Wednesday, May 12, 2010

hypocritic corporate life

being new to the corporate world, i embarked on this journey with too many expectations and trepidation.when i saw the delhi office, i felt this is probably what i wanted to do, correction - this is all i wanted to do. after a short stay there, i landed up in Chennai, the ever traditional market. first day reporting in chennai office was beyond the levels of embarrassment. business formals strictly means trousers and a formal shirt. this is not to be interpreted as a loose( read ultra loose)ensemble in the form of salwar kameez. well, i provided enough entertainment to the sales people present here. they were practically amused to see a girl doing an mba and a girl wearing formals. reporting time was 9 , atleast that was what was given to me at the corporate office. by 10'30 people trickled in. before even they settled down for the day's work, coffee was served making me wonder what did we accomplish in 10 minutes for a cup of coffee... the day passed uneventfully( atleast from my side).. the next day i decided to change a bit and ended up in a kurti pyjama.. not a bad response... i felt awkward as in Delhi, if you dint wear a lipgloss you will be looked down upon and in Chennai, if you did, you will witness everyone staring at you as if you are a movie star...other than the dress aspect, i cant see whats the fascination the higher up officials have towards the percentage terms.. why cant people say 2 out of 5 people dint want it.. does everything has to be like 40% of the people dint like it , aahh roughly 25%, depends on various factors, in short no clear answers...when you are bored, call a meeting.. thats the only way these people amuse themselves.. wait a minute, a meeting is meaningless without a ppt.. even if you just have one sentence to report, put it in a ppt with an introduction slide and a thank you slide.. make sure you use jargons like business model, strategies,product portfolio,revenue models,blah blah... the best part : after 4 weeks, this morning my manager asked me for the acceptance rate of the public for the new product, my answer : roughly 80% sir!.. bingo! off the hat percentage and the best part is they accept it.. had i told them in actual terms, i would have been looked down upon! my lifestyle has also changed... consuming 4 yeah 4 cups of coffee per day,my slides contain more percentage terms than the pictiures which i initially used to prefer.... whatta life! welcome to the corporate world!