That’s where I got an offer at campus. Campus life officially ended at 17th of March with a glitzy convocation. I had done well academically after an ordinary first year and like everyone else in my batch, felt on top of the world.
After a period of rest and ennui, I joined the bank officially on 22nd May. I had 3 week training at IFMR, Chennai and actually joined dept in mid June.
Okay, enough of timelines, as if I’ve undertaken a world quest. I’d asked for a risk profile, and they had assigned me in credit risk. At IFMR, people from different departments gave an overview of their depts. Following an unflattering portrayal of credit risk group by a person working there, I developed cold feet. Upon returning, I discussed with my group head (a nice gentleman) in my first meeting and got my profile changed to market risk.
Seat is a problem in every organization. The next batch of trainees’ had gone to IFMR, so I thought I’ll occupy one of their seats temporarily till the secretary scavenges me one somewhere. After 3 weeks, no seat. Fine. The problem was there was no seat literally. In the mornings, I used to go to the corporate library and exhaust all the papers and magazines and then go for lunch. After lunch, I’ll go to my boss’ cabin for 2 reasons. One, otherwise he would forget I exist. Two, bug him for a seat. Then, I tried to read all the big documents that I’m supposed to read and when I got bored, I frequented Learning matrix (It’s a place to learn new modules related to banking Eg. Anti-money laundering).
You can’t have an MBA drawing hefty pay (according to them) and not give him no work right? So, in the 4th week, my boss started giving me small work and said they aren’t tight deadlines. But that still needs a computer. Hey, you are talking to a professional, an organization man. No problem, I told my boss. There is a Bloomberg terminal (Have you seen one? It has a twin monitor and a colorful keyboard. Sells information like Reuters) I started working on it. When someone wanted information from it, I worked on their computers. Since I needed the half finished data, I used to mail it to myself (you can’t copy from computer- IT security) Like this I worked back and forth, forth and back…
One day, Bloomberg terminal crashed. No one left their seats to collect data so that’s it.
After 6 weeks of sustained pressure, I got a temporary space without any computer, telephone or drawers.
