A Happy Post!! :) :)

I am 4 weeks into my 10-week MBA Summer Internship and thought this would be a good time to write about my experience till now. I am working with a technology start-up, Lockhouse Network (lockhouse.net) , in Pittsburgh as a Corporate Strategy & Business Development Intern.

I absolutely LOVE working at this place!! I don't think I've ever felt more excited, enthusiastic, and happy while working before. If I remember correctly, I was almost always frustrated and stressed with my old job. But this is just a turn around. This time everything is different, and all for the good!

Y'all must be wondering about the reasons behind my joy and excitement about this job. Well, there are quite a few of them but I'll share the most important ones with you.

1. Struggle: I had to struggle hard for 4 months before this internship offer materialized. It was tough giving so many interviews and keeping sane. I was determined not to take up any random offer and applied only for the jobs I was truly interested in. But it all paid off in the end and suddenly from zero offers one day I had 3 offers within the next 7 days :) :) It was a good kind of stress to make the correct decision. My heart was set on Lockhouse from the beginning, but I assumed I had to decide using my head. So I had a lot of discussions with my parents and friends, and when they also encouraged me to follow my heart I went with this offer. Believe me, I thank god everyday that I listened to my heart and ended up here!

2. People: The one thing I've realized after working at Lockhouse is that the people you work with is the single most important factor in determining your degree of satisfaction and contentment with a company. Money, career growth, etc. are also important, but secondary factors. I'm working directly with the CEO and the VP - Marketing & Strategy, and they are Amazing!! Both of them are very down-to-earth, humble, respectful, and flexible. Both of them have accomplished so much in their life, but they have no arrogance or superiority complex about it. After dealing with arrogant and uptight company personnel for so long this was a pleasant surprise for me!

3. Work: The second most important thing to consider while deciding on a job offer. When I decided to go with Lockhouse I knew what I had to do, but I'd never imagined that it would be such high responsibility work. My opinion is asked, and taken into account, for any business-related decision that is to be taken. Also, I had never thought that I'd be using so many concepts that I had learned during my first year of MBA. But every other day I go back to look at the notes of some course I had taken last year, to move in the right direction. Some courses and workshops that have proved to be very very useful are - Service Management, Finance, Marketing Research, Marketing Management, Writing for Managers, Management Presentations, Pricing, and Excel Modeling for Managers. It gives me such great satisfaction to actually be using the concepts learned in the mentioned courses.
Another exciting thing related to work is the amount of appreciation I get for doing this work. I admit that I am not comfortable with getting compliments about my work because I feel I'm just doing my job, but that doesn't deter my managers from continuously appreciating whatever I do.

There are a lot of other things that I love about that place but it'll take me a long time to list them down.

I don't know what is in store for me in the long term, and what will happen after the 10 weeks are over. I only hope and pray that it is as good as this opportunity with Lockhouse!

Checking Out Now!
Ciao :)

A Happy Post :)

With a sudden drop in the level of activity on this blog, you all must have realized that I am back to work. My life has again started revolving around the office, and all my thoughts are in one way or the other linked to my workplace. I had been meaning to update my blog for the last two weeks, and had even started some posts, but as always, I lost my train of thought somewhere in the middle and had to drop the idea. Then on Friday a weird thing happened at work, which made me aware of the fact that how small gestures and words can bring a smile to someone's face and lift their spirits. In this case, that someone is yours truly. I decided that I just had to write this post. My hands were itching to type it as soon as possible.


The incident (I don't know whether this is a correct word to use, but I can't think of any other more appropriate word right now) turned out to be quite funny, but it just made my day! Here's what happened:


It started as a normal day. As usual, I woke up at 5 AM, got ready in my workout gear and hit the gym. After working out for an hour, I came back home, got ready for work, and was sitting in the office cab by 8 AM. Since I was feeling a little sleepy, I put on my headphones, started listening to songs on my mobile, and closed my eyes. The last song I heard before reaching office was Quit Playing Games With my Heart, by Backstreet Boys. It's quite an old song, but I simply love it. I still remember when I first heard it. I was in the seventh or eighth standard, and my cousin had got a "cassette" recorded from a music shop nearby. He had given me the cassette to listen to his choice of songs, and had specially recommended this number. I admit that from the first time I heard the song, I fell in love with it. Since then, it has always been there on all my music players, cell phones, PCs, laptops, etc, and I listen to it as often as I can. Well, coming back to the topic at hand.


As I told you, this song was the last one I heard before I reached office and switched off the music. But, the lyrics were still swirling in my mind. There are these particular lines in the song, I am extremely fond of. They are:

Deep within my soul, I feel

Nothing's like it used to be

Sometimes I wish I could

Turn back time

Impossible as it may seem

But I wish I could

So bad

Whenever I listen to these lines I get a different sort of feeling, which cannot be expressed in words. Since the lyrics were still going through my mind, after I had switched on my computer, checked my mail, and logged into AOL messenger (our official messenger), I made the lines my status message on the messenger. Then I started on with my work. Barely five minutes later, I received a 'ping' from my counselor, which said: "Hi, how are you? Are you feeling fine?" To tell you the truth, I was a little surprised at receiving this. Before you make any assumptions, let me clarify that I share a very good relationship with my counselor. She and I chat pretty regularly and whatever problem I have, I go directly to her to discuss it. But, despite our good bonding and friendly relationship, it is still a little weird to get a ping from her out of the blue, and that also at the very start of the day. So, I replied by saying that I was fine and everything was going well. At this point she questioned me, whether I was telling the truth!! Again, not a normal question at all. So, I 'pinged' her again and asked as to what made her feel that I was not fine, to which she replied, "I got worried after reading your status message. It sounds sad. So, I thought I'll ask you what the problem is." Wow!! Now this was unusual. I assured her that nothing was wrong, and I just like this song and hence, put some lines from it as the status. But she still asked me to meet her after sometime and have a casual chat. So, I ended up having a half an hour long discussion with my counselor during which I tried to convince her that everything was great on my side. I also ended up giving her this song, as she was also quite fond of it.

But, this was not the end of it either. After sometime, a friend of my mine came to my workstation and straight away asked me, "Kya hua? Itni dukhi kyun hai?" (What happened? Why are you so upset?). I did not understand the question and just kept on staring at her with a puzzled look on my face. After a minute she told me that my status message gave the impression that I am sad and depressed. I started laughing and assured her that it was nothing, just a song. She got convinced, we talked generally for a few minutes and then she left. About 15-20 minutes later, another friend of mine dropped by and asked the very same question! At this point I was thinking to myself, "These guys give so much importance to status messages on AOL!! What's wrong with them?" But, I repeated the very same answer, which I had given to my other friend earlier. He also started laughing and went away shaking his head.

The story does not end here also. One of my cab mates was on leave that day. But, she was online from home, in an invisible mode. Suddenly, she sent me a ping which said,"Awesome status message!! But what happened? All well?" This is it, I decided. I had to change my message. I never knew that a status message can create such an impression on people. I gave her the very same reply once again. Soon after that I removed the controversial message, and instead put something simple instead.

After reaching home, when I looked back on the incident, I had a really good laugh. But also, I felt humbled by the concern of so many people. A mere status message made me realize that there are people, other than my family and a few close friends, who genuinely care about me. Thanks for all your questions and worries guys! It meant a lot to me.

Signing Out,

Ciao!