Living With Our Choice

Sometimes we just keep our cell phones along with us expecting an important call. And the fact that it rings every now and then, but not when you actually expect it…can cause you an entirely different world. 

29^th September 2007 was the day when I was expecting such a call.  I waited for that one call since past one month then, after toiling hard for days and nights for about a year.  I already cleared three analytical rounds with the Research Managers and last one with the Country Director of McKinsey India, for a post called Research Consultant (Investments).  They were ready to hire me despite of the fact that my work experience was mostly earned in BPO’s.  However, some confusion occurred by the third party guys during my background verification due to which McKinsey did not roll out the offer letter.  They said they would call me once they confirm everything is all right with my candidature. 

It was for the first time I tried hard to get something worthwhile.  It was for the first time, I read, understood, grasped and built an insight about the investment world just to land up with McKinsey or Goldman Sachs.  It was for the first time, I challenged myself by making promises…that I will go beyond probabilities to create some possibilities.  Ethically and morally, I wanted to be positive to myself.  That’s the only reason why I did not incorporate any fraudulent means to get into something which I aspired to be.  After all I was dealing with my aspirations.  But then, too much of truth can make you look like a liar.  May be that’s why McKinsey guys did not call. 

Finally, when the ground service guys announced, I had to board the flight to Philadelphia via Chicago.  During my flight, I pretended to be sleepy as my colleagues and managers around me were happy and excited to be in US.  However, I was highly grieved.  It was for the first time in my life, when I literally cried…though, with closed eyes…and that too, 35,000 feet above the ground level.  That time, I knew it very well that I made a compromise by continuing my BPO job which I accepted a month earlier and continued my search after realizing that the profile did not turn out to be what was promised. 

It was really hard for me to digest the fact that I was again in the company of those who don’t really use their grey matter.  They just follow the SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) and execute their jobs.  At my workplace, I don’t intend to give lessons, but to grab them from those who qualify as intellectuals.  Prior to my existing job, I expected a company of elite people from my future professional assignments, where in my colleagues could teach me the algorithms of investment management & advanced financial modeling or could intelligently debate with me on various business related topics like – why Mr. Ben Bernanke is better than Mr. Allen Greenspan? Or why Blackstone & Carlyle are still optimistic about their private equity investments in the pan Asia Pacific zone?   Contrary to this, whenever I try striking such conversations, I end up teaching or preaching rather than learning.  Because, almost 99% of the gentry around me, are highly ignorant to facts & figures that corporate world on this planet is actually churning out every second. 

Ironically, the agony is that I still find few male managers with a pony-tail and ear-rings and few female ones discussing their love life casually with their boyfriends / fiancé over their cell-phones in a sonorous voice…that too in their official premises.  Their mantra is to look COOL…Most of them will curse you like hell, specially when you turn out in your business suites just to look professional during office hours.  Welcome to the world of BPO’s.  A perfect place to which I am trying hard since past few years failingly, to utter just one word…GOODBYE…and still find myself in it.  He he he…A perfect place where in you can have fun, enjoyment, parties, dance, booze, fag, dope, body piercing, wearing asset revealing casuals, have one night stands and do all sort of COOL activities.  A perfect place where in people use internet only for social networking, downloading music and watching porn.  A perfect place wherein you would find people who are technologically backward to such an extent, that they don’t even know the meaning of blogs, tweets, podcasts and feeds.  A perfect place, where in people don’t know the meaning of research and analysis, thereby considering reconciliation as a high end job. 

You might be thinking – what is stopping me from quitting my existing BPO job?

And the answer may appear as basic as it can be – Service Agreement of two years.  But then, there is more to it, as service agreements are easily bought by other companies for deserving candidates.  When I did not receive a call from McKinsey, it was me who boarded the plane thereby making a commitment to serve my existing organization for two years.  And if I break my commitment, how will I make few more in my life and still stick to it till its fulfillment.  It would just be unprofessional to leave the organization unless something untoward happens.  Also, after becoming an Assistant Manager, I find myself out of every rat race that others might run.  I don’t see my existing job as a career.  I already got what I wanted from my current job.  And I don’t really intend to grow just in terms of designation by spending another two to three years fighting for every rating, bonus, span, visibility or responsibility.  All I want to do is to work flawlessly for longer hours, without taking leaves and without getting bothered about my next growth, to discover the acme of professionalism within me, which would later on help me when I would actually be managing my own company.  If my current organization can give me an opportunity to expand myself as a true entrepreneur, then I can easily stay with it for next 1-2 years, thereby concentrating on international certification and investment related education.  Otherwise I always have an open option of mending my mistake of joining a BPO.  Needless to mention, I don’t exactly work for my organization.  I work for myself and professionalism.  And it is well evident by my choice of not taking leaves since past three years thereby working extended hours just to inculcate a habit of entrepreneurial way of execution.  My rules, philosophy and psychology set for myself are anyways above any organizational policies, both in terms of ethics and quality.  And it’s really hard to stick by what I have set for myself.  Still I don’t deter, because I am not an employee, but a future entrepreneur. 

And I am sure, my cell phone would definitely ring in future when I would be expecting it to ring, which would force me to write another blog depicting my success story, unlike this one which is actually a story of my failure.