Memoirs of an MBA...
July 26
Dear Diary,
I can't hold myself down. My FIRST day on the job!! And I like it already. "Assistant Junior Deputy to the Vice Chairman - Manufacturing". My dad was thrilled when he heard my designation. "What the f!@#!!!" was his exact words. Oh I love it when my parents are happy...
Need to meet HR in half an hour. I cant wait to get my first Employee ID Card and cubicle. I hope Parthasarathy Whatayblouse Crappers is the beginning of great things.
P.S. I have brought my favorite textbooks back from the insti. OD, OM and HR should help me grow rapidly in the organization. And I WILL handle soft issues before facing hard issues here at PWC.
July 28th
Dear Diary,
Had a lot of fun with HR yesterday. The guy who had recruited me had left a month ago. So they didnt know I was joining. We had a hearty laugh over that one. They made a small mistake on my employee ID too. Nothing big. Instead of "Stephen C Tern" it came out "Sphinc Ter". I thought it made me sound like a rock star. A lot of people found it funny though... strange...
I'll get my cubicle in a few days time. For the time being I am sharing a nice one with Claire. She's with Corporate Communication. The phone doesnt work though...
August 2nd
Dear Diary,
Met my boss today. He spend a lot of time with my CV and then asked me how I managed to get a job with them. (Even he knows how lucky they are to get me..) He told me to review our material ordering system in the err... umm... the... the "big yellow and blue noisy machine section" of the plant.
Claire is working on an "Our Employees Love Us" campaign. The office boy had just resigned. So she got me to pose with an apron and a tray of cookies for a photo. They are going to call me Ramon and use it for ads. I am going to be famous.
August 7th
Dear Diary,
My first breakthrough. I have decided to order nickel ball bearings using the EQO.. QEO... whatever formula. It takes into account item cost, holding cost and weight of ball bearing I think. The purchase guy gave me a funny look when he saw my annual requisition contract form. He is obviously not an MBA...
Claire resigned today. She told me carry on with the "Our Employees Love Us" campaign.
P.S. Lesson for the week. You cannot order 0.7564 of a ball bearing. It has to be in whole numbers.
August 11th
Dear Diary,
I just got a shipment of 4384 ball bearings. I checked up with Engineering. They said that should be enough for around 14 years of requirement. I gave them 3 and stashed away the rest in a cupboard in my room. If prices of ball bearings go up, I see a lot of potential savings.
I have decided to develop informal channels of communication. From tomorrow I will spend a little time next to the coffee machine to understand the unspoken messages within the underbelly of the firm. (That OD book is good)
August 14th
Dear Diary,
I sent my first official letter today. It was to our Facilities manager Merry Le Bian. She is a hottie. I told her that the Coffee Machine takes too much time to reheat between refills. Wrote it in a WAC format and all with a table of contents and everything. She is sure going to impressed!! I spell checked it in MS word and emailed it to her an hour ago. No reply yet.
They scrapped the "Our Employees Love Us" campaign. The photo shoot was taking up too much time, and people were being forced to stay late without extra pay. Someone finally went and vandalised the banner. It now reads "Our Employers Shove Us". I offered to model for all the snaps and videos. They called me a dickhead. I was delighted. Dickhead is internal slang for "Big Stud". HR told me. Everyone calls me that...
P.S. One more shipment of ball bearings came. Again 4384. The contract can't be changed now. I dont have too much space left in my cupboard.
August 25th
Dear Diary,
My letter came back. It had a pink post-it on it from Merry. "Please proofread" it said. It was CC'd to my boss. How was I supposed to know MS Word would spell check her name and change it to Merry Lesbian????!!!! Where's natural justice?
Today five minutes before a meeting the cupboard door broke open. It took me ten minutes to pick up all the ball bearings from the floor. I had to run to the board room for the meeting and slipped on a bearing which rolled under the door. I fell on the coffee machine and tipped coffee powder into the polymer mixing maching tray. Noone saw anything.
P.S. Sorry for the long break. My computer crashed. There was a mail from an old friend. She's now married into the Welchia family I think. Crashed after that. Strange name that Welchia...
September 2nd
Dear Diary,
My boss told me I may not last the probation period. I was mighty thrilled to hear that. Imagine!! Permanent in less than three months!! That should be some sort of company record.
I made a presentation to all the staff yesterday. Some 300 people were there. I think I sent good vibes. Everyone was smiling and nodding their heads during the presentation. Someone later told me my fly was open the whole time. But I don't think anyone noticed. The presentation was on "An Open Culture: Let the feeling show!!"
p.s. 17156 ball bearings. I floated a scheme to give each employee a ball bearing for every year of service. The HR manager immediately convened a meeting with my boss. Every suggestion counts here at PWC.
September 4th
Dear Diary,
I have been transferred to the office in Sub-Saharan Africa. I will be heading the Room Heater and Hot Water Geyser products division. They have also told me to pay for all the ball bearings I bought. I think it speaks much of the entrepreneurial spirit. I have been told to leave immediately for Kujumbinana.
P.S. A foreign posting in under a year!!!
September 5th
Dear Diary,
I am in Kujumbinana. We don't have a branch here.......
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Of Felafels and Kerala saloon
Merryland Nursery in Bateen. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve that grey walled building and the tiny mitsubishi van. Growing up in Abu Dhabi was a surreal experience. I guess my life changed for good when I landed up at the old civil aviation airport, also in Bateen, a few minutes away from Merryland. Sometime in 1979. All of four months old. Today the old Bateen Airport is an Air Force Base. Which means the Sheikh does what he wants with it. The old parking lots and bus waiting sheds is now a huge park with slides and rides. And plonk in the middle is a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. 20 years ago it was run by another outfit called Wimpy's that sold cheap hamburgers. Only Indians and other Asians ate there. Some people still call the place Wimpy Park. Abu Dhabi is like that. Spit and polish. And still the rough patches peek through.
Contrary to what most people think today Abu Dhabi is not a bit of concrete in the middle of the desert. The capital of UAE today can give any international city a run for its money. (We will not talk about Dubai, we Abu Dhabi types hate the place and their hep lifestyle... sort of like how we hate everyone who comes for Chaos...) But all those years ago as I grew up it was a very different place indeed. I could talk on and on of how much things have changed and life has changed. And the American Born Confused Desi wont come close to the Abu Dhabi Grown Confused Mallu. I think I'll let my mind wander a bit...
Friday has always been the weekend. Friday was also the only day when we had fun. We ate out on thursday alright. But the fascinating things in life happened bright and fresh on a friday morning. A visit to the fish market. When I was a kid, the fish market was where it all happened. Those were the days when life in the Gulf was innocent. Noone had visas and everyone made a little money. The fish market was a maze of concrete cubicles covered with grime and scales. I watched all the big fish with morbid fascination. But why I really came was for the guy who sold "Junior News". The fish market had grown over the years and there was a new section across a small walkway. And in the middle of the covered pathway in between sat the "Junior News" guy. "Junior News" was what dad bought me if I did all my homework right and got three stars in everything. It had cartoons, a poster, some puzzles and reviews of movies and songs I'd never get to see or hear. It cost all of two dirhams to buy and I can still remember trying to read it incessantly while my dad dragged me from fish booth to fish booth. Hundreds of people thronged the dark gloomy market. But with my Junior News it was a pleasant warm place. On the way home, if I had been really nice that week, he'd buy a box of assorted sweets from a gujju sweet place called ... Bhavna's I think. I faintly remember eating Barfis and things...
You really dont understand what it means to be a mallu in the Gulf till you've been there. Friday also meant a haricut sometimes. And you always walked to the "Kerala Saloon" where Usmanikka and Venuchettan always promised to make you look like Mohanlal, Mamooty, or even Amitabh or Mithun. I must have gone there for a cut every month or so for ever 14 years. And it was always the same procedure, they'd conspire with dad and make digs at my obesity (I had a troubled childhood in parts...) and then settle into this long rambling discussion on Indian politics and football and local life, while the scissors kept snipping away. I think for many years all the mental pictures I had of India were what I got sitting in those huge red barbers chairs. I sat on a plank of course, tenderly balanced on the armrests listening to them talk of Indira and Congress and Maradona with my mouth open. Alas if my memory went beyond the images...
The "Sandwich". The Greatest of weekend pleasures. Instant handheld gratification. Some weekends we'd go shopping for stuff to the old market. There was a fire there a few years ago, and most of it burnt down. Taking with it so much of where I ran around, cried, pleaded and shreaked as a child. January to May were the shopping months. You bought stuff for back home and somehow tried to get maximum value for the twenty kilos you were allowed per head on Air India. We bought packs of everything from batteries to umbrellas to milk powder. We bought tons and tons of clothes. And almost everything was bought from "Liberty Stores". Yes yes... you guessed it. Yet another illegal visa bearing mallu setup. Horrible stuff made in Thailand, Malaysia and, ironically, India. But back then anything new was good. And after we all had over 20 huge plastic bags between us, the kids would start pleading for the "Sandwich".
Technically called the "Shawarmah" by the locals it is God's gift to the gourmand. Its something like a rolled up arabic bread with stuffing. Nowadays you get authentic Lebanese sandwich at every nook and corner. Back then you only got it in the old market at a few shops run by Iranians, or Indians. Outside each cafe-like setup, there'd be this guy sweating it out in front of a vertical grill. And sizzling away would be a vertical skewer of meat some 2 feet tall and a feet round. A huge chunk of it. The guy would deftly turn it around every few second so it would get roasted by the grill. "Thalatha Shawarma, Dejaj". When Dad said the magic words, I died and went to heaven. Four sandwiches, chicken. Sweaty griller man would quickly pick up a huge knife and pick and shred off some grilled meat from the heavenly mega-kebab. The aroma still drives me wild...
The meat was quickly packed into a split open arabic bread. The bread is called "khubz" and is part of EVERYONES dining table. Nation, religion no bar. A dash of humoos (a chickpea dip), tahina (sesame dressing), pickled cucumbers, chillies, french fries, some green salad and broken wheat. Tightly rolled up into two wax papers. One bite into the concoction and you orgasmed. There is no other word. And for the veggies they made it out of felafels (deep fried broken wheat and chickpea dumplings). The "Shawarmah" alone is why some mallus never return from the gulf. Whenever I pop back to meet family, we tend to stop over at the neighbourhood Shawarmah store on the way from the airport. Its as much a part of the family as many people I know.
So many many memories of a country fighting to create an identity and masses of people fighting to survive and eke out a living. A french neighbour, a Bangladeshi plumber, a Pakistani laundryman, a Goan class teacher, and a swiss american benchmate in school. Cultures and identities lost in the quagmire, with only the Shawarmah standing supreme. I have rambled on and on again... Forgive. Have a great weekend. And best of luck for all the lats guys...
Merryland Nursery in Bateen. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve that grey walled building and the tiny mitsubishi van. Growing up in Abu Dhabi was a surreal experience. I guess my life changed for good when I landed up at the old civil aviation airport, also in Bateen, a few minutes away from Merryland. Sometime in 1979. All of four months old. Today the old Bateen Airport is an Air Force Base. Which means the Sheikh does what he wants with it. The old parking lots and bus waiting sheds is now a huge park with slides and rides. And plonk in the middle is a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet. 20 years ago it was run by another outfit called Wimpy's that sold cheap hamburgers. Only Indians and other Asians ate there. Some people still call the place Wimpy Park. Abu Dhabi is like that. Spit and polish. And still the rough patches peek through.
Contrary to what most people think today Abu Dhabi is not a bit of concrete in the middle of the desert. The capital of UAE today can give any international city a run for its money. (We will not talk about Dubai, we Abu Dhabi types hate the place and their hep lifestyle... sort of like how we hate everyone who comes for Chaos...) But all those years ago as I grew up it was a very different place indeed. I could talk on and on of how much things have changed and life has changed. And the American Born Confused Desi wont come close to the Abu Dhabi Grown Confused Mallu. I think I'll let my mind wander a bit...
Friday has always been the weekend. Friday was also the only day when we had fun. We ate out on thursday alright. But the fascinating things in life happened bright and fresh on a friday morning. A visit to the fish market. When I was a kid, the fish market was where it all happened. Those were the days when life in the Gulf was innocent. Noone had visas and everyone made a little money. The fish market was a maze of concrete cubicles covered with grime and scales. I watched all the big fish with morbid fascination. But why I really came was for the guy who sold "Junior News". The fish market had grown over the years and there was a new section across a small walkway. And in the middle of the covered pathway in between sat the "Junior News" guy. "Junior News" was what dad bought me if I did all my homework right and got three stars in everything. It had cartoons, a poster, some puzzles and reviews of movies and songs I'd never get to see or hear. It cost all of two dirhams to buy and I can still remember trying to read it incessantly while my dad dragged me from fish booth to fish booth. Hundreds of people thronged the dark gloomy market. But with my Junior News it was a pleasant warm place. On the way home, if I had been really nice that week, he'd buy a box of assorted sweets from a gujju sweet place called ... Bhavna's I think. I faintly remember eating Barfis and things...
You really dont understand what it means to be a mallu in the Gulf till you've been there. Friday also meant a haricut sometimes. And you always walked to the "Kerala Saloon" where Usmanikka and Venuchettan always promised to make you look like Mohanlal, Mamooty, or even Amitabh or Mithun. I must have gone there for a cut every month or so for ever 14 years. And it was always the same procedure, they'd conspire with dad and make digs at my obesity (I had a troubled childhood in parts...) and then settle into this long rambling discussion on Indian politics and football and local life, while the scissors kept snipping away. I think for many years all the mental pictures I had of India were what I got sitting in those huge red barbers chairs. I sat on a plank of course, tenderly balanced on the armrests listening to them talk of Indira and Congress and Maradona with my mouth open. Alas if my memory went beyond the images...
The "Sandwich". The Greatest of weekend pleasures. Instant handheld gratification. Some weekends we'd go shopping for stuff to the old market. There was a fire there a few years ago, and most of it burnt down. Taking with it so much of where I ran around, cried, pleaded and shreaked as a child. January to May were the shopping months. You bought stuff for back home and somehow tried to get maximum value for the twenty kilos you were allowed per head on Air India. We bought packs of everything from batteries to umbrellas to milk powder. We bought tons and tons of clothes. And almost everything was bought from "Liberty Stores". Yes yes... you guessed it. Yet another illegal visa bearing mallu setup. Horrible stuff made in Thailand, Malaysia and, ironically, India. But back then anything new was good. And after we all had over 20 huge plastic bags between us, the kids would start pleading for the "Sandwich".
Technically called the "Shawarmah" by the locals it is God's gift to the gourmand. Its something like a rolled up arabic bread with stuffing. Nowadays you get authentic Lebanese sandwich at every nook and corner. Back then you only got it in the old market at a few shops run by Iranians, or Indians. Outside each cafe-like setup, there'd be this guy sweating it out in front of a vertical grill. And sizzling away would be a vertical skewer of meat some 2 feet tall and a feet round. A huge chunk of it. The guy would deftly turn it around every few second so it would get roasted by the grill. "Thalatha Shawarma, Dejaj". When Dad said the magic words, I died and went to heaven. Four sandwiches, chicken. Sweaty griller man would quickly pick up a huge knife and pick and shred off some grilled meat from the heavenly mega-kebab. The aroma still drives me wild...
The meat was quickly packed into a split open arabic bread. The bread is called "khubz" and is part of EVERYONES dining table. Nation, religion no bar. A dash of humoos (a chickpea dip), tahina (sesame dressing), pickled cucumbers, chillies, french fries, some green salad and broken wheat. Tightly rolled up into two wax papers. One bite into the concoction and you orgasmed. There is no other word. And for the veggies they made it out of felafels (deep fried broken wheat and chickpea dumplings). The "Shawarmah" alone is why some mallus never return from the gulf. Whenever I pop back to meet family, we tend to stop over at the neighbourhood Shawarmah store on the way from the airport. Its as much a part of the family as many people I know.
So many many memories of a country fighting to create an identity and masses of people fighting to survive and eke out a living. A french neighbour, a Bangladeshi plumber, a Pakistani laundryman, a Goan class teacher, and a swiss american benchmate in school. Cultures and identities lost in the quagmire, with only the Shawarmah standing supreme. I have rambled on and on again... Forgive. Have a great weekend. And best of luck for all the lats guys...
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