From Campus to Corporate

Well, firstly, the title is slightly misleading. This post is NOT one describing a typical college-to-company journey. It’s just that I haven't posted in a long time and the hiatus certainly didn’t warrant spending too much time on the title. Most of this post can be attributed to the fact that I spent the last two days of 2009 sitting idle in office, those being my first instances of the fabled Bench Time, and reading blogs and randomly surfing the web.

It’s been two months since I began working and while it hasn't been a rollercoaster ride - that overused metaphor, it’s been pretty smooth sailing (another overused metaphor). The transition from lazy-and-indifferent-college-student to formals-clad-office-worker has been seamless for the most part. And that's because, while the body may have yielded to the demands of the Corporate World, the mind is still in the right place.

The company (iRunway India Pvt. Ltd. for the uninitiated) basically (I’ve been told Indians use the word ‘basically’ a lot) plies its trade in the domain of Technology Consulting and IP Services. Anymore description and it'll get boring, so I’ll let it be. Work is different from the conventional Coding-Shoding OR Factory/Plant work OR Sitting-around-doing-nothing type of jobs. So, it’s been a pleasant change, at least thus far. The best part about office is the peer group, comprising of people exclusively from IITs, NITs, IIMs and ISB. The company being only three-and-some-part years old, our "Project Managers", are graduates of the 2007 batch and hence the whole hoopla surrounding Bosses has essentially amounted to squat. It took us only about 3 weeks to go out drinking with some of them and share stories regarding the company, scandals during college days and, the usual, MMS (music, movies and sports). The whole office environment is pretty friendly, what with some 100-odd like-minded people doing their bit. Office policy requires us to wear formals four-days-a-week, which give you that quintessential office-worker look. (I really don't know whether that's a good or bad thing). Also, it’s been good to start waking up before noon after a long time.

Life after office involves one or more of the following: Lappy time, TV, Sleep and Household-chores (including the dreaded grocery shopping). As usual, the week flies by and before you know it, the weekend is upon you. And vice-versa, I must add. Living with Bhaggi has its own advantages; if ever the house becomes too untidy, Bhaggi gets into the act, not too unfamiliar to Monica Geller. Plus, you’re assured of getting high-quality downloads with regularity and most importantly, you never miss out on anything important, because, as you guessed it, Bhaggi is there to remind you of that.

Weekends involve the usual sleepathons and lazing-around along with night-long sessions of Cards or Carrom, courtesy our neighbours-across-the-road, Jindal (of the Ankit Jindal fame), Binny, Pallav – my roomie from first year and his brother, Saurabh. Although, a consequence is that I’ve been forced to write this blog on Binny’s lappy while Binny, Jindal, Bhaggi and Swami are Snipin’ and Cursin’ in all glory while playing CS on our Wi-Lan. This coupled with the fact that the average age in office is 25, has meant that college isn’t ours to be missed. Yet.

And of course, there’s the thing about living in the awesomeness that is Bangalore. Never mind that there aren’t enough good movie-halls (Long live BitTorrent), that the autowallas are daylight robbers (we’re not alone) and that the ‘Cinderella Law’ forces everything to close by 11.30 (Nothing still beats the good ol’ in-house DPs, with custom playlists and random bakar). The company (pun totally intended) is good and then you have the Bangalore Weather (Note the Capital ‘B’ and ‘W’, indicating a proper noun). It’s like the Sachin Tendulkar in a team of 11 Salil Ankolas. Enough Said.

Hence, the journey thus far has been good. Of course, there are certain things that are left behind when you leave College, but hey, who wants to be in the IITR E&C Dept. for more than 5 years?

P.S: Roorkee Junta, unless something urgent comes up in office or Priyanka Chopra agrees, I will be in R-Land from 23-26^th Jan. Giddy Up!