To B or not to B

It has been an eventful year. A year back, I was overjoyed at the prospect of being here. And now, the feeling is entirely different. Is it the same for most of us? Do most of us enroll into a B-school only to realize that it is too stressful for us lazy bums?

The answer has often been yes, for most people around me. It is a battlefield out here every day. The Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 and all other related woeful acts made me realize that even with a ninety nine point something in Verbal Ability, my comprehension of a sentence packed with ‘notwithstanding’ and ‘part thereof’, was substandard at best. Post a 3-month stint with Accounting for Managers, I could hardly tell bonds from debentures. And come third term, I was at the mercy of what a member of the faculty himself referred to as the ‘Holy Trinity’ – which was not averse to packing three ‘D+’s into my grade sheet in one go, that would leave me with a sunk cost of 5 lakhs here and an opportunity cost of 7.5 lakhs in HSBC. Of the luckier ones who haven’t had to face the fact that even costs were classified into such jargon, I am immensely jealous!

But probably the three days of my life that made me feel most incompetent, were the three days of the summer internship process before Merciful Mercer decided to give me a shot. It was hard to believe that one ‘carrying forward your point’ a zillion times and another sitting silent through an entire so-called group discussion were both considered able candidates by the same freaking panel! It was even more difficult to digest that most companies openly discriminated against people with any kind of work experience – the more the worse!

For people who are still contemplating whether to make the same set of mistakes that I made, I would strictly advise against it, if you are even remotely satisfied with your pay – which I hear, can be monetary or relational – the monetary includes base pay, allowances, benefits while the blah blah… God! There I go again!! But coming back to the point, it is my conviction as of now, that paying up 10 ( or more) lakhs for being made to feel mediocre for two years is hardly justified by the painfully inflated and grossly misrepresented seven digit pay packages.