Thank You.

I never expected that a harmless and innocent joke can have such drastic effects. Almost life changing events I dare say. Well nothing dramatic happened. :)

Five of my friends from Lucknow opted out of placements and started on their own. It’s a medical tourism venture. Please check out IndigoEdge and IndiaCares. One of them was Doc. Our dear old buddhau who has a perpetual bad taste in his mouth! A few months ago, I scrapped him asking if IndigoEdge was recruiting and told him that I am willing to join them. It was done in good humor and then I completely forgot about it. One day Doc calls me and asks me if I was on the lookout for a new job. I thought he read my scrap and was now getting back at me. I was laughing hard and told him yes. He then told me that there was this management consultancy looking for good guys. That’s why he called me :) It took me sometime to realize that this was no joke. There was no idea about the profile but I trusted Doc and sent him my résumé.

I was called for an interview. Things started off fine. I had two rounds on our very first meeting. I scraped through to the next round. This was with the management director and it was a case study round. He took my case, literally. I did pretty badly but not too bad that I didn’t deserve a second chance. He told me that he saw some hope in me and called me for another round. I was given a specific topic to prepare on. I prepared, I talked, and I conquered. Or so I thought. This round was just to undo my bad performance in the previous case study round. I was called again and another case study followed. And finally he put me out of my misery. I did it! I got the job. Five rounds. Phew!

Thank You Doc. I wouldn’t have started on this journey without you. I want to believe that. I might have heard of the job opening through someone else. But it was meant to be you. Providence!

Thank You Ayan. You have been an amazing friend through all this. You have given me incredible support. Ayan went through hundreds of mails on different mailing groups and found out the relevant openings for me. He used to call me every ten minutes about one opening or the other. He stopped me from doing really stupid things and gave me confidence to go after what I really wanted. Thanks a lot buddy.

Thank You Akshay. Akshay has been my knowledge resource. We were like brothers in arms. He has been one reassuring constant in my life. We drank copious amounts of coffee discussing our careers and our future. In my first round, they asked me about capital budgeting. My first thought was, “Shit! Let me call Akshay.” Dude…remember…You take Harvard. I will take Wharton! Thanks maga.

Thanks to everyone who has been there for me.

Last but not the least (tradition, you see) I would like to thank my former employer. Thanks to them who kept me thoroughly jobless and unemployed and paid me money for warming the seats. This ensured that I could prepare well and sneak away for interviews without much worry.

I will be starting my new job from Monday. This is what I really wanted to do. I hope I rock at my new place. Wish me luck!