Virtual Internship has become the new normal for the class of 2021. I saw a lot of LinkedIn posts from my friends describing their virtual onboarding process. My Internship was not virtual but my onboarding was virtual. I had a unique experience compared to any of my co-interns, and I will explain why in this article.
I was assigned the role of City Manager Intern at Vellore, and I was asked to travel to the reporting place on May 21. Since my company was into essential services so getting, an e-pass was not a big issue, but I had other plans for traveling. I called the MDC executive at Vellore to ask about travel options, and he told there is a truck carrying fruits and vegetables coming from Chennai FC to Vellore MDC. I reported to Ponamalle FC to catch the truck, and I was surprised to see the loading process in FC. The loading process was entirely done by humans, and the instructions were continuously given to them via an app on the smartphone. The logistics manager directed me to a truck which is assigned to Vellore MDC. That was my first truck travel, and the logistics insights I got while speaking with the driver is something that no one can teach in B school.
Since I was traveling in the truck, I got down at MDC and saw the unloading process before seeing the sun in Vellore. I arrived at Vellore on May 19, so I had enough time to learn through experience than by listening. Later there was an HR call for a formal onboarding process, and I was too tired to even ask questions in that meet. I called my reporting manager Jerome at 11 PM in the night to know my role and to understand more about my company. We had a conversation for three hours, and his talk was so informative that I recorded the whole conversation to listen later. I felt no one would have summarised fresh produce market better than him in those three hours.
In the first two weeks, I did sales job, operations work, and sometimes volunteered to do labour work of moving crates. In the sales job, I traveled with sales executives for two weeks to understand the sales role and the customers. After visiting more than 100+ provisional stores, 50+ restaurants, 50+ pushcarts, and 20+ supermarkets, I got an overall understanding of the customers expectation. Computerized data won't tell that restaurants need bigger onions, and the retailers prefer mid-sized onions. Therefore, my experience in the field was a great learning experience.
My day starts at 4:30 AM when I wake up and go to the market to check the wholesale prices of all the SKU. Once I collect the prices, I report those prices to the city manager. At 5:30 AM a hurdle is conducted either by my city manager or by me. I go with any of the SE on the field, and we return to the room at 7 PM. During sales, I also had the opportunity to handle operations issues like delayed delivery, unpicked customers, returns monitoring, and OTP issues. After 9 PM, I, along with the city manager, look at the data and create a sales plan for the following day.
The above cycle was redundant until my reporting manager, who is the Chennai City Head, flew down to Vellore. I was lucky to share my room with the City Head, and most of our talks were related to business. Few days I stopped going to the field so that I can stay in the room and get some valuable information from him. But still, I tracked sales executives from my room. Everything was going well until a few sales executives resigned for personal reasons. My City Head gave me the responsibility to hire sales executives, and I was very fortunate to get such a level of power. But hiring was not an easy task at all that too, especially for a sales role. Since I liked working with numbers, I was given the responsibility of publishing reports. Because I am publishing the reports for the Chennai Zone, I was added to all WhatsApp groups, and Deepak, who is part of the Project team, introduced me to all the area sales manager. This was a great blessing to me that I was quickly known to many of the managers. Apart from my company's business, I talked with my mentor about VC investments, farming business, PnL of a company, and even about his college life.
With no written working time, no dress code, partying together, and freedom to call anyone at any time in the company, I experienced a complete start-up culture in my company. When my friends in other firms were doing market research for product development, I was feeding the Vellore city with fruits and vegetables. This is something that I can always say proudly to anyone. I made one mistake in my job, which I regret from the bottom of my heart. When I was hiring for a sales executive post at my company, I rejected many applications just because the candidates were aged. I realized my mistake when I came home and saw my dad losing his job because of COVID 19. I missed a few dedicated and talented people like my father for that post just because I had a prejudice that 40+ people won't adapt to sales executive posts.
In April, I was sitting at home and watching people suffering due to the recession caused by COVID 19. I was helpless and I couldn't do anything. Ninjcart gave me the right opportunity to supply fruits and vegetables to hundreds of people in Vellore. It also gave me a reasonable stipend amount so that I can help my father and a few of my friends who have lost their job.
Rahul VG is a first year student at IIM Kozhikode. He hails from Tamil Nadu and has experience with TATA Elxsi. He is an economics enthusiast and is a member of the Konquest committee at IIMK. He is described as enthusiastic and well informed by his batchmates.