3 Years of Pleasures and Pains, Losses and Gains (part 1)

Nowadays I don’t write much about work. When I used to work in GP, I’d write a lot about work and I even earner myself a bad reputation for bragging about my job. This was more prevalent in my amadergaan blog, but its presence also marred my blogger blog to some extent. Anyways, today I’m once again in the mood for writing work stuff.

It was a bright, sunny November morning. It was not that cold, though it was winter. It was only my 3^rd or 4^th visit to the GrameenPhone office called Celebration point. I entered the office and went straightly towards the HR department. A smiling; somewhat young officer asked me to sign a lot of papers, and he also gave me a very lame briefing on my job responsibilities. He told me that I’d need SPSS and Excel a lot.

p.s. I didn’t have to use SPSS for once in my 1 year and 7 months career in GP.

I saw a very smart and cunning looking guy, who was also joining my department on the same day. I came to know that he’s a lot senior than me, and he worked in GP for 2 years before leaving for UK. Now he’s back, and he’s joining in the same position as a fresh graduate, which was highly ironical. I sneak peaked at his certificates to see that he got third divisions in SSC and HSC.

Later on, we got quite close, and sometime later I found out that he’s actually related to me in a very distant manner. We even worked in a few projects together. But eventually I moved to the Prepaid team and he started working with VAS.

I was the nearest neighbor to A bhai. I’d loosely follow A’s projects. Actually, even if I didn’t want to, I’d have to get a glimpse of the thing he’d do throughout the day. Our cubicles were so close that such information sharing would have to happen. He, however, bothered the least about what I do, and what others do, in general.

Anyways, this writing is not about Mr. A. It’s about me. Criticize me as much as you like, frown as much as you like, but today I’ll be writing about myself—hehe, as if I don’t do that already?

So the confused and introvert 23 year old lad joined the toughest marketing team in the whole telecom industry. At the beginning, I didn’t have much clue about what I’d be doing. The MRD team seemed like a country with a number of fortresses to me. I wasn’t allowed to join any fortress; instead they expected me to build a fortress of mine. But I was too young, and I lacked confidence. Moreover, I knew very little about the industry. They say I was recruited because my to-be-colleagues really liked a couple of answers in my written exam script. Actually, I gave the exam for the international roaming department. But I was selected by MC to join MRD. What an honor—I’ll remember this forever.

I still can’t forget that fateful day when MC took my interview. I was really, really nervous. For the first time in my life, I was facing an interview with the marketing director of a company. My other interviews at MGH group and Lever were with a lot lower ranked people. MGH was CEO or something, but I wouldn’t really call him a CEO with the right attitude. He was more like a caretaker type person, just like the crappy business they operate. P&G brands deserve a hell better than whatever MGH is doing with them.

Back to topic, I had to wait for a long time before I got my shot at the interview. I saw some other nervous guys (all of them were older than me) entering and coming out with frowns and confused looks. I consulted with a few GP pals of mine, and found out that interview with MC is usually a unique and fun experience. That made me a bit confident, and later on, I had the guts to speak my mind out.

MC asked me what type of work I’d like to do. Instead of answering that, I told him that I can tell you what type of work I’d hate to do. These would be repetitive, boring, non-challenging things. Then MC told me the whole of Roaming department lives on repetition, and he’s sure that after a year I’ll get bored to hell and come to him to say that I’m quitting. I got afraid and tried to reassure him that I won’t quit. But he insisted that I should try a different field, and that should be Research.

R-E-S-E-A-R-C-H

Do these letters ring a bell? Of course they do! They scare the hell out of me. I was really, really bad at Statistics. Till date, I am struggling to insert statistical concept in to my brain, and I’m sure this will stay with me for the rest of my life. I managed to get an A- in Marketing Research in the last semester, but still the terrors of the two statistics courses (where I got D and C) was still fresh in my memory.

And when the HR guy called me up and said “Congratulations! You have been selected to join the GP marketing team. But instead of IR, we have selected you for Market Research and Development”; I was more baffled than happy, more scared than elated. After all, I didn’t want to be humiliated after joining as a promising recruit.

My performance at GP was divided in a few phases. Initially, I was a slow starter. It took me a while to really get in to work. I kind of sat idle for the first 2 months or so. I’d blame my colleagues for this to some extent. I needed guidance, which I didn’t get. That was my first job, damn it.

Soon I joined the prepaid team with an IBA senior bro and started getting involved in all the projects like Easy Gold, My Time, My Choice, Djuice, etc. I had joint success, as well as solo success in a number of projects. I was really happy about myself for being one of the two people who controls the fate oh millions of GP prepaid customers. And till date, I can boast and say to people that “Look, this My Time feature was my concept! I designed it, I launched it—and no one can erase my name from the glory attached with this concept”.

At one point of time, I was highly motivated, and I’d do anything and everything that came by me. But then, some people got promoted, and I found out that they actually worked a lot less than me. Then came the period of frustration and pain. I delved down; really down. I started making mistakes; I started doing things carelessly and with less care. One day, my immediate supervisor called me in and warned me. I started focusing more on my job, and my bosses started showing a level of indifference towards me. Meanwhile, I started enhancing my network within the company, and more and more people got to know me. I was known as someone who takes things in to consideration; no matter what they are. So the working group (consisting of people from all departments) liked me more than my senior bro, but I was termed as a slow project manager by my colleagues. Later on, I found out that there should be a balance. If I listen to everybody and anybody, my projects will never get launched.

One cannot satisfy everyone. Agreed and accepted.

Once again, I found myself motivated. At this point of time, the whole of Sales, Marketing and Distribution team went to Shillong for the yearly conference. I had the time of my life out there; mixing with half or simply unknown colleagues. I really had a blast.

But this good feeling didn’t last long, as MC was leaving the company. Dirty European politics forced his departure, and it felt really bad. And after a couple of months, my best buddy S left GP to join Banglalink.

That was the time when my time at GP started becoming torturous. Every moment was a moment of pain, and I couldn’t stand my HOD. With all due respect to her career and achievements, she’s a bitch!

So I had to leave the company, and I left after working really hard for almost 2 years.

But that’s a different story…