A Peacock In The World Of Penguins - Nishant Kumar's Internship Experience At JP Morgan And Chase

A peacock in between penguins can never become a good penguin but it can always become the best of peacocks. 

This is a story of a peacock who landed himself in between a group of penguins. Coming from a city of rainy forest farms (strong technical background, an undergraduate from IIT, 2 yr work experience in software firm), the peacock wanted to become a professional dancer (pursue finance in his MBA program, IIM Bangalore). However, the land of penguins wasn’t anything like he expected. It made him realize that penguins were among the most respected people in the campus and all penguins sang the same “I want to do consulting” song.

“Which is your dream company?”, a senior penguin asked.

“I want to do consulting”, all junior penguins recited.

It’s true that we become the average of all the person we spend our time with, but we often forget that, underneath, we are all still very different. 

Of all the penguins, the peacock became one of them. Even though peacock loved rainfall, it accustomed itself to survive in ice, a place were penguins thrived.

“Which is your dream company?”, a senior penguin asked.

“I want to do consulting”, the peacock replied.

As seasons passed, the peacock continued his arduous task of becoming less like peacocks and more like penguins. He even started loving snowfall more than the falling rain. He learnt skating on the ice and playing with snowballs. In the sport of ice, he even beat his fellow penguins.

Finally, the season of summer brought with it a hope, it was time for the peacock to show how good a penguin it has become. Skills and achievements of all the penguins along with the peacock were sent to the recruiters. Recruiters were like experienced penguins, who hired people like them (cultural-fit).

“The peacock looks good, but he isn’t like us”, one of the recruiters replied.

“He has spent all his life dancing in the rain, he isn’t cut out for this job (no relevant work experience)", others replied.

One after other, all penguins were shortlisted for the top consulting firms. Peacock, among few others, was left behind. The wings of a peacock, which was supposed to dance, shrunk more due to this humiliation.

The only person you want to become tomorrow should be a better version of what you are today. 

A week later, when the peacock was roaming around the snow-covered road, it looked up and saw dark clouds above him. For the first time in a while, he wanted it to rain. For the first time in a while, he wanted to flap his wings and dance in the rain.

Going out of your comfort zone, once in a while, is fine, but we should never forget where our comfort zones are.

And then it rained (Shortlist from JP Morgan). When all the penguins ran to find shelter, the peacock ran to the field and danced. Even though he hadn’t danced for a while, he danced like never before.

All the penguins looked at him and praised him for what he was. Some of the penguins even wanted to be like him.

It doesn’t matter if you fold a dollar ($) note, crush it or throw it on the ground, the $ note will still be valued 1$, it will never lose his value.

“Which is your dream company?”, a senior penguin asked.

“I want to do what I do best”, all replied.