BoM-Bye

So, finally its time to blog off Bank of Maharashtra. :) Wow!!! I dint know it will last that long, 23 nd a half freaking months. Well, somehow I managed to achieve my target of leaving the bank before 2 years. But wasn’t I always like that, leaving everything till the last minute. :)

I don’t know how good an employee I was for my employers, but it sure was a ride. Learnt a lotta things that I won’t forget ever. Now when its time that I bid adieu to my 1^st organization, the whole journey is before my eyes. MBA in IT, recruited as a specialist finance officer (lol), I still remember saying that I was MBA Finance while I was introducing myself on the 1^st day of my induction. Who knew back then that what you do, starts defining you, not what you have studied. I am certainly headed towards proving it, whether I will prove it right or not, is a totally different question.

It’s hard to sum up the entire two years within this blog without killing the whole essence of it, but isn’t it what we were taught in our business communication classes? Skip the non-sense, stick to the point (ya whatever). Well to be honest it’ll be hard for me to skip the non-sense part here. Because it all started with non-sense, in the middle there was a lot of non-sense and yeah it ended with some non-sense too. Only thing that wasn’t non-sense that I learnt a lot (though not at the pace that I expected) and I will owe this to Bank of Maharashtra for the rest of my life.

Not only intellectually, I’ve grown as an individual too. Once so lazy and careless me, now knows how to shoulder some responsibility. Well!! we can just let the laziness part be there as it is. :P Don’t they say, something’s never change :P.

I am not gonna go on and tell you the story of every single day I spent in my institution cause I want to keep it really short. In fact I won’t share any story, just the gist of my experience of last 2 years. They say you have a role to play and here I played a lot of roles. But wasn’t I multi talented since the start B). This is the very beauty of this institution either you ignore and end up learning nothing or you just have to learn something about everything (well, the scope of this ‘everything’ is very limited here).

I don’t wanna sound like I am criticizing the institution that gave me my 1^st employment opportunity, but shouldn’t the institution think about the personal growth of its employees. But it seems it’s just a one way process for this institution, you just keep giving what you have and if you learn new things in the process, best of luck to you. Only 5 days training in the entire 2 years and that too about something which we already knew. HAHA I wonder, what is the thinking process that goes on behind this? Limit the scope of the employees to such an extent that he/she stops looking beyond the institutional boundaries. Well, I am sorry guys, dint work for me!!! And neither will it work for anyone who has a little ambition in him/her.

I am not entirely disappointed though. Everything that I know about Finance, no matter how little it is I’ve learnt it in this institution. And the reason why I have this new opportunity with me is because I had two years experience in a Bank and I thank Bank of Maharashtra for giving me those two years. You will always be there in my CV and yeah in my heart too.

How can I end this blog without mentioning the most important part, the people. Since the last two years I’ve worked in the same office, no transfers of whatsoever nature. Ha, I end up being the oldest (in terms of experience in that particular branch) officer in the office. After the initial ten months when a couple of other young officers were there, I have spent all my time in Bank of Maharashtra with people, youngest of whom, is 51 years old. On contrary to my initial doubts of fitting in with people of my parent’s age, it turned out it was not so difficult after all. The care and love that I got here, I am sure it will be hard to get the same anywhere else. Countless times, aunties would cook food especially for me and countless times I’ve eaten out of their lunch boxes. Though there were also some moments, where the opinions wouldn’t match but that happens anywhere you go. So in short, I am pretty happy with the people in the company of whom I worked (barring a few A-holes :/). I will miss all of you and the institution that allowed me to bond with you. Goodbye

1st job blues

Fresh out of a b-school, I had ideas of organizational culture, business strategies, corporate environment etc in my mind, and that was wht i was expecting to get atmy first job. (tada….time for reality check) I found myself standing,neatly dressed in formals (including a tie), outside d gates of an old looking building. i guess it was nt yet time 4 d office to open nd dere wz no calling bell outside d gate either, so there was no way I could have made them aware of my arrival. Anyways, after waiting dere 4 around 15 mins a man in khakis, came from inside the building and said, sahab branch ka timing sadhe das baje se hai.

By now you should have guessed that i was about to be a part of an industry which stood firm against the tornado of recession, that made huge organizations come down like house of cards. I am talking about the Indian Banking industry, run by people most of whom are as old as independent India (not literally). Like every generation, this generation of people also have their own unique attitude, the over conservative attitude. This attitude, which is considered as a speed breaker in the path of prosperity by our generation, turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the fight of survival against the economic slowdown(my theory).

Anyways taking my story forward told Gaikwad (the man in Khaki) about my job offer in the bank. The gates were finally opened for me, and i was told to meet Anurag Sahab upstairs. I was expecting him to be an old man in his late 50’s who would be least bothered about people joining or leaving the organization. To my surprise when I finally found my way to the 1st floor, I got to see three young faces. It might not sound very amazing to you, but for my company I guess it was the first time in its 75 year history, that four young managers were standing under the same roof.

So my 1st day in office started with making history. After the introductions were done, I was finally feeling a bit relieved to be among people of my own age group. After some time other senior officers arrived at the office, I was introduced to them by Anurag. There was another thing that I cant forget from my 1st day of office i.e. the look given by one of the my senior after knowing I was directly recruited as an officer in the middle management grade (he himself was on the same grade after 20 years of service). If I were to interpret that look in words, then it would be something like, “what the hell! God please tell me it’s not true.”

Jokes apart, I was actually amazed to see all the officers arriving before time which clearly destroyed the myth that I had heard about sarkari babus. But there is always a dirty fish in d pond and that day, that fish turned out to be my boss. He finally put his charan-kamals inside the office at least 1 hour after the office timing, and I was actually very fortunate to get darshan of his charan-kamals (he was wearing chappals :O). It really made me look like an idiot and that was the 1st and the last time I was seen wearing a tie in the office.

I think I have spoken enough of my 1st day at office and its time for me to talk of other experiences that I had during the last six months of my job. But is it natural, that I am finding it hard to recollect many such ought-to-be-mentioned kind of experiences? This is really encouraging me to ask all of you a question that, “when you are in a job, are your 1st and your last day in office the only significant moments and the rest of the days you are an insignificant person doing insignificant work which otherwise would have done by someone other than you, if you were not there in the 1st place?” Well, it might not be true, but I had this thought for a brief moment.

Ok, fine! Lets not deviate from the topic (haha…best line to use in a GD, ma mba friends can relate to it better). So my 1st day was not the only day when I was forced to correct some perceptions that I had of “sarkari sansthas”. Another myth, that was proven to be wrong during my last six months in office, is that, “promotions are really slow in Public sector units”. Take my case for example, during the first couple of months I worked as a data entry operator, then I was promoted to the job of relationship manager (glorified version of receptionist.” no offence meant”) now finally after 5 months I am gaining exposure of project financing(which is something I was recruited for , in the 1st place :P). Just temme how many private companies promote a data entry operator to a project manager within a period of five months :D?

This again is prompting me to discuss something that is outside the topic of this blog,” Why does the public sector always fall behind the private sector?” Some of the reasons that I can relate with my case are, lack of proper planning and inefficient use of resources. Why would a company hire a MBA to feed data into the system? This is not something very specific to my organization, this is something that happens with most freshly recruited people, who are over qualified and over paid for the kind of job that they are made to do. This is a small observation that I had from my experience with a public sector bank, though am not as nearly as qualified to judge the strategic and planning issues of organizations which despite all odds have withstood the test of time and even proliferated.

Every industry has its pros and cons, the same is the case with this sector. The best thing about an otherwise unprofessional sector like this, is the very fact that it’s not professional. It has its own unique marketing strategies, its own unique organizational culture and its own unique environment. Though I can’t promise that I will continue to be a part of this sector for a long time, but there is no way I can deny the fact that so far I have really enjoyed my time here. We all have our own priorities, and right now my priority doesn’t go very well together with this industry. Gosavi Sir(my senior, not the one who gave me that unforgettable look) once told me if you really want to “LEARN” from your work, you should stay with this organization. I do agree with him and I do want to “lEARN”, provided the “L” is silent. :D

Its time for me to give my fingers some rest, waise bhi I am not used to of working this much in office. (ya!!! Another history in the making in my office, my 1st blog is written at my workplace).