My Actual Work Experience...

Nov 2009 - Management Trainee

Arpil 2010 - Account Management Specialist

April 2011 - Senior Account Management Specialist

July 2011 - Account Manager

April 2012 - Senior Account Manager

April 2013 - Group Account Manager

Jan 2014 - Group Head

4 years for a journey from Management Trainee to a Group Head in Digital Advertising. Today I feel proud that the teams in which I worked earlier, I am managing multiple of such teams now. Lot of people around me tell me that I have grown quite fast. But those lot of them dont know about my journey before Nov 2009. There are lot of other profiles of work that I undertook before I joined a fulltime job as Management Trainee.

Below is the journey that was covered before Nov 2009:

In year 2001 I passed my SSC and had taken admission in Science in Wilson College. I had taken Science with desire to become an Engineer in IT. But a journey to become an engineer starts right from 1st year of your Junior College. Students start preparing for HSC even before clearing their 1st year as the competition to get an admission in a good Engineering college required not good but excellent marks. But there was a different script that was written for me. Forget about me starting to study for my HSC in first year I never got time to study for my 1st year exams. When I entered my junior college my Dad got ill and was not able to go to work due to his health. Looking at the situation and condition then I decided that I would start earning to run our family. It was just me, mom and my dad in my family. With SSC passed background if I would have gone to find work in any company I would have not got a job higher than an office boy with maximum salary of Rs 3000 per month. Also, my parents always had high expectations from me so they would have never allowed my to take up a job of any low profile. But luck shined on us and we got to buy a small milk vendor business in our area as the person who was running it wanted urgent money and so he had to sell it off. We never had savings to buy it so my Mom took help from her brother to finance the buying amount. Being a milk vendor business it had to be operated in early morning. So the work timings were early morning 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM to delivery the milk to the houses of the people. I took it up feeling I would able to manage it. Getting up at 4:00 AM every day was a huge challenge as I was not just doing this. My routine was 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM running the milk shop, then reaching college for 10:00 AM lecture, then coming home from college in evening 4:00 PM, then going to collect the cash from the customers who liked to pay on daily basis for the milk that we delivered to them in morning, then coming back home and study. I used to do most of it except the last part of coming back home and study. Because by the time I used to sit to study I used to dose off and sleep as I always had tension of getting up early again at 4:00 AM the next morning. I followed this routine for almost 2 years. It was hard along with my studies. But I was able to earn Rs15,000 per month to run my family and my own needs at that time which kept me going. It taught me a lot of things about work at a very early age of my life. It taught me how to interact with customers, how to deal with them, how to manipulate them, how to grow a business, how to multi-task and many more things. Out of everything it taught me one very important lesson of life that no work is small or big. Its your situation that decides what kind of work you would have to deal with.

As I was close to my HSC exams my Dad had recovered from his health and he decided to take over the Milk Centre business so that I get to study for my exams. By the time I left the Milk Centre business I had identified an opportunity to cross sell Tea Powder to local Chaiwalas who used to buy milk from us. They used to buy Tea Powder from local shops at Rs160 per kg. The same tea powder was available at wholesale markets at Rs80 per kg. I approached all the tea stalls whom we used to supply milk at a price of Rs140 per kg. Getting same tea powder for Rs20 less delivered to their shops was not a bad deal for them. I got few customers and was able to sell 2Kgs of tea powder everyday. This meant that I was able to make Rs120 profits by selling tea powder every day and this Rs120 was all my money and I didnt had to give a single penny of it at my home. This helped me of not getting suffered of not getting pocket money from my parents. I was earning more that what pocket money my friends used to get by doing hardly 30 mins of work every day. I sensed at that time that every business has an opportunity to cross sell something else. And if you can use that opportunity well you would be able to grow your business well. This learning I continued a lot in my first fulltime job and was successfully was able to do a lot of cross selling to keep growing companies business from exisiting clients.

I passed my HSC with average marks which didnt got me an admission in Engineering college but the marks were good enough to get me an admission in BSc IT. While I started first year in BSc IT I had not stopped Tea powder supply work. Also, as my spending needs were not very high so I started doing a lot of savings. One day I thought how can I make use of the money that is just lying idle in my Savings account. A thought came to my mind how about giving this money to people who needs it by charging them an interest. There were a lot of shop owners, local chaiwalas, footwear store owners who were in need of money. I started a scheme with such individuals. I gave them Rs9000 and they would return back to me Rs12000 in 3 months by paying me a fixed amount daily. I didnt continued this for a longer duration as I started realising I was taking a very high risk in this. There were individuals who werere not paying on time which was affecting me in long run. So after a time I stopped with this business of lending money to people and charging an interest to them. This sort of business taught me how to manage risks. Also it taught me that in your work sometimes you have to go by your gut feelings. If you feel that in a long tun you would make a higher loss then you should stop even if you are making short term profits.

By the time I completed my first year in BSc IT I was feeling lost. I had started feeling this field is not meant for me. Its not like I didnt Iiked computers but the subjects that we had were all about software programming and I was never able to cope up with programming languages. Then I decided to do a course in Computer Hardware and Networking. It was a 3 months course which taught me how to assemble a computer. Again I saw a business opportunity out after doing this course. I felt assembling a computer is not a difficult job and has good money in it if you are able to get customers. I along with one of my friend started approaching few of our contacts to enquire whether they would like to buy computers from us. At that time if we used to sell one computer we used to earn around Rs15,000 to Rs20,000. It was good enough money for efforts that were for a days time. Even if we used to sell one computer in 2 months we used to feel more than happy. Also, simultaneously I was doing a course in Graphic Designing and Animation. This was a fulltime course and fees of this course was equal to my 3 years fees of BSc IT. After taking up this course I started feeling I would not be able to pursue a career in Graphic Designing or Animation. I dont know why I felt like that but then in my mind I always wanted to earn back the money my parents had put in this course as it was not a small amount. Once I learnt graphic designing I started taking work to design and print - logos, visiting cards, letter heads, stationary, etc for small companies that were in my contact. I earned good enough money from these jobs but it was not good enough that I could tell my self that I recovered the money my parents had put in for the course. Computer Networking and Graphic Designing jobs that I did gave me higher satisfactions. This was something that I learnt and then used in application to earn money out of it. Also, these jobs were of higher status I would say compared to what I had done earlier.

Then I passed my BSc IT in 2006. I never sat for the campus interviews as all the companies that came for campus interviews had jobs for programming which I was never interested in. Also, I completed my course in Graphic Desigining and Animation. I had two options in front of me at that time - one get into some Software company and write programs and second use my course knowledge and get into graphic designing and animation. I kept my mind open and tried a job in both the fields. IT job I did for 2 days in one of the IT MNC and Graphic Designing job I did for a week in small Graphic Designing firm. As both the options didnt worked for me I decided to pursue MBA. It was a brave decision looking at the financial condition of my family. Getting admission in MBA college was a difficult task and if you got an admission than minimum amount that was required to pay the fees was Rs2,00,000 for 2 years course. All the past works that I did gave me a lot of learnings but didnt gave me that high savings. So, I convinced my Moms sister that she pay my fees and I would return it back to her in an year once I complete my MBA course and get a fulltime job. I studied for MBA entrance exams and failed big time as I scored very less marks. Luckily I got admission in one of not very reputed college. I took an admission thinking the course is same what other colleges has so I should be able to sail through. After my 1st year I got an internship in Digital Advertising company - BC Webwise. I did a 2 months internship in this company and I was loving what I was doing there. I realised that this is something that I would love to do for rest of my life. I decided I would pursue a fulltime career in Digital Advertising post my MBA studies.

In 2nd year of my MBA through a contact I came to know that there was a big requirement for a 3d animation work in one of the premium hotels in India. The scope of the project was huge and I looked at this as an opportunity to recover the money my parents had put in the course I did in Graphic designing and Animation and also recover the fees that was put into my MBA studies. I never had hands on experience of 3d animaton but I knew a lot of people who could do this work. I contacted one of the person who had good portfolio to present to the Hotels manager who had the decision over who should get the project. He was impressed with what we showed him and he gave us work for 4 properties across India. As I mentioned the scope of this project was huge so I was able to pay my Moms sister the money that she had given me for MBA studies well before the time I committed to her. In this work my role was more of Project Manager which involved man management and making sure to execute the project as per deadlines. I learnt a lot about how to manage people and get work done from them as per your requirements during this project. Then I completed by MBA in Marketing in the year 2009 and as planned got into a fulltime career into Digital Advertising in Nov 2009.

This was a journey that I covered before Nov 2009. It was a journey of lot of hard work, learnings, lessons that no course, no fulltime job can teach you. Be it client relationship management, cross selling, team management, timely executions, new learnings, etc all were the lessons that I learnt from each of the small works that I took at my early age and now I use them in my daily work now and they give me lot of positive results. Journey from Management Trainee to Group Head was a faster one is what I agree with the people who mention it to me but the efforts that went before actually becoming a Managment Trainee is what made it possible to cover the journey to become Group Head faster and now grow further in my Career.

May Hope be the last thing I Loose

May Hope be the last thing I Loose - These were the words which I recently heard from one of my dear friend which actually inspired me to go ahead and share my thoughts on the same and write down a blog post. Its been sometime now that I havent penned down anything and was HOPING that I write something soon and so here I finally arrive with a topic to write.

'HOPE' - Its a very important word in everyone's life. Just imagine what the World would be like if we didn't have Hope? We always keep saying to our self - Hope I get admissions in Engineering, Hope She says a Yes to me some day, Hope I have taken a correct decision by saying yes to marry this girl, Hope I buy my own House one day, Hope my Dad is proud of what I have achieved in my Life, Hope this and hope that and these hopes just goes on in our life no matter whatever we had Hoped once; it has been fulfilled and achieved or it just remained Hopes and we were not able to achieve them for some reasons. We probably never give up on our Hopes and start living with a new Hope in life.

Sometimes very strong hopes can achieve the impossible as Hope can see the invisible and it can feel the intangible. I think that hope ends when you stop believing. For no matter how tough your days might be or how long your nights may be, if you still hold on to the love of hope that is within you, you'll have something precious to keep you going. Because it is not who you are, but it is what you believe about who you are that matters. It has been said that hope is an abstraction of the mind. When you believe in yourself, so will others and so will your future change. A brightness of hope is all that is required.

It often happens that you have a feeling in you that you very badly want something very special in your life. You have that special feeling in you that if that special is with you in your life then you would achieve all other things for it. You try your best to get that in your life but still not able to get it and you know all the right reasons for why you are not achieving it but you still believe in yourself and in your love for it and even atlast when the world says to you, Give up its High time now, Hope whispers - 'Try it one more time'.

Saying all of these I also believe that - "hope is both man’s greatest strength and man’s greatest weakness”. If what you hoped for to happen in your life doesn't happen for you then you often take a wrong path and this proves to be a man's greatest weakness. We should not be so weak to feel that we have lost everything in life by loosing what we hoped to happen for us. Instead hope for a new Hope in our life to get us going.

No matter how difficult the situation would be, no matter if anyone is with you or not, no matter you loose everthing in life but one thing you should not loose is Hope - A Hope to live your life to the fullest as you are the luckiest of the one who has got this life to live and you would never again get to live it again once it is over.

What a Women Really Wants

To women - Please take time to ponder...!
To men - Just enjoy the story...!

The Story Goes as...
Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighboring kingdom.. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death.

The question was: What do women really want?

Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man. And to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end.

He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men, and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer.

Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer. But the price would be high as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged.

The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but first he would have to agree to her price.

The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table, and Arthur's closest friend! Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunch-backed and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc.

He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life.. He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden.

But Lancelot, having learnt of the proposal, spoke with Arthur. He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur's life. And the reservation of the Round Table. Hence, a wedding was proclaimed and the witch answered.

Arthur's question thus: 'What a woman really wants?'
She said, 'A woman wants to be in charge of her own life.'

Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth, and that Arthur's life would be spared. And so it was. The neighbouring monarch granted Arthur his freedom. And Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding.

The honeymoon hour approached and, Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But, what a sight awaited him. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen was sitting by the bed.

The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened. The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth become her horrible and deformed self only half the time, and be the beautiful maiden the other half.

'Which would you prefer?' She asked him. 'Beautiful during the day .... or at night?'
Lancelot pondered the predicament.
During the day he could have a beautiful woman to show off to his friends,
but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch!
Or,
Would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day?
But by night a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous moments with?

(If you are a man reading this...) What would YOUR choice be?
(If you are a woman reading this...) What would YOUR MAN'S choice be?
And Lancelot's choice is given below...
BUT... please make YOUR choice first before you scroll down below... OKAY?

Knowing the answer the witch gave to Arthur for his question,
Sir Lancelot said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself.
Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time..
Because, he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life.
Now... what is the moral to this story?
The moral is...
1) There is 'witch' in every woman, no matter how beautiful she is !
2) If you don't let a woman have her own way, things are going to get ugly !

So, be careful how you treat a woman and always remember
IT IS EITHER ' HER WAY ' OR IT IS ' NO WAY ' !!

Destiny

Its been few days now that for some reason I want to write something on Destiny. I am been figuring out how should I start on this topic. I am going for a picnic with my friends in next 30 mins and thought let me not think on what I have to write on Destiny and just pen down whatever comes to my mind. May be what I am writing is not something I planned but its Destiny ;)

As we go through life, we all experience pain, hurts, adversity, wounds - sometimes self-inflicted, sometimes inflicted by others. The wounds that we suffer may be physical, emotional, spiritual, or financial. They may be small wounds that we can easily recover from or so devastating to us that it takes weeks, months or even years to fully recover. People respond in different ways to these wounds. Some people are so hurt and broken that they give up, surrendering to bitterness, self-pity and victim-hood, while others grow stronger and become better people because of the adversity and struggle they've fought their way through.

When I was a kid my mom used to always say that 'God' already has foreseen what is going to happen in your life. Some people might that think that's encouraging and that we're all part of a pattern. I don't know about that. If I die tomorrow by getting hit by a truck while crossing the road talking on phone while returning from my office, I don't want to know that my death was already written down and maybe guided in some way.'God' is waiting for you to cross that road, and for the driver was avoiding the obstacle but swirled to hit me. That my family and dear friends lifes and even the driver's life will be destroyed and ruined forever.

I'd rather die from my own stupidity for not looking at both the ways of the road and talking on the phone while crossing the road. Somehow, I don't like the idea about destiny. I prefer to think that our life depends on us and the decisions that we make in our present would lead into the destiny for our future.

We make choices every day. When we don't like the consequences of those choices, we're faced with another choice - that of changing direction, making a new choice and enjoying different consequences or staying stuck where we are. "Change is a door that can only be opened from the inside". "The willingness to change can be inspired by others but change itself is a personal choice. If you want to change something in you then its your own choice and no one else is responsible or depended for it. It is 'Choice' not 'Chance' that determines your destiny."

I'll end the post with the lines I had read somewhere which I would never forget - "Control your own destiny or someone else will, remember destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice".

School Buddies to Office Mates

This post is about three individuals who are now termed as '3 idiots' by their colleagues in the office for some strange things we do and we are known for. Its about me, Rohan and Pushkar. The 3 colleagues working in an Online Advertising Company named Logicserve.

But what is the big deal that I am writing about my office colleagues. I know you can write about them too but then what so special to write about them. It is special and this will be known when we read this post further.

10 years back I met Rohan at private classes when I was in my SSC and since then we became best friends. It was the time when it was me for him and he for me when there was anything to be shared and talked about. It may be studies, professors, school, friends or girls. But then with time and more friends things did change. We got parted after SSC as we got admissions in different colleges but still were in touch with each other even though we didn't even had a mobile phone that time. I know today we realise how important a mobile phone is.

2 years after SSC, we came back together in KC College as luckily I scored less marks in HSC and didn't got admissions for Engineering and had no choice but do a BSc IT course. One of the reasons why I selected BSc IT was that Rohan too had chosen BSc IT.

Then in 1st Semester we were joined by Pushkar and we became three from two. Then as time passed during our graduation years from Friends we became Good Friends and from Good Friends we were Best friends. We were known as one identity as others started to recognize us together.

We passed our graduation with good marks but luckily all three of us were not placed through college placements as we never attended campus placements and so for some reasons we decided to do MBA and started studying for the entrance exams. We cleared the entrance but unluckily got admissions in different Colleges.

Those 2 MBA years the contact was limited between the three of us. MBA studies made each other so much busy that we didnt had time for each other. MBA course ended and again luckily all three of us were not again placed through campus placements. I and Rohan had taken up a job till the time we get a job of our choice.

Rohan left his job in 3 months time and joined Logicserve and then luckily again there was a vacancy in logicserve and so me and Pushkar came into picture again and got selected in the same company.

Today we are again together. It’s a different feeling now to be termed as Office Colleagues from School Buddies. But no matter what others term you some relations would never change. Its been few months now in this company and we like the job, enjoy our work and are again being recognized together. Thanks to Logicserve to getting us together again. Work can't get better when you have your friends working along with you in the same company giving you company. I know that sounded confusing.

Even when we leave Logicserve after a successful career here(hopefully) I wish we continue in other companies together and this bond continues for years to come and we remain best friends forever.

Luck By Chance

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

When you live for a strong purpose, then hard work isn’t an option. It’s a necessity.

Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.

When you read on the above quotes written by some of the greatest philosophers we are all inspired by them and get on to work hard in our lives. Even though we decide that and we do really work hard in life to achieve the things we aimed there come instances in life when we sometimes look at an other person and say "How lucky He/She is. I wish I was like him/her". No matter how good life would be to us this thought comes to us sometime or the other for some of the aspect related to us. May thats because life is not perfect to us in all aspects. There would be something missing for all of us.

When we try to figure out what is it that makes one successfull - Luck or Hardwork? Preparation plays a vital important role in life success. When opportunity comes to a person who is prepared, he can take the opportunity. So if the luck knocks an unprepared mind, there is a high probability that he missed the opportunity and hence misses his luck.

A better word for Luck is opportunity. A person, who wants to learn more, who wants to accomplish something great in life, who focuses on only realizing his dreams, is bound to succeed and the right opportunity will definitely knock his door. We all get opportunities in our life sometime or the other and the ones who are able to grab those opportunities are the ones who are later sometimes termed as the LUCKY by the other who were not able to grab those opportunities. It is important being at the right place at the right time and I will add further WITH RIGHT KNOWLEDGE.

It is true that there might be many people who got success just of sheer luck. But since exceptions are not rules, we should not take these people as our role model as it is not necessary that if someone wins a game of poker and become millionaire, the same cards will open up for you too when you sit on the poker table.

If we are a student, we can do our best to concentrate on our studies and do as much hard work as we can and dont depend on luck saying the paper would be full of my favorite questions and I'll score without studying. If we are a college passout then we should give our best to crack the interview for the job which we always wanted to do with all the knowledge we have. If you are an employee, give your best to your job. If you have a dream to follow, start immediately on it.

Luck waits for no one. Before it comes, be prepared for it.

A Message to Remember...!

Recently a friend of mine sent me a very beautiful message which touched my heart as soon as I read it. The lines of the message said:

In life we all have an unspeakable secret
an irreversible regret
an unreachable dream
and an unforgetable love
But in the end its all about being
Happy anyhow.

There is something in this message that is very much connected to most of our lives. You cant stop living as something in life doesn't happen the way you wanted it to happen. Many times things don't go the way you want it to and you feel giving up on everything else just because of that one failure. A single not your way going incident in your life should not lead to not a single happy day after that.

When I read on in the newspaper headline that a student commits a suicide because he thinks he got less marks as per his parents expectation or when I come to know a friend of mine is no more in this world as he came under a train and died because the love of his life had to listen to her parents and marry someone else or when I see a father and a son not talking to each other all their life remembering not so good incidences in their life and forgetting all the other better moments they spent with each other and not understanding by not talking they are missing to be good moments of their present and future.

These things sound familiar to most of us. May be not and I really hope that they dont sound familiar to any one. I feel in such instances everyone of us has a choice. A choice to remember that one thing and regret for not making that one thing happen in your life or as the above message says a choice to still be happy and find alternatives to your failure on that one particular thing. I feel the 2nd choice sounds much more advisable. After all its not that difficult to stay happy.

May be there are few instances when you cant get over few things and feel sad about things not going your way but I guess there are solutions to get out of it. There are few things that you can do in times when you feel you are in deep pain and need help. May be a call to a friend would make you feel better or else meeting up a friend or may be your best friend can make your heart much more lighter. I dont read much but many of my friends say that books are your best friends so if you dont feel like calling or meeting up your friend you can turn to books and make them your best friend and feel better about your self.

May be better thing to do is to have faith in God and believe that whatever happens to us is written by God which is for our own good, it's just that we cannot see it now. There are many things in life apart from failures and we all should live forgetting the few bad moments in our life. When you get to live a life live it to the fullest so that few years down when you look back you dont have to turn back and say I should have enjoyed more and stayed a lot more happier than I did.

Staying sad is difficult but many of them choose to stay sad due to some regrets in life and staying happy is easier but still few instances makes it difficult for many of us to stay happy. As the above message states that no matter how unspeakable secret we have, how irreversible regret is there in our life, no matter how unreachable is our dream and how unforgetable love one has in the end we can always forget these things and remain and stay happy forever.

KEEP SMILING as it is the second best thing that you can do with your lips. I hope you understand what is the first best thing....! ;) ;) ;)