Saturday, August 21, 2010

Anti-Climax

People's obsession with grades must be a result of an overdose of Viagra. The masturbation steered away from images of S E X to A, A- ,B ,B- ,C and so on. Oh Yes Yes Yes Yes Yesssss!!! There is a pattern. Oooh it is DNA.
Most people here tell me to get serious about academics. I am. As much as it is necessary, as much as I truly learn. But does that mean I need to be part of an orgy called "Dean's Listers"? I mean I have my own merits that I can list down you know. In my moments of narcissism, this list can be long...really long. So long that it can put a Jamaican man to shame.

I often look at people to understand their distorted faces after the grades are announced. Is it that they feel stupid for not doing well in exams or feel even more stupid to do poorly as compared to a colleague from a non BRANDED TECHNOLOGY undergrad school. They were starved of women in those days. Shouldn’t they be more interested in having fun now after those long lonely years they spent in darkness. I think superman briefs could be a start. You have a reason to have a distorted face with that. But, why Grades?
There is an obsession with consultancy jobs, which is fine. You learn a LOT of bullshit in a B-School. It marginally uplifts you to the demands of those hi-fi consultancy firms, creating so called entry barriers for a non MBA candidate. He doesn't know words like marginal benefits and opportunity costs and ideation and heteroskadastic samples and NPV and conjoint analysis and leverage and …...(palpitating). These concepts have changed our worlds. We are powerhouse of BULLSHIT now. Its very important to bullshit if you want to be a consultant or a manager. Remember, what we used to feel about our managers before coming here? You should be be locked up in your cabins doing these important things like analyzing data and running regressions while the rest of the employees wonder- “ What the hell does the manager do all day? Does he do any real work like may be talk to an ACTUAL customer or get his hands dirty by actually doing some real work/business?” Well we still want to be managers and consultants. We must learn to bullshit and get good grades. The circle seems to be complete.
This variety fascinates me. It is like going to a circus to get amused. My interest in the species has helped me pass by a few terms without a jitter or a frown on my forehead in spite the slog. The entertainment gets better by the day. Imagine these creatures in a play, doing their parts with great diligence and utmost passion. They can do all sort of crazy things to get noticed, to be “Differentiated”. Its funny. If you tell them you need to roll on an elephant's dump 3 times before having worms for dinner, to get the M and the B jobs, they will actually do it. I often get the devilish idea of starting such a rumour and see where it goes. Capture it all on tape to have a good 100 episodes of “Candid Camera”. What is the bloody point? They will change jobs within months after getting there. Will hate what they will do anyway because this new “god job” will be as bad as or worse than what it was before coming here. Here, you paid through your nose to have sleepless nights and get a bleeding brain. A few months later you, will get paid to do it.


It gets boring sometimes, this sort of entertainment. That’s when I find myself, NOT ALONE. Not everyone is running after these cool jobs and the BIG As. Some of them do have a life. There are some like me who do not care about academics, who have their own fun doing their own thing. Like right now, I should be slogging my butt off for two MAD exams day after. Instead, I decide to watch a play, go for a nice dinner, finish a season of House MD. Just Perfect. Today I chose to be inspired instead of reading through definitions that wont change my very existence, memorizing mathematical formulas sandwiched between typical MBA jazz words like overhead costs, allocation rate, bah. There are many who probably are finding their own inspiration right now in that sip of the soothing alcohol, the spliff rings in a dark room, conversations that probably mean nothing at all, the strum of the guitar out of the amplifier, holding hands and walking around (awww) the place knowing that this one year will never come back again. Freed from the corporate shackles, if not forever, at least for a year, no brown nosing, no office politics, no standing that bitch who made your life miserable at work, or that sleazy colleague who you hated from the bottom of not just your heart “butt” your ass, that slog for earning those extra bucks, those very “productive” long meetings with your manager which started with an agenda and ended up like ketchup.
I choose to make every moment that I live, the best time ever spent. This is what I want to take with me. MBA education to me is to be able to ask the question – “What is the bloody point?” before I start(or not) doing something about it.