My Tenth Week of Internship

I have fallen in love with Austin. Frankly, it is because of this lovely City that I have been able to do so many things in the past. I started working out (well now on irregular basis yet there was a start) and I could quit smoking and I could enjoying partying again… the best of the city came about this weekend. But before that the things at work…

Monday was the Intern cultural event at Dell and we were supposed to cook something and take it to office. I realized it when I reached office and saw my calendar for the day. So, Abhishek and I decided that we will cook some Pakoras and take them. Having Mak's wife Arundhati at home really helped us a lot. Surprisingly, it was an all-desi affair it seemed, but for one Chinese and one Korean. Dude are we already number one in terms of intelligent population at least :)

The whole week was marked with executive lined up to speak with us. Starting with Ahmed Mahmoud, I met with Ron "the Moto Razr" Garriques, Don "the airline guy" Carty, Steve Price and Mike Cannon. I little search on these guys and you would know why I didn’t reply to your mails, why I didn’t write any blog and why I was so busy soul searching off late :) Mann… one thing is for sure, having such a battery of people to talk to sure is the best part of my work. And if this was not enough, I also happened to meet and ask questions from Mark Jarvis this week.

Now coming back to the lovely Austin, this Friday one of my friend Nikhil and another friend Shashank with his wife Shweta came from Dallas and we headed to Sixth right after playing some Beer Pong games! Saturday was booked for some fun and we went to Town Lake for some Kayaking. Unfortunately, our Kayak toppled because of my stupidity (I am trying too much I guess) and to my horror I was in water with two people (Shashank and Shweta ) that had no idea about swimming. All my assurances went light as I saw the horrified couple holding on to the Kayak. We floated for sometime until finally rescued by some people!!! Coming to think of it, I think it was a lot of fun for me… but for the fact that the whole responsibility thing :( … Decided to take the evening cool and went to play bowling… A bad first game followed by some cool 2,3 strike in a row game and I was back in the league.

If you are thinking Saturday's incident hampered my love for water sports, you are absolutely wrong as I headed for some tubing on Guadalupe river on Sunday. 3-4 hours of chillax tubing and I was so happy about myself. Also I could satisfy my craving for IHOP while coming back. As I went to sleep on Sunday, I could hear myself singing love songs for the Live Music Capital.

How to manage your career

This was incredible. This was probably after a long time that someone spoke so much sense to me in an hour's time and changed my perception so much. Steve Price, the speaker, is VP of HR at Dell and his presentation on "How to manage your career" really helped me a lot. So i thought why dont I share with you all and here are the six bullets that Steve had for us -

1. Have a point of view about your career - So many of us don’t know what they want to do, how is still far off and almost all of us know that whatever we plan we will do thing differently from that planning. However, having a point of view can at least lead us to make the right moves. So here is my vision statement - "I want to be an entrepreneur is next 10 years." I might take different, difficult path or even a longer time. But at least I have a vision and I would try to move towards that in whatever I am doing. So have a point of view and keep it broad enough to modify and narrow enough to get a direction. one thing that can really help you in choosing this is "why are you not doing so many other things" - Note down everything you hate about those jobs and then start narrowing the ones you chose and have similar attributes. Finally prepare what I call "A-Career Model"
   


2. Think Self Inc. - This is probably the most important take away for any one who has not thought about this. So here is one concept from past - "Do your work sincerely and the company will take care of you" (I guess this is only relevant in context of Mafia now a days…or may be not even there). Now this concept worked very well for the generations before us. When Capitalism, Socialism and Communism were co-existing in the world, and each was trying to prove one is better than other. In today's capitalist world - I see this fallacy hurting too many hardworking employees. Steve talked about his father and I was thinking about my Dad the same time. "No the company will not take care of you, you will have to take care of yourself" and having understood this the next step is to think about "Self Inc". Think of yourself as a company, as a product and try to sell it. My pitch reads something like this these day "I am a creative problem solver and a transformational manager who understands technology well enough to solve business problems" and I know this is bad, but I am working on it big time. And here is how I am planning to work on this - Mind you this is my own 3X3 model for Self Inc. (which has not been used by anyone thus far and so I don’t know how useful this will be)
   Three Story - Three Versions Model
   
   For my boss For my friend For my Mom
   30 Minute Narration .....
   5 Minute Story .....
   1 Minute Pitch .....
   
   I think once I am done with the above-said exercise I will be good to go anywhere and everywhere.
   
3. Follow your passion - Yes, and this is not too hard really. Many people have said it in many ways. The gist is do not do something for which you are not passionate, for people will see that and you will be tagged failure for no reason of yours. Keep that practical aspect of earning your living aside… if you are reading this and thinking seriously about your career chances are you don’t need a job you really need a career.
   
4. Focus on building your career portfolio - You have this wonderful opportunity and you are think what should you do next. Let me show you this diagram before I say anything -
   
   So now that you have decided on following this 2X2 for making quick decisions, let me show you another tool that can help you a great deal and I call it skill-fit portfolio management.
   

5. Own your career - Let me step back a bit and go to the "Career Manager" concept at Evalueserve. It was an interesting concept taken as it is from McKinsey like many of the other processes. But what's funny is that I managed more careers outside the 10-15 odd analysts assigned to me. In fact I never mentored these 15 and 100s other in the company used to come to me for advice. 6 of these 15 people left the firm later and I didn’t even know where the hell they went and for what reasons. Most of them lied to me during our meetings, made sure I give them a good ratings and present their cases well in front of management. BTW what happened to the people that didn’t lie. Let me ask this to you. There is this great analyst working under you and he is about to be promoted and move ahead… would you ever like to loose him… ??? The concept of career management was a recipe for disaster now that I look back. Sure you need guides, but no one is more responsible for owning your career as you are. I was asking my mentees to work hard when I was preparing essays for my B-School. At the same time, my managers wanted me to stick with my employment when they knew an MBA will be great for me! Oh BTW here is what one of my mentors at Dell had to say -
   "Have at least 5 mentors any time. Two inside the firm and three outside. Believe it or not it is the outside mentors who will ask you to stick with the firm and learn more before you make a switch!" and on one other occasion...
   "Also have three people in your life - one a senior, one a peer and one a junior - they will really help you grow in your life"
   
6. Be prepared "Life Changes" - And you don’t have to be a 2001 or 2002 graduate to know this (of course if you are one then it helps to understand this even more)… however this is even more important for you working people. At times we are so stuck up in the day to day roles that we forget the world beyond. You may be the best person in your role but if there is somewhere someone doing it cheaper companies will desert you… so automation, outsourcing, in fact the changes in market forces are key factors. Be aware of them and keep adding new skill set to yourself. Every 3 months stop and see what did you achieve in the last quarter. The Sunday post the Q-end is probably the best time for this.

So having said all these, remember to work on these three components day in day out - Transactional (day to day activities - will earn your bread), Strategic Business Initiatives (business plans, done by some one else some where else and you champion them - will earn you rewards), and Innovation and improvement (deep thinking, your ideas, your business, strictly to your work - will earn you respect).

My Ninth Week of Internship

Overall a great week and I am beginning to enjoy my time here now… pity it is happening so late. Went to San Antonio on Tuesday and visited Six Flags. Seeing those huge rides reminded me of the Acrophobic person I have become off late and boye did I not scream on those level 1 rides. Anyways rain then spoiled it all for us as all the rides were shut off in no time after lunch. So far so good… coming to claiming it, I would have gone to all those rides if it were not shutoff due to rains :) … Anyways the rains also spoiled any chances of our going to River Walk or for the San Marcos malls. Good thing was - as we spent the entire day in San Antonio, it was a 4 working day week once again :) (Okay okay for all my friends in I-Banking internships … I am working really hard some of these days - such as going at 9:30 AM and coming back at 7:30 PM!!!)

As for the work, I have started working more around the ideas of working in Analytics. Probably one of the best places for me as I love numbers, business problems and working on solutions… pretty generic you may say - but let me also add I like to work in isolation for most of the time and I am geeky by nature. I talk to numbers in dark and I hate to sleep over problems. Add all these and you would want me in Analytics for whatever life I have.

Anyways, I also met with some very interesting people this week. Starting with my meeting with Richard first. An academia turned corporate Richard is an expert on Taxonomy. Click here to see his profile on LinkedIn. Sensing that I would join at the same level from B-School as him, really made me feel bad for him and boy I was thoroughly unprofessional when I mentioned this to him. Anyways, It was great to hear his thoughts on PhD, academia, his past experiences and then about his new role.

I also got to meet with Michigan Alums this week at the University of Michigan meet. Its funny how we were discussing about Michigan snowfall and how weird this summer has been in Austin than talking about any serious job related thing. Also, how the talks then shifted to how we beat MSU in number of people attending the event… I guess that is Michigan for you. Another interesting meeting was with a family friend working here. After discussing work related stuff for around an hour in that accentized language, it was but hilarious how we shifted to Jaatu as soon as we started discussing about our villages and childhood :) Both these events tell me the roots are hard to change no matter where you are and whatever you do.

Came Friday, and I headed off to Dallas to meet Nikhil and Shashank. Nikhil was my class mate in high-school and I met him after 10 good years and yet it seemed as if we hadn't changes a bit. Celebrating his birthday over the weekend, I went to his funny place called Abacus. More on that here. Spent my weekend in and around Dallas and came back to Austin on Sunday evening. Once again happy to be in small Austin when compared to the high profile Dallas.

High Class Dining Experience - Some suggestions

So here are some of my thoughts on preparing for High Class Dining when next time any friend asks you to go out.

1. Find out if they require you to wear something weird - If it is a dinner jacket minimum - stick to minimum requirement until you want to look really loud. I suggest you call the restaurant and say that your jacket is with dry-cleaner and you didn't have time to pick it up. Wait for their response - most of the time they would say they are not strict - if that’s the case do not wear one. You will find out that the dry cleaners in the town are having some busy customers sitting in that restaurant that night!
2. Remember, there is no link in name and kind of restaurant - Stop believing in stereotypes you racist! And for once stop fooling around the idea of Abacus being a Chinese restaurant. This happens to be a European Restaurant where you find only sea food!!! So what looks,smells, and tastes like a Sushi is really spring rolls, and yes they may serve it with Wasabi but then why do you think they are high class.
3. Make sure you have eaten well before going in… eating a Big plate for $40 may not be your idea and specially when that big plate is really small. God forbids, if you forgot to eat before dinner, jump on to all the free bread that they serve… your friends may be hungry as well.

I think besides these points, it will be a good idea to make up some excuse and avoid going in the first place. You don’t want to be humiliated by some waitress for not calling "Prime Beef Carpaccio with Organic Baby Watercress and Shallot with Black Pepper Vinaigrette" right!

My Eighth Week of Internship

This was a happening week in all respects. Went to bowling games, to lakes, to parties, to meetings, almost everywhere. So much so, that I took full rest on Sunday and didn’t go anywhere. Highlights for the week included -

Tuesday - Bowling Game - Seriously my score had taken a hit ever since I have been here. I had been scoring 150+ consistently off late and suddenly it went to sub 120s in my first two games in Austin and I lost my sleep. The spare-king (as I would have loved to call myself given my very high conversion on spare pins) was suddenly out of touch … even on the simple single pins in corners, in middle… everywhere. And so I went to Bowling again this Tuesdays and started slow with the right weight, right posture, right release… basics really… and then I did it - Scored 168 finally :)

Thursday - Cocktail Party and Salsa - Phew… I hate when this happens to me… I had been waiting for sometime for this Thursday so that I can go out with my team and they all dropped in the last minute. I was feeling pretty miserable until this new member in our team saved the day for me by agreeing to come over. Still far for the best thing - But I still went and sat in the corner - not bothering to talk with anyone while I enjoyed my Sam Adams. Things got worse from there as I headed to down town for Salsa classes. I was told that you don’t need a partner and I happily paid for the classes and then I saw all these pairs dancing to glory as I stood in the corner… duhhh… I so much wanted to drink more… Alas I decided to come back and sleep

Friday - Austin Bats and Sixth Street - Read More here.

On the work front I met a lot of people this week to discuss the opportunities here. However the most notable of them was Lunch with COC team. For once I felt as if I know why things are happening the way they are and this information itself seems so enlightening.

Weekend - Saturday and Sunday were full chill out days - Didn’t Do anything :)

Bats of Austin - Night Wings

One thing that makes me wonder if how Americans are so good at marketing. I have heard so many times statements like -

"Oh you must see that tree… it is great... More than 100 years old… it is said that when such an such person came here he sat under that tree" - Gosh give me a break, I am sure there are many trees in my farm that are older than this one… and probably larger too and then once in a while…

"This is a great historical site - to a house which looks around a century old not much" Oh yeah well so is my house back in India!

But I saw the ultimate this Friday. July 13th the Friday was the day for "Run for Bats" 5 mile race in Austin and I thought it will be a good idea to see these 1.5 million bats. Gosh I waited for more than one hour along with this large crowd that had gathered much before I went… then it was pitch dark and then we saw a few bats hovering under the congressional bridge… Dude the bats in my house were far more exciting as I used to hit them with my towel! Think about it, not only people are making big voices out of these Bat stories they are also making big bucks by arranging events like these. Only if I can ask for people to walk up to Taj to save it from vehicle pollution… any thoughts?

HP Computer Service

Once in a while, you can't help but praise your competitor. Well today is one such day. By the way, I own an HP PC that I bought just after coming over for my MBA (so I had no clue about my summer and also I was carrying a lot of corporate brand image from India). My PC had been giving me some trouble on and off with the "stuck shift key" problem and whenever I thought to send it over the net day everything was working fine.

Finally, in the first week of June, it decided to start troubling me forever and went permanently stuck. I called up HP service center and they asked me to send my PC over. Having all your data on your hard drive can be a big problem and I soon realized that when I started making copies of that on DVDs. It took me 3 weeks to get DVDs, get DVD burner software and finally to make those DVDs. All this while I kept using onscreen keyboard.

Having sent me PC, I was expecting some phone calls saying "you dropped water over your keyboard… there is a scratch etc etc. (which happened to me when I sent me Mobile phone to T-Mobile) and that you will have to pay so much for this and that… " I was ready to shell some dollars frankly.

What happened was not only surprising it was delighting. With-in 3 days I get this email that my PC in on its way back - no questions. I saw this information in the box that my keyboard was so damaged they had to replace it - again no questions!!! I give them this time - thanks a lot HP people… You were awesome. Next time you will call me to review my service contract - You will be hearing a Yes from a very happy customer!

Cold Turkey - Continues :)

Yes it does, thanks to all those congratulatory messages I have been getting. The first day went well with Nicotine Gums helping me a bit. I was having this severe headache all this while. Then next day, thanks to insufficient funds in my bank I was deprived on buying the gums and since then I have survived well.

Cigarette count since quitting - ZERO

Side effects - Feel hungry almost all the time. Have started eating a little more than earlier - However have been controlling the calories in take well. Bit of nervous energies in the beginning - no more the case. Overall feeling much happy these days - Have been able to taste and smell much better :)

Thanks everyone for the support.

My Seventh Week of Internship

Key things this week at work -

• Getting busy with analysis spending hours staring at those huge files of data
• Working on various creative ideas to analyze the report
• Still another week with 4days :)

Outside Work -

• Out of cash for the first time in US - with more than $6,000 in cheques sitting at home, I was out of money in my TCF account and this meant getting over $400 as service charges @ $33 per transaction from the idiots for all the transactions I was making. So, when I bought a gum of 99 cents I ended up paying $33.99 for that because my account didn’t have sufficient funds. The worst hit day was Thursday when I forgot to take those last $20 from the trouser I was wearing on Wednesday… reached office and then came the best shot… why on earth does the team lunch had to be cancelled this Thursday only!!! Anyways survived the ordeal with one of my friend depositing the cheques in Michigan finally :(
• Watched/celebrated the 4th of July - Went to Zilker park to see the fireworks. Fun time.
  Roamed around Austin on Saturday - Saw Capitol finally and went around other parts of Austin.
• Cases and resumes - Worked on some cases on the banks of Lake Austin and redid my resume to include the MAP and Dell experience.
• BTW forgot to mention all this while - I have been back to regular swimming now :)

Cold Turkey - Finally!

I never thought it is going to be this difficult, but finally I did it. After thinking for years and years and breaking countless promises, I quit cigarettes finally. There was no particular reason why I started it, but for an act and there is no particular reason why I stopped… may be it curtains to this act. So how do I plan to go about it - I read a lot and lot before making this decision this time and went through the do's and don’ts well this time. Let me share some of those here -

• Telling my friends - This was the first thing I did soon after deciding to quit - Tell your friends, family, all around... that I am quitting, so that they know and are ready to help. i was looking for some motivation and fishing for it among friends… afterall the more congratulatory messages one will get the stronger will be one's resolve.


• I want it - I am proud of it - Even after the support from the world, it is so much a personal choice here. So, I keep reminding myself that I really want it and I am proud of my decision.


• Millions have done it - Another thing which is helping me getting over it. I am not different - Millions have done it, most of them worse than me and I can do it as well. The biggest example is that of my dad itself - he has been a smoker for almost 20+ years before quitting it one day - Never to go back again.


• Rewarding myself - Oh yes, some calculations did help… now I am not doing a year on year how much I would spend on smoking… just one at a time… so after every two days, I would add $5 to my no smoking piggy bank and at the end of the month that is my reward for not smoking. (Additional point - I have already decided to give 50% of that money to organizations helping other in quitting!)

Last Smoke - July 3, 2007, 0900 Hrs CST

My Sixth Week of Internship

Done with the sixth week and I celebrated the half-way mark this week end. So much done and so much more that can be done :)

The important activities around the week included a Round Rock Express Game on Monday. Supposedly Dell has paid some 2 million for 5 years of marketing deal with Express and it is no wonder the diamond is called Dell Diamond. However, when the team you are supporting shows you a no-hitter game you better be prepared to cheer for something else and this time we did cheer for something else, our schools. So in the shout-off among schools, Umich was adjudged joint-first along with … I don’t know which school :) On Tuesday, I went for the Associate for the day program and spent half day on shop floor. It was after a long time that I was with these machines, finding my way out of the assembly line mazes. So we spent some good time understanding the entire process and then started working on the putting the parts required in boxes. I guess it was a light day and the slowness of the entire system thanks to parts not available was making things even lighter. However one of the person did comment that I was good at the work :) Oh BTW you can read this to know more about the process at Dell.

With rest of the week being part of usual here, the weekend came out to be good (again!). Played beer pong on Friday and Saturday, went to gym on all days and practiced some cases with others. With my PC in bad shape I was not able to do much of the surfing at home but I did manage to finally burn all my data in to DVDs and I am prepared to send that on Monday. For those of you wondering why am I not replying to your emails - well don’t have access is the short answer.

My Fifth Week of Internship

The week started with a big bang of having an opportunity to attend Michael's presentation. Well it is not always you get to meet someone in the list of Forbes richest men and this one was definitely special for the shear amount of growth Dell has had in the last few years. There were a lot of questions related to the recent changes in Dell, both on corporate level and strategic level and it was good to hear the leader taking a "I believe" stance. However, what caused me the most surprise was that in an organization spawned on Michael's entrepreneurial ideas - there has been no big names coming even close to the high command. Anyways, the positive thinking was surely reflecting in the entire meeting.

On the work front, things were finally moving and I was able to hit the cracks a little harder this week. On Friday, I had a one-on-one with Mike Rosenstein, Director for Global Tech Product Mgmt, and it was a great experience in short. We discussed about our project and it seemed he was really impressed and interested there. Talking about Dell in general it was good to understand that the executives realize the challenges and opportunities at Dell and are concerned to make a change.

I think of two things when it comes to changes at this 80,000+ man-powered elephant:

1. Finding information here is like finding "a needle in the hay stack"
2. And trying to execute something really require championing your ideas (Reminds me of this - "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world" - Archimedes)

The weekend was pretty productive this time - We were able to finally sit down and do some case practice. Man!! Was I not rusty this time. Anyways, I am finally able to get some dirt out of my analytical side. Gym routine is going fine in to the fourth week and I am happy to say that I am really beginning to enjoy the experience. On Saturday evening, we went to do some community services organized by Keep Austin Beautful at Stephenson Preserve as a part of our internship experience at Dell. Well mulching in the rain was not the best way to show interest in community and I was horrified to see the conditions of my shoes later. The night was "King Pong" tournament (Beer Pong) at Mak's place and I was happy to get on the third spot. Boye it was a crazy night :)

Watched Ocean's 13 on Sunday - Decent movie - I guess you start expecting things in a particular fashion in these sequels and this was no different (but for the fact that this was much more hilarious/humorous). Also watched Cheeni Kum and Jhoom Barabar Jhoom - enjoyed both of them. However the music for "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom" rocks!

The feeling of nearing 30+

Statuary Warning - If you are in the age bracket of 30-45 please do not read this!

Well it hits everyone… and this time the victim goes by the name of Manish Dabas! It is hard to define this feeling, but I have finally got the answer… a hard way though because this feeling makes you wonder how far you have come in life and how much more is remaining of it… it makes you wonder if you need to set or change your priorities, above all it makes you see life in a different way for sure… and yet you sort of wonder when did it hit you the first time!

When we were kids, we looked around and wondered how these 30+ uncles and aunties are going through the routines of life… how they were getting stuck in to the long and eternal circle of one day to another and how they were meant to be that way for a long-long time! Thanks to the changes in the recent Macro-economic environment we no more suffer from that syndrome. But there is one thing that still needs to be taken care off… your body! Youth! Ah this age :) - Probably most of you would agree that 25-30 are the best years of anyone's life… true some people succeed earlier than that and some later, but I am not talking about success here, I am talking about the capacity to enjoy that success. How fit you are and how much energies you have to enjoy life… okay weird… let me take a step back. In childhood, one hardly cares about what one has to do… eat, drink, sleep, run, play… you have so much to do… then as you keep increasing the candle on the birthday cakes, as you keep loosing hairs, as you keep increasing those inches to your waist… wait a second…

Not that I haven't experienced some of these syndromes, adding inches to my wait was certainly not my idea to grow old. Still as I move towards the 30+ side, I am growing more and more concerned about it. When you are 18 and you are drinking those beers, you don’t care, there is a lot of time to be back in shape. When you are 22, you just start working, sitting on the office desk for 14 hours and in front of TV for next 4, you don’t care either… when you are 25, you are still good to go for another 5 years and you feel so full of energies like never before… and then suddenly one fine day you look at your recent photograph and see a little overgrown tummy bulging out… you are concerned now… you go for a jog for 3 days and you are back to square one… then one fine day, you are looking at that Album from yesteryears and you seem puzzled, although you haven’t noticed it all this while, you used to look so skinny in your college days - "I was always healthy man, how can this be…" you wonder!!! You make sure you take that Gym membership while coming back from office and months goes by… you fill your Gas from the Gas Station one block away, you do your groceries in the same compound, still you don’t have time to go to Gym… what are you up to? You try to make sure you get good shirts to make you look slim, you try to hold your breath while getting photographed (trust me it is difficult to do so while smiling at the same time), still one day one of your friend scraps you on Orkut - "Dude you have put on so much Weight"!!! Time has come to take that Gym membership!

Three months pass and you have still struggled to go to the Gym beyond the first week and now you do the ultimate thing… your start uploading your upper profile only by clipping those pictures… and that to me is the right way of defining the feeling of nearing 30+ for me … Now some of us may choose to accept this fate and carry on with their lives… and by the time they reach 40+ think about walking in the park to avoid any more heart related problems… some of us even choose to cut down on those high calorie diets and keep their blood sugars in control… and some brave ones among us can chose to change this, actively delay this aging process and start hitting that mat on the tread mill the next day, and the next day and keep on hitting it until the joints start to pain… I have decided to take the last option and I think I am ready for it NOW!

Oh by the way, its not that this thought has come to me for the first time - no this is no Eureka moment - I had been an ir-regular at gym at Evalueserve (doing all sort of exercises for 2 days and then repenting for those the next 5 days)… I in fact went to a Gym for about 2 week in Telesoft in bangalore and even odd exercises at during Logic Eastern days… but all this while I never thought it is now or never. There was always next six months to look ahead for those six-packs. There was always something gravely serious for me to have any time in life. There was always that small window of hope… not this time and I know this is serious stuff.

So the plan right now - Well to burn this fatty tyre around me in the next 2 months. I wonder how easy it has been off late to run for 3 miles on the tread mill - I still recall the race organized by Hindustan National Glass in Bahadurgarh and how I didn’t have enough fuel to take me full distance… I ran pretty well for almost 3/4th of the race before falling behind on second place as my Dad looked at me - He was the judge for the final leg and I could not keep it up :( well no longer dad… and that’s a promise!

My Fourth Week of Internship

Well two major things happened during the week at large - one I finally got a go-ahead for my KM project and second we went to Lake Travis on a Dell Sponsored welcome party on Wednesday afternoon! Now I know how much fun it is to be at the barge along with 50+ more people on an afternoon but then to be paid for that is shear orgasmic :) (pity they didn’t have any beer that day… never mind)

The weekend was pretty happening too - Friday was an all-boy hangout and with one of my intern friend (Abhishek Mitra) celebrating his birthday, Saturday also happened to be one. Went to sixth street and as Abhishek wanted to have some chilling time at Coyote Ugly (please use discretion while opening this link) we let the "Bad Boy" have some fun. After a lot of club-hopping at 2 o'clock we finally decided to head back. Sunday was a relaxing day after the week's hard work ;)

By the way, I think I forgot to mention this earlier that I have been trying to be pretty regular to gym these days. Finally, there is some reason to head back from office early and not feeling guilty about it!