A big doubt crept in

(wrote it some 3 weeks ago, when I was in Mumbai)

Well! It has been almost 8 months since I realized (for the first time) that I am made for a career in General Management. I seriously thought that ‘Operations’ is a field with which I’ll start and will gradually move up to a proper General Management profile. So the picture was quite clear. I could never be an I-Banker, don’t have the grades or the profile to make the cut for top3-4 consultancy jobs, and compared to whatever else was on offer I somehow convinced myself that this GM stuff is suitable for me.

But it was a new field, so that’s where I chose an internship in this GM company.
I believed (and still believe) that the main purpose(from the interne’s perspective) of this kind of internship is to Provide the Experience. An intern must feel how his life is going to be after one year if he joins the same company. First hand experience is great but at least if he can work with people who are in that position (seniors who were offered the similar post), that will be just fine. I am saying this because an internship is not like a sales pitch for a small FMCG product, we are talking about careers. If someone likes the culture and joins in, the company is getting a great employee for the future; otherwise it is just wasting its money and someone’s time.

Needless to say that I am finding myself on the wrong side of this philosophy (Otherwise who thinks about such things.. even Newton thought about gravity only when he was hit by an Apple J).

In fact now I am more than apprehensive about a career in General Management. The fear is that it’s not that professional a field as IT(that I’ve experienced). As the field requires you to deal with real issues/numbers.. Most of the people who are there for 5- 10 years, feel that all these MBA types are those hi-fy PPT types. Most of such companies are bureaucratic or even worse they are dynastic, family run types. And anyway a bad experience fills your mind with lots of doubts.

Leaving that field currently I find myself more suitable for the IT/domain consultancy types of jobs. And then yeah I may also go for marketing.

So overall I am a lot more confused than I ever was, Thanks to my internship experience 🙂
And the love with GM career is not completely over yet, anyway it is hard to believe that all GM jobs can be as worthless as I have seen them to be. Sometimes I make myself believe that it’s not the time to run away, but to fight. Migrating to a system that is easier to work in is no big deal, probably showing these Lo-tech baniyaa types the reality behind this hard earned MBA is a challenge in itself.

It’s odd, but the only incident that inspired me for a GM career did not involve any of my mentors or anyone from the company, rather ironically it came from a taxi driver. Here it goes..
I was coming to the outskirt of this village type thing (unfortunately where my Guest House is located) from the air-port. He asked me if I work for XYZ? As this part of the city is kinda owned by this company. I said yes. He asked me a few more questions and I told him that I am a manager there (no need to confuse him with the internship story).
He turned back and very sincerely he requested “ Sahab, Jab se aapka store khula hai tab se hamein bhi local kiraane waale saste mein saamaan dete hain.. waise sahab mehangaai bahut hai aap thoda aur sasta kar deejiye plz”