Mumbai To Bangalore - New Job Awaited

11th March | Thursday | 1000 hrs | Mumbai | My Apartment...

The day had been smooth like a snow on snow. I was packing my bags and leisurely chatting with friends before "cya"ing Mumbai. Two of my college friends were boarding the same flight as mine for Bangalore. Yes! finally I am into a job :)

It was Jet Airways, booked 3 weeks before our journey to get the best fares. My taxi was for 12 noon, just two hours prior to the departure of my flight. Seventy percent of my bags were packed and some tit bits were left to be shoved in here and there.

I believe in doing things in last minute, especially packing , as it gives you a rush of adrenaline and adds to your excitement. While doing this, I received a call from Jet Airways that our flight had been canceled and in lieu of that there was another flight arranged for us, which was Jet Konnect. I assume everyone would know the difference here and would not blame me for not taking the exchange flight at same fare. The reason of cancellation was something related to technicality of the flight, though I confirmed later that this was very normal in Jet Airways flight when their flights don't fill in time.

As if I wanted more adrenaline in life, with that call my snowy smooth day turned into a LIVE chaos - half due to the cancellation of flight and half because I broke my toe while doing alternate booking and rushing for the filling and scanning forms. Yatra website or any other travel websites do not allow booking of flight within 6 hrs of schedule of flight. What was left with me was Tele Booking with my credit card. But there were some more adventures awaiting my presence.

Forms were sent to my mail, and what normally happens when you book 2-3 hrs prior to departure, declarations of credit card payment in standard form becomes mandatory with identity documents like pass port of pan card. All this was to be sent to the booking agent within half an hour of my new booking, else seats would stand canceled. In the mean time, it was also a work of coordination as other members should also agree to this flight. I was on two calls at a time, wishing I had more ears and hands to manage. I rushed to the nearest Sify center and got everything done in stipulated time. Flight was booked for the same time (2 pm), but this time it was Go Air Business. Yes, its Business!! Imagination has no bound but I must tell you that this business is just another economy with a curtain covering your back so others can't see you getting fooled. The only extra thing you get there is free meals and permission to "alight first" - with just Rs 1000/- more than economy fare.

Anyway, we reached our Mumbai International Airport (Domestic) and boarded our flight on time. As it was not Air India, "time = money" held true for them. Slight delay could cause them to shell out Lakhs from their pockets towards Airport Authority. This on-time flight made us reach Bangalore in just 1.5 hours. Reaching our Guest house was not a daunting task, as airport had ample taxis waiting for us. But one secret - never take a taxi without brand.You will know when you reach your destination. Always prefer Easy Cab, Fast track or Meru over them. A fare of 700 in these taxis could turn out to be 1000 in unbranded taxis. "Caveat Emptor" (Buyer Beware) applies there too!!

Finally we reached our guest house in evening 5:30 and checked in for our rooms. New people were pouring in every hour and soon all the rooms were filled. Our room had two beds, one almirah, french windows, modern style bathroom, telephone, tea maker, meticulously arranged sheets and curtains, TV and A/C. "Overall a nice room to start our day with" - was our thought.

But we forgot that we were in Bangalore and not Mumbai anymore. Things like auto fights and no night life would become a common thing to adapt to. Transition could be tough, but not impossible. After all we are MBAs!! :) We may not use Adidas but we do follow the same philosophy - Impossible is Nothing!

It was our time to rest and do formality on following day, like documents verification, opening bank accounts and filling some mandatory forms on PF, Gratuity and pensions. Just a day's work and weekend accosted us to roam around and meet old friends. We did use this opportunity to meet others and make good time kill by watching movies, browsing malls and web chit chatting. The schedule was like this - first day would be introduction to our company policies and facts on our HR aspects. Post that would follow three days of communication classes where we would run through some of the aspects like active listening, mail and Telephone etiquettes, role play, team building activities, body language, etc. Three more days are to be for the domain specific training on business front from various VPs, Practice Heads, SVP, HRs and Quality head. Thereafter our streams would be announced and that training would go for a month or 6 weeks, depending upon the technology acquaintance requirements.

Life seemed to be returning on track again. But to say the least, we are still in recession mode and become readily skeptic to any kind of stability. Good for some of us who would like to have their adrenaline pump ON ;) Happy New Job!