Deadlines And Chilling - MDI

When I first came to MDI, I had no idea of time management. Within a week, I was a professional time manager. How did this profound change suddenly happen? In MBA, there is something called an induction week – the week that changes things. After all, we call ourselves change masters, right? Suddenly, you find yourself in the presence of an omnipotent authority known as the student council, who might call you at any waking (and sleeping) moment of the day (or night) in closed-neck formals. I remember the first time I dressed up in formals, here at MDI. I took exactly 20 minutes and 42 seconds to get myself ready. Now it’s just 42 seconds, or in the words of Barney Stinson, “Suit up!” and boom. You find yourself chasing time alongside 360 other fellow batchmates, as you find your way to the auditorium. Thus, you find yourself (willingly or unwillingly) in a full-time committed relationship with Time. If you treat her well, she will reward you with sleep. However, sometimes even when you treat her well, shower her with expensive gifts, she might elope with her ex-lover, namely deadlines. Deadlines is like Jack the Ripper. He arrives in the dead of the night, in search of any unfortunate victim who might commit the deadly sin of chilling in the sweet summer heat of Gurgaon. Me personally, I quite like Deadlines. In particular, I love the whooshing sound as they go by.
At MDI, you get exposed to a lot of things. I personally managed to befriend a weird, but talented subset of humanity. When you are chasing a goliath like Mr. Deadlines, you certainly need people who will stay up all night helping you with assignments, and then again, you have this ubiquitous, elite category called the free-rider. Some talked even in their sleep, while some refused to speak even under duress. Amidst all this, the entire experience has taught me the virtue of humility. You soon begin to realize that you are nothing without your batchmates, and you need their help and support to finance the day to day operations (or finance) of a day. I personally knew nothing about the balance sheets and cash flow statements of the world and if it were not for my room-mate, I would have long perished. In short, everything here is like a trade-off, and life hinges on finding that optimum balance between work and play.

At ABG, I would like to work in Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, as the brands which are part of the company are something which I am comfortable with and thus will be better suited to understand what the consumer wants, which ultimately is the essence of marketing. Also, I have heard that the standards which the company has set for the employee is quite high, and I would find it a challenging experience to work in such a space.