At the crack of dawn

“Hey, you have such a cool office”, “Wow! Zumba, Treasure Hunt, You guys are having fun!”,” YL Interns taking a bottle flip challenge, woah!” and on and on…

Messages kept on popping up after week 1 Facebook posts, some were envious, some were happy and some, you know were just curious of my choice between sales and marketing.

It just took 3 days and I fell in love with - ‘the Airtel life’. Activities, Lectures, Games, Dance, Selfies, Team activities, Prizes, Photo Shoots and what not? What more an intern could ask for, that too just in the beginning?

I nailed the bottle flip challenge with a perfect catch :D

Fast forward >> Onto "the project"

The bumpy ride

On reading the title of my project I was like -” It seems to be simple!” (Later I realised, it was just the title that was simple :D :D).

First few days were like “Go to Market, Get Insights and Come Back”. The monotonous routine changed, the day I met my guide on a visit to the same market. I just casually told him my insights and asked doubts, instead of clarifying them he asked me a lot of counter questions (which I didn’t have answers to), he didn’t answer anything he just said you see, you see, that you should see (this was an eyeopener). Then and there I realised, I need to explore more, each and every angle of it and hence began, the “rigorous sales visits”.

This internship made me meet around 200 people from all background, all class, and each sharing a different experience and a different learning. Eventually, I did find many gaps and came up with ideas to fill them. I do remember making my first recommendation and ~~‘it was rejected’~~ (umm…. I shouldn’t mention that, but that’s okay, don’t want to hit the backspace now).

At times, I literally felt like Will Smith of “The Pursuit of happiness”, trying hard to make ends meet, facing difficulties yet far from giving up.

Unforgettable learnings for life

So, the rejection was one of my biggest learnings but then it didn’t deter me from giving more recommendations, the only difference was they were very well thought off (most of them were accepted this time). It was the time of mid review and I was left with a lot to cover up and so I had to give up on the second dearest thing to me, “Sleep” (Food is the dearest btw :D). Reckless days, on the visits and sleepless nights, making PPTs. All, so exhausting yet so interesting. After the mid review (which went smooth ), it was all about implementation and I can swear on this, the last 4 weeks, was the real learning period. I have faced the failure, the success, the joy, the feeling of project going for a toss and bringing it back on track with a positive attitude.

The eight weeks journey at Airtel in Sales, in such a fierce competition with such freedom to explore, to make changes in the current system and to implement them freely, to see the impact and to do corrections, made me go beyond the title of my project.

This Summer of 18 has been made even more beautiful by the Social Media tasks which made the creative side of me come out, the Fastest Finger First, the Digital Store visits, the lectures by the leaders and the list goes on. Now when I look back and ask myself was this summer a great one? I would say - By far, the best.

P.S. My guide has always been the pillar of support throughout the internship. He just gave the direction never a solution. Two days back he said -” I could have helped you from the beginning but then this would have just been an ordinary internship and not a learning field. I wanted you to come out of your zone as a butterfly comes out of its cocoon”.

AAYESHA ALI PGP 2017-19 Batch

A Butterfly Out Of Its Cocoon - Aayesha Ali's Journey Of Summers At Airtel - IIM Indore