Being a manager...

My conscious and subconscious mind keep running into each other, much like children on a busy playground. I will tell you what has brought me into this state of reverie... I have had four lectures today and so I am slightly sleep-deprived, ever so slightly boggled by the volume of work to be done as assignments and mildly concussed after literally knocking my head against the wall.

The MBA world is a different place altogether. You enter and you feel a sudden chill and a premonition of impending danger. You take bold steps forward, because your honor is at stake. You have to live up to the expectations of people ranging from your parents, friends, girlfriends/boyfriends, neighbors, aunts and uncles and even the cab driver who brought you to the gates of the b-school and felt the need to charge you extra because you are going to be a manager someday.

So you take the plunge into this abyss where the din is deafening. India has got numerous b-schools and each and every one of them churn out numerous managers every year. By next year I will be one among those many managers. It is going to be a scramble to make my voice heard and to stand up and be counted in the crowd. But those are all things in the future. From where I am currently precariously placed, these problems look ages away.

My immediate concern is to present a case on Hitler tomorrow and to come up with a project for my Sales Management class by this weekend. According to my professor, there are lot of strategic lessons to be learned from Hitler's conquest and his ultimate failure. Sun Tzu's art of war is another book from which we have to gain insights. I think the message to be drawn is, 'Lock and load boys, we are going to war'.

It is time to forget all good things, nice and dandy, in this world. Now, when I see a child happily eating ice-cream all I can think of is about the brand of the ice-cream and what positioning made the consumer (the kid) to buy the product. I have been successfully institutionalized.

I have chosen my road. Sometimes, I muse about the road not taken. But I guess, it is a case of the grass being greener on the other side. Now I am expected to think and act like a manager. The time to tarry is long gone. Let me immerse myself in the life that I have chosen for myself and make the most of it. My Bar Mitzvah is over and it is time for me to take charge...