Tuesdays! Yes, I've those in addition to the all too well known Monday blues and Sunday evenings. It all started about 3 months back. As always, to go on with the prologue.. you know what is a bummer when you live in the Western hemisphere, you get to start your days much later than your counterparts. If your counterparts live not only in Europe but also in Australia, you start everything after they have put it to rest for the day. And, when anyone decides they need to talk something out with you, everyone is all too happy to pull you out of bed at an ungodly hour! Yes, you end up having meetings at 7am. Not only do you have to attend a 7am they decide to have you put something together for the meeting and also have a 8am, that you loose the option of dialing in from home unless you want to be the last person getting in to work. Put it all together and you get me waking up at 4, every Tuesday. Yes, every Tuesday. No matter how much I try, I just can never get into the routine. Now, that justifies having blues right.
Today was one of those Tuesdays. Add to it the Monday that was yesterday when I could get off only after 8pm, I should be seeing all colors today. Given you are reading this, you sure are swearing at me for making such a huge issue about working till 8. I totally get it. When I talk to some of my friends and classmates back home, I hear all sorts of stories when people had to work odd hours. You have 16 hr work days, 18 hr days, you leave work at 4am and start again at 8, your routine schedule is 3pm to 12am, you have to accommodate calls at 3 in the night, you have gone without weekends for 3 weeks at a stretch, you have crashed at office, I've heard it all. But, I don't work is such environments. I work in this country and I'm not an I-banker or 4-days-in-flight consultant. I work at a nice, awesome, sane, peaceful place. So, no it is not normal for me to have 14hr workdays and start again at 4am. I totally have to mention this here. When I first started doing this schedule, my VP made it a point to call and let me know that it is totally fine if I feel I can't make it to meeting some day and even if I did make it I should not extend my day too long into the evening. So, you get the kind of place I work at right. Okay, now I have digressed too much that I've totally lost track.
Yep, got it. So, it was one of those Tuesdays and at 3 in the afternoon I was all maxed out when I came across this, from a mention somewhere else. To say I was appalled is an understatement. I kind of agree that no deliveries is overkill but.. do they actually get their rooms cleaned by someone, seriously!!! I just could not believe it. And the students actually protesting, you must be kidding me! Not that I'm against them or anything. I've quite a few friends there, extremely smart people and doing great in life. But this did seem ridiculous. I know for a fact about all the stuff they do. I still remember my CAT prep days when one of the mentors who is an alumnus, told us that his best takeaway was learning to work under pressure and manage time effectively. Yes, they have to study loads and loads, cases, assignments, exams, clubs, events. I get it. I also know that there are freshers parties, club parties, section parties, after event parties and more. Yes, they do have time to do it. Oops, thats networking!! But the supposedly créme de la créme of our country can't even clean their own messy rooms.
What totally threw me off and forced me to write about it was the few reader comments that followed the article. I probably read like 10-15 of them. I just could not go further. I have no idea why the comments went wayward, but people had to bring in grad students here, compare both and pass judgments. How can I stay put now! If you choose to compare the "best" b school, lets go to some place really good if not the best. Actually, I personally had friends who took in a workload of 20 credits a semester(the normal being 12 max), worked 15 hours a week, prepared for other certifications, searched for a job during a recessionary period(Yes, here you "search" for jobs), lived off campus, cooked their own food, did groceries, cleaned their rooms and still managed to get great cgpa and land awesome jobs. How do people even come up with such comparisons!! Anyways..
Reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my friends (who is a part of the best, in their sense of the term) which ended with me going all "My school gave me the attitude that I can do anything, if I want" and him with "And mine that I deserve everything".
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