I was chatting with one of my friends at work and as usual, I ended up hopping from one topic to the other then other and it finally ended up in I narrating 'experiences' at my first job. The poor girl didn’t have a choice but to listen to all of it. But, after I finished going on a ‘its-so much-fun-recollecting-those-days’ spree, I thought I should post about it, before the memories get muddled!
After my college, I considered various professions that I would be interested in, which ranged from secretarial course, hotel management, hospital management, MBA to being a Chartered Accountant – today, interestingly I hold none of those qualifications – but, back then I had decided to pursue Chartered Accountancy.
I had to do a three year training for it and so went about applying at various firms. The first place I ever went to drop my resume was Ferguson (trust me it took me a day to pronounce it right), I actually kept an auto rickshaw waiting and went in to drop my resume. There was this guy (I don’t know what his position was in the firm, must be a manager or likes) who said, he is going to conduct an interview for which I blurted out "I have an auto waiting and I am getting late for lunch” and I guess it threw him off his balance. I also backed it up by saying I wasn’t prepared. He convinced me it wouldn’t take much time and that it would be easy. He asked me “sales entry”, which is THE basic thing u learn in commerce/finance, needless to say I was too nervous to give him a right answer.
Out of kindness, to make it easy for me ended up asking the tough-est question ever, "what's your favourite subject?" Ironically, I never had a 'favourite subject'!!! After a lot of deliberation, I declared statistics as my favourite subject (the only subject, where I had scored 99%). He asked me questions from stats and my expression was priceless - I stared into his face with a totallly blank expression!! No prizes for guessing the outcome – I never got through!
Undeterred that I was, I went on with giving my resumes around. So, this one firm – Ernst & Young (where I eventually ended up joining) I went to meet the HR. She looked at my graduation scores which were a mix of highs and lows but never outwardly higher and a little below the firm’s cut-off for intake candidates. She said “you will have to work really hard if you are in”, I nodded my head in reply. Then she asked “how do you think you can work hard, when you never did that till date?”(I wonder how did she know that????) The smarty that I was, I replied “there is always a first time for everything” – EHAHAHAHAHA!
After a few days, I had a next round of interview with a manager there. There were about 30 (approx) candidates and most of them looked scholarly. I assumed I stand no chance, but hanged on there. So, when the manager called me in, he asked me if I read news papers, while all I read in them were the cartoons, I managed to sound like a regular at reading them but never specified for once 'what' I read in them (EHAHAHAHAHA again). He went on and asked me “do you know why financial statements are made in an excel sheet and not in word?” I thought, considered his question and after a minute or two answered “because excel has lines and boxes and word is like a plain paper”!!
Again after a couple of weeks I had an other interview with the next level in their hierarchy (Yes, I was shortlisted, even after all those tasteful responses). I met this very nice, somber (and good looking) gentleman, who was my interviewer. In between the interview, he had to attend a call so, I was sitting there waiting for the next question, when I saw the first ever split AC of my life. It was on ‘swing’ mode. I was mesmerized looking at it ‘swing’ so gracefully (before you ask – I still don’t know what was so mesmerizing about it). When he finished his call, I was still swinging my head in sync with ‘the swing’!!!
So, finalllyyyy came the joining day (YES!!! Irrespective of my total gavar, angutha chap behavior I did get selected). Everyone (my co-joinees) was very excited and anxious to meet the partner – except me, who was pretty calmed down about it. I had always read about partners in my books in graduation. For every problem we were given, there was always a ‘X is partner of Y firm’, so for me any partner was as normal and random as a ‘X’. It took a couple of days for it to sink into my head, what it was being a partner in Ernst & Young – one of the five (it is four now) largest international accountancy and professional services firm in the world!!!! I was so unreasonably naive!!!!
The initial days, when I was not allotted any work, I observed all my seniors. They always had prints of some or the other balance sheets of clients which they were working on. There were a lot of annual reports which were given to us, so we can read through. I browsed through a few now and then and was awestruck by the fact that every balance sheet there, each one of them, had tallied – for me, (whose only knowledge was limited to college) cumulatively in all those five years (2 years of +1 +2 & 3 years of graduation) when I studied commerce, I would have tallied some five balance sheets (“cumulatively”)!! I was floored!! I marveled at the fact that the firm was filled with geniuses who could tally any and all balance sheets!!! It took me my first assignment to understand that it was not a rare skill. Firstly, it was always done by client personnel. Secondly, almost everything was system generated.
Now, as I think of it, it sounds hilarious. Back then, it was pure excitement. I got back home every day describing how amazing that place was. How beautiful the decor was, how smart the people were. It took couple of late nights, extremely crazy work hours and irrational bossism to sedate the excitement!!!
After 6+ years in this industry and working for three such firms, I am now not excited anymore, but fascinated definitely I am, at their amazing knowledge base (in people and in paper), never ending work hours, extremely dependable manpower, aggressive leadership and how things are always needed on a yesterday basis and yet things to get done ON TIME!!
It’s a different world out here….to say the least!
