Touring Troubles!!

I had joined TVS Motor Company as Graduate Engineer Trainee (GET) in July 2006. After a few months of general orientation, I was placed in the Sales and Service Department. Then I was trained on specific aspects pertaining to the Sales and Service portfolio. On completion of the training, I was deployed to Hyderabad, where I was re-designated as Territory Manager – Service. My job was primarily to handle after sales service in the territory, which for the time being was limited only to the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. This was the place where I was first exposed to all the intricacies of the job and what was demanded out of me.

Once I had fit into the groove, and I had started showing sufficient progress in my career and significant results, my territory was expanded. It now covered the northern part of Andhra Pradesh which is better known as Telangana. This contained 6 more districts and 8 more dealers. So on paper, my responsibilities had been doubled. And covering the dealers in the districts meant that I had to start touring. This also meant waking up early in the mornings and reaching my destinations late at nights. I was prepared for that and eager for new experiences.

Fortunately for me, most of the places I travelled were connected well by train. Except for two places, which were not, the remaining places had good rail connectivity. With experience, I started planning my tours such that I covered all these places in one shot. I would generally leave on a Monday morning and return back on a Friday or a Saturday evening as required.

Telangana is well known to be a Naxal infested area. Though the troubles now were minimal or literally zero, it was one of the strongholds for them early on. On one such tours in this territory, I had to travel from a place called Karimnagar to Warangal. Though Warangal is a major railway junction between the south and the north, Karimnagar is not connected by train to any of these places. Fortunately, the road connectivity between Hyderabad and Karimnagar is excellent and even the road transport is good in entire AP.

When travelling from Karimnagar to Warangal, I was late. The two places are approximately 70 kms apart and it takes roughly 90 minutes to cover the distance by road. So I started from Karimnagar around 10 PM in the night, expecting to reach Warangal by 11:30 PM. The buses between Karimnagar and Warangal are not too great. One has to travel in simple luxury buses as they are known, but to this day I have not understood what is so luxurious about those buses.

There was hardly anyone in the bus at that hour. I could hardly remember 12-15 people in the bus. By the time the bus had crossed the town limits and started moving on the highway, it had around 20 people. Half way through, I was trying to catch some sleep. The bus was travelling through a dense forest, with literally no human inhabitants for miles together. Suddenly, the bus stops and a mob get into the bus. I start cribbing to myself about the driver, public transport and God knows what else. I was too sleepy to realize what was happening. Slowly the noise started becoming louder and people starting yelling at each other, something which I could not realize.

After a good three minutes, I was fully awake. It was then that I realized that we were being held hostage! People around were shouting, crying, pleading, yelling at each other, blaming the driver and there was chaos all around. The mob which had got into the bus, were also shouting at each other and only panic was ruling the situation. They all had some crude weapons in their hands which they were pointing at people in the bus and trying to recover something. I was not sure if they were drunk, but they were definitely behaving as if they were. I was sitting somewhere in the last few seats, waiting for the drama to unfold in front of me. And was indeed sleepy to think properly and react.

One of them finally came to me and shouted something to me in Telugu. I did not understand that and I did not react. And from his reaction, I was sure that he did not know anything other than Telugu. But from his gestures and body language I understood that he wanted to rob me. Within no time, two more joined him. I was probably the richest and well to do person they could find in the bus at that hour. I was still in my company uniform and wearing the company badge. The weapons in their hands were indeed frightening. I was not sure what to do.

Luckily for me, I was not having any ornaments or valuables. And fortunately, I had forgotten to even wear my watch that morning. My MP3 player, which usually accompanied me on most of my tours, had also been betrayed this time around by my absent mindedness. I was just carrying a few clothes and a few office papers in my bag. The only valuable that I had was probably my mobile, a Nokia 1200. So I fancied my chances.

I told in Hindi that I don’t have anything with me. One of them started speaking to me in crude Hindi. He asked me to show him whatever I had. With the limited options that I had, I opened my bag. No sooner that I had opened it, the three men pounced on it. They emptied it outside on the nearby seat, only to find nothing of their use in it. Another person started frisking me in anticipation of finding some valuables, only to be unsuccessful again. One of them laid hands on my wallet, which had a few notes of tens and twenties, a few coins, my driving license and a Debit card. They probably did not know what it was. Angrily, they threw it back at me. He then laid his hands on my mobile, but my 1200, was too old fashioned or cheap for him. So the mobile too met the same fate as my wallet did. Everyone in the bus was eagerly anticipating for something to happen.

Suddenly someone shouted from outside, and they all emptied the bus in a hurry and vanished behind the trees. Within moments, the driver started the bus and we were back on our way. I was sitting and wondering whether it was a dream or it had really happened. Within a few minutes, I got a call from the manager from my Warangal dealership, who had booked a hotel room for me. He was worried why I had not reached yet, as I had informed him when I had boarded the bus. I spoke to him in broken Telugu, and told him that the bus had got punctured. I told him I’ll reach in another half an hour or so and asked him to inform the hotel and not wait for me. The gentleman sitting in the seat ahead of me was watching me in awe.

To this day, I did not know who they were. At times, I felt they might have been the Naxals, but then Naxals would have been much more professional. They would have carried much more standardized weapons. I thought they might have been some local villagers who were most probably drunk. I even at times thought that the entire episode might have been masterminded by the Driver and the Conductor. But I did not put much thought behind this possibility, because I have always believed that it’s wrong to point fingers at someone without having concrete evidence. The most surprising part was that nobody was actually harmed physically or assaulted in the whole process.

Whatever it is, I would say I was fortunate enough that I was not wearing something valuable. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was not having much money in my wallet. Luckily, I had forgotten my watch and MP3 player at home, and the mobile that I was using was simply too old and outdated. And most importantly, better sense prevailed on me to not converse in Telugu with them and act dumb, which probably was one of the reasons for me to have escaped safely. God knows how many times I had cursed myself that morning for having forgotten to get the MP3 player and the watch. But then, it was just another example for “Whatever happens, happens for a reason!”

I reached Warangal just after midnight and checked into the hotel. Next day, I went to the dealership, completed my duties, took the train in the evening and returned back to Hyderabad. On Monday when I met my boss, I explained to him whatever had happened. Till then, I had not told it to anybody. By the time I was done, my boss and a couple of my colleagues who were listening to me were simply dumbfounded. Their reactions could be very well judged watching their wide open mouths.

After this incident, we at the Area Office took a resolution that whenever we are on tour, we will not travel after 8 PM. Wherever we are at 8PM, we will halt there itself and travel early next morning to our destinations. Though this was taken seriously for the next few months, all of us including me forgot it and found exceptions to the rule when the work at hand was more important. Even after that, there have been lots of instances when I have reached Hyderabad late after midnight, or even some other places. But I made a point to at least not travel the Karimnagar Warangal route so late.

Google..... Wikipedia...... and MBA.......

Imagine. You wake up one day, switch on your laptop and try to find something on the internet. Only to realize that the Google server is down, Wikipedia is not working. Just imagine what your reaction would be in such a scenario.

We are all so much addicted to the internet in general and Google, Wiki in particular that we simply cannot live without them. Who other than an MBA student can understand the importance of these? Google is the starting point of anything we do. Without google, our assignments can never start. What Sergey Brin and Larry Page started a little over a couple of decades ago, has become the life line for millions of people around the world today. Hardly would they have imagined anytime that it would be so successful. When they first came with the search engine and went to sell it, they were rejected. In a way, it came as a blessing in disguise. Even today, if they make google a paid site, even a nominal fee of say Rs 100 a year, I am sure that people would still be willing to enroll for it. Simply because, google has become like air and water. Just imagine the revenue potential that the founders of Google are sitting upon.

As I have said in one of my earlier posts, technology has made life so simple for people that it has become unimaginable to live without technology. This is a classic example for the same. What used to take probably weeks for an MBA student a decade ago, can be done in a matter of hours now. Just contrast the MBAs of the 1990s and the MBAs today. A presentation on any topic, would require them to slog for weeks, toiling for days and nights together, looking for information on the topic. Compare this with the amount of effort that’s required today. Type in a few key words and technology itself would direct you to hoards of information sites across the world. Thus being in your hostel room, you could get all the information that you needed and probably even much more in a matter of a few clicks.

Consider the case of an assignment I had to submit last Monday. Last Sunday, when I got to know the topic, I just clicked on Google and typed the key words which appeared in the topic of the assignment. Its highly unlike of me, because I usually complete my assignments and other submissions whatever it is, well in advance and do not keep anything till the last moment. But this was a one off occasion because probably I had something more important, that I had to keep this aside. But since I was so sure that I would get the required material even at the last moment, I trusted the internet and kept it pending till the eleventh hour.

Within seconds came a list of search results and in a matter of a few minutes, I found exactly what I wanted. What was more fulfilling is that I got everything I wanted from s single source. So it was only a matter of time before I restructured it along the required lines and published it as a part of my assignment. Sometimes, even presentations on common topics are readily available on the internet.

So coming to the point that I was making a couple of posts back, has technology really helped us? In this context, it definitely has. There is no denying that Google and Wikipedia have changed the life of millions of students across the world. But consider the flip side of it. The art of reading books and gaining knowledge and information is slowly vanishing. The general knowledge level of students is slowly falling down. They hardly read newspapers these days, even if they do it’s most likely to be an e-paper. Arrival of PDFs and e-books have definitely contributed to the environment, but look at the other side. People don’t even read books these days. Everything is on the computer and people spend hours on the computer now. The skill of reading and information searching has slowly moved from books to the internet. And with Google coming in, the information is available in a matter of seconds.

With presentations and materials readily available, you don’t apply anything to analyse it. More often than not, it is simply ‘Ctrl C’ed and ‘Ctrl V’ed. Those who are a little aware and careful, take slight efforts to change the fonts, layouts, graphics and animations. But does it serve the real purpose? Even when it comes to assignments, they are literally copied word to word, and submitted only by changing the formatting, the layout, the text and text size and importantly, the name and other details on the first page. So are you actually adding value to your work? Are you really learning something from the assignment or exercise which was given to you with some intention? I am not sure.

All I can say is that Google, Wikipedia and Internet have become inseparable parts of our lives and it’s indeed difficult to imagine even a single day pass without logging on to the internet even once. Google and Wikipedia have indeed revolutionized the way an MBA is done.

My laptop... my new friend???

Life has never been the same since the 13th of July 2009. I found a new friend for myself on that day, and since then it’s almost like I have literally forgotten all my other friends. I bought myself a laptop on that day, and ever since things have changed drastically. In this case, I am not really sure, if my Dell Vostro has been a friend or otherwise.

As I have mentioned in one of my earlier blogs, technology simply keeps people away from others. The human touch and the personal attachments that we have go missing. I have experienced similar feelings. Ever since I have got this piece, I am always online. God alone knows what I do online for so long. Our classes on a normal day end at 6 pm and I usually retire a couple of hours after midnight. It seems as if I am doing a lot of work and I don’t find time for myself. But at the end of the day, once I reflect back on the day’s events, I realize that I have wasted 8 good hours doing nothing productive. Before I got my laptop, I at least used to read the newspaper properly. It would be astonishing for you to know that I came to know about YSRs death, a good 36 hrs after it actually happened! I started reading a book a couple of months back. The book was seemingly interesting and I expected to complete it in at most a week’s time. But till date, I have hardly covered a fourth of the book. Once I was in my room, I hardly even ventured out. My social life had also gone for a toss. Unlike others, I hardly watch movies on the lappie nor do I waste time browsing unnecessary things. I attend all classes regularly and I think I do a fair job in doing all my other responsibilities on time. It’s not that the additional responsibilities that I have taken have actually burdened me. In fact, I feel relieved at the end of the day, when I am actually able to look back and say to myself that I have done something really quantifiable that day.

I lived with that guilt for a long time. I even used to isolate myself from others and at times, felt like crying at my condition. I have never been in such a bad condition earlier in my life. I was not able to understand what I was doing wrongly and what is it that I need to work upon. Because, as I said, everything simply seemed fine as long as I was doing it, but once it was time to reflect back on it, it was really depressing. That’s when I met Roshan. Now it’s a strange coincidence that we both are in the same city, and for the past 3 odd months, both were too busy to not meet each other. Having understood my plight, he insisted we meet. And once we meet, he helped me realize that the root of all my problems lied at my laptop itself. Yes, it was so obvious. The problem was right in front of me, and I could hardly realize it. And all it took him to tell me that was 15 minutes over a pizza. That’s what best friends do to you. They are indeed not different from you, but a part of you. They can feel every breath of yours and that’s the best part of it. When I came back that night and shut down my lappie at 10 pm, my roommate was in for a rude shock.

I hope that I don’t get too addicted to my laptop that I get obsessed with it. I really love my lappie, but let it be under control. I have lots of other friends in my life, and don’t want to miss out on those just because I have found one new friend!

Customer Surveys and its nuances...

Last night, I was reading a post by my friend Himanshu. He has written about his experiences in conducting a customer survey on the streets outside a busy mall in Pune. When I was reading it, I remembered my initial days with my previous company. As we had just joined the Sales and Service department, among the top of our assignment list was a requirement for us to study and analyze customer satisfaction. Me and my best friend Roshan, who incidentally happened to work with me in the same company in the same function, had one hell of a time in Bangalore. We went to Cubbon Park, where couples come to spend some ‘quality’ time together. We went to Majestic Bus Stand and City Railway Station parking lots, where most people are ‘almost going to miss a bus or a train’. We went to the busy MG Road, only to realize that MG Road was way too posh for the customers that we were looking for. Three full days of toiling, sweating, hard work yielded us not more than 38 filled questionnaires.

A couple of months back, when I had met Roshan over lunch at Inorbit mall in Mumbai, we saw a couple of people in the food court handing over survey forms to people having their food. When we saw that, we relived the days that we had spent in the dusk of 2006.

Taking a customer feedback is indeed difficult. Especially when you do it in an unstructured manner. The hit rate is not more than 10%. If you ask 10 customers for their time, hardly 1 or 2 will oblige. It really sounds so trivial to them, that sometimes you need to listen to their abuses, foul language and what not. Of course some of them politely refuse, but that number is a limited few.

Yes. It actually feels bad to go and ask someone to spend time for you on your survey, especially when someone is out on a weekend to spend some good quality time with someone very close to them. You actually feel that you are invading into their privacy and feel guilty about it. When these surveys are conducted professionally (that involves a lot of cost), it may give better results, but when it’s done in an unstructured manner, its way too far from giving you the desired results.

Having learnt all these, and having personally experienced these things over the last couple of years, whenever someone, be it a college student or a salesman, comes across me asking for a survey, I make it a point to answer it honestly if I am not too busy. If 5 minutes of my time, can help someone with his work, I would rather do it. I know how frustrating it is, when you are frequently turned down by people. And I ensure that at least in my case, the person doesn’t feel the same. It’s always a nice feeling to help people!!

So next time someone comes to you for a feedback or a survey, unless you are really too busy, please spend some time to fill in that questionnaire. The poor chap will thank you for his life. And if you are really busy, refuse politely. He is most likely to have heard abuses from lots of other people. So a few calm and composed will do a world of good to him.

At the end of a satisfactory day....

Today is one of those days, where I can be proud of myself. I have been a part of the Aspirant Relations Team for over two months now. All this time, we all have done loads of work. But nothing has really been noticed. All this was related to the seemingly ‘back office’ type of work, which is as necessary as water and air, but often tends to get forgotten or neglected. Unless someone sees what you are doing, it is definitely not going to be appreciated. As some quality guru has said, “What cannot be seen, cannot be measured; and what cannot be measured, cannot be improved upon.”

We had been to Mumbai today. The entire team. One of the coaching centres at Mumbai was conducting an awareness programme for their students and we were invited to speak about our institute. I had personally put in a lot of efforts behind this, and all my junior teammates too had given valuable inputs and participated fully in this. When I was working for this, I felt that we have really started working as a team. Not too long back, I was a bit perplexed and worried about our chemistry and team dynamics. Personally we were all great friends and great people, each coming with diverse backgrounds and as bunches of talent. But as a team, perhaps we were not delivering to our potential. But this event has kicked it all. And I am sure; we as a team will go a long way.

When we reached there and finished our presentation, the amount of self satisfaction I personally had, was simply overwhelming. When we are doing something with all our heart and soul into it, we generally set a standard for ourselves. And when we are able to live upto our own expectations or perhaps even exceed it, it feels really great. When the organizers come and tell you that you did exactly what they wanted, that you have really lived up to their expectations, when people appreciate you for whatever small things you have done, when nice things happen when you least expect them to, you indeed have reasons to be happy. Believe me, the satisfaction of a job well done, is really at its best, when you break your own records. As some great person has said, “Winning doesn’t always mean finishing first. Sometimes, it means bettering your own performance.”

I also had the opportunity to go and spend a couple of hours with my grandmother. And yes, that satisfaction is again out of the world. When someone who loves you as dearly as them, and when you appear in front of them unannounced, the pleasure at both the ends cannot be described. Luckily, I got to spend time with my uncle as well and it was a trip worth remembering.

I love you all ARTists. Our entire team is simply great. Eagerly looking forward for more of such sunny days in life, I sign off!

Keep smiling. Life is beautiful