some subjects and decent in some others, and get a plum job and walk away out of the campus to enter the world to do what I always wanted to do, that is making a successful career in the corporate sector. Obviously, when you meet budding entrepreneurs and smartest minds in a B school, your thinking contours tend to touch new horizons.
I am discovering myself daily and learning new things about others and the immense possibilities which exist in the entire world outside the gates of the campus, other than earning money. Learn as much as possible, is what I am realizing now, for this learning will always be with me for the rest of my life. Earning money or moving abroad to earn greenbacks was a done thing for me when I entered the B school which now has taken a backseat; instead this seems too insignificant now. So, now the main reason why I entered into a B school stands futile, and I have no reason to offer to myself or to my father why did I enter a B school in the first place if I do not intend to make money and I really wanted to do something Big and significant.
I think at some point in life, money tends to cease importance. One wants to do the job which he wants to do irrespective of what material returns that ‘job’ will fetch. But that takes me back to the point on which I convinced my father, that a management degree will enable me to do things of my choice and earn enough so as to spend my life in the way I want to.
But due to this flip flop of career choices, today I am a half MBA and one fourth of an IAS aspirant, with one fourth still searching for more answers for my career path. After all, I do not want to join a job just for the sake of it, because my principles ask me to justify the position and responsibility which I have been assigned, and want me to do full justice to my job, thus ‘satisfying the job’.
All this comes from commitment, which matters the most for me. Discovering a new interest while being in another job, accounts for infidelity as per my opinion.
No job is interesting, and every job is interesting. The challenge is how to make a job joyful and interesting, so that each and every day at the workplace seems a ‘celebration’. One shall not always seek the job satisfying the employees, infact it shall be the flesh and blood satisfying the job, position and responsibilities. Changing careers due to flagging interests and plummeting levels of concentration are not good signs, even from an individual’s perspective.
This amounts that perhaps one has not given enough thought and time to oneself to think adequately and sufficiently about one’s career path. It doesn’t mean that there are definite career paths and everyone has to opt for one or the other, infact it implies that one should discover his interest and talent as soon as possible in his life, and then with unquestioned dedication move towards perfection, which itself is a sempiternal and absorbing odyssey, a reason enough to make the rest of life a celebration.
Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, but contempt is required for breaking the jinx and taking the path which both, our mind and heart commands but that happens less often. I thought of earning lots of money, but a short stint in my B school life has changed my thinking and has made me to rethink my career path.
Perhaps that is one of the many things which I am loving in my B School life!
Beep Beep! Oh Look! A text!
14 years ago
