Whats in the name

I have been working for banks for ten years.  During these ten years, I have seen bankers successful and mediocre in their career. I am yet to see a failure banker and this has nothing to do the stringent 3 minute interviews for recruiting people. May be its so simple that its too difficult to fail. The successful bankers are not necessarily the one portrayed in movies, the high flyer, quick thinker and smart talker. In fact a successful banker may be none of these. I have seen bankers whose oratory skills are worst than Laxman of Golmal 3, about their thinking prowess what will you call ppl who keep putting the global economy in jeopardy every now and then.

So what differentiates a successful banker from the other? The key differences are two, one an abashed guiltfree sense of belonging to bank and second the name. I will come to the second one first, the most successful bankers have names that will put voldemart to shame. Their surnames are generally short and north Indian types e.g. Khanna, Gupta, Ravi, Gahlot etc. I think its easier to win customers with impressive name imagine introducing yourself to a prospective client saying, Hello I am Popatlal Kannubhai Gadda… the client will rush to nearest facility to wash his hands. Now imagine meeting a prospect and introducing yourself as Hi I am Aditya Bhalla. Instant orgasm. His eyes will light up, and will hand over all the wealth to you including his shower duck.

So does it mean only the people with fancy names and surnames survive in banking. Well as I said earlier, everyone survives banking. So the people with not so fancy names have two ways to grow. One wait for the Gods to be kind, which never works cause a guy who doesn’t have fancy name even God wants to keep away from them. The second is modify your name, though I know a few who have gone to the extent of changing the name altogether. By modification I mean try to improvise on the name that your insensitive parents gave you. For example if your name is Kanchana Vasudevan (hypothetical name any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental) you may consider calling yourself as Kay or Vee or KV or VK. You can sprinkle a few illogical vowels for extra effect, and call yourself Kayyyy or Kaaaayyyyy. After you decide on your reincarnation name you have to enforce it by using that name wherever possible. Just like charity the new name begins with yourself. To begin with you change your Whatsapp display name and slowly progress to your email signature and visiting cards. All this while make sure its not only you who addresses yourself as Kay. 

Coming to first quality an abashed guiltfree sense of belonging to bank. This definition is as deep as “to get things done with and from others”. I will try to explain in short. The sense of belonging does not mean that the successful banker will keep belonging to one bank.   This means that while working for a particular bank the banker is aware that his EMIs, branded apparel, alimony are being paid and by the bank. His me malik k liye kuch b karunga sensibility is stronger than that of Ramu Kaka’s towards Rajesh Khanna.

Remember this guru mantra and you will scale heights that a no one other than a guiltfree Mr. Singh can achieve. And ya remember your kid’s success lies in the name you bestow upon him. Signing off Mak

Random work related

The work has got screwed up lately. There have been some organisational structural changes (big word right, n so is the impact) that has lead to increased friction between various units mine being one of them. The boss is supportive but his boss is not wtf. First thought in the mind let me find another avenue n second one let me fight it out. Sounds sexy, trendy and so much youthful. But is it actually possible. Is the work life really like a film, rocket sing salesman of the year. And is it worth fighting for. What u do when best of ur allies become worst of ur enemies? What u do when ppl u trusted the most have chosen to work behind ur backs? Blame them confront them or just plain ignore them. Ignore u cant coz their deed is gonna affect u. blame them is not an option coz u know they have done this to save their arse. Confrontation is a viable option, that will at lease relieve u if not help u.

Three Faces

There are times when u r on top of the world and ready to dictate ur terms… u want to take over everything and u know it is all possible… these are the times when people just stay in a far corner and marvell at you… these are times when u care for no one no more… these are times when you are going at the speed of light on the path decided by you… these are times when you are god…

And there are times when u don’t want to anything… u know every action of urs is very important and still u refuse to move… u know that ur actions will only take u to what u want in life… u are aware that ur movement is required like never before… and still u lie numb doing nothing and wanting to do nothing… these are the times when you have descended to the lowest of what a human can become.

I have been through the roller coaster of both the times and have faced consequences for each. Right now I m in phase three, where you do what is expected of you nothing more and nothing less. The third phase is worst of all coz you don’t dictate, you don’t decide, you don’t take a call.

I am back

Have been keeping away from this blog for long… was concentrating completely on the business and business blog, if u went to that blog u would know what I am talking about. For this post also I was wondering should this be put on the business blog or this. decided on lostconfusedandconfident coz the post matches the blog id.

Ud and I have been working like crazy for last two months. Coordinating work of so many people and so many suppliers was not a joke. In hindi sabhi jagah se pani nikal aya, youngistan. Finally the place is ready, thank god for small mercies, but is still not operative. I think god believes in small mercies only. It’s a new building and the electricity board people are kindda waiting for Christmas to provide power supply. The temporary power supply of the place is too low to support our business.

On the other hand the Mat department says its gonna be normal monsoon this year. Can you beat it of all the years, 2008 had to be normal monsoon year, me and my luck. That will mean less number of people would like to have mocktails at any outlet. Leading this to lesser sales. It has already started raining in Delhi and its just matter of time (time that is getting wasted) that we get rains here.

As if it was not enough, we have found out that the number of seats we were planning are too much for the size of the place, so all the profitability numbers need to be worked out again. And I don’t think they gonna be very encouraging.

I am lost as to what should I do… I am confused, as I cant understand how can there be so many obstacles in a dream run… I am anxious to know what kindda response we gonna get for our outlet… I feel uneasy to see my dream waiting for a government department stamp. Trust me u don’t want to be in this kindda position and I would prayer to god to not to let anyone face this… this is worst than waiting for CAT results or appearing for board exams.

But am I still confident… you bet I am… not because I am sure of success but because I still know… I was born to do something of my own, and doing something of my own is only going to bring me salvation. And I am confident coz I know its all worth it.

Glassfull

Hi Guys,
We have created a new blog to promote our venture. All the entries related to the business would be posted there. Keep visiting new blog and invite others to give it a dekko. Blog address is glassfullahmedabad.blogspot.com.

About Partner, Location and Business

I and Uday, my partner, used to have these seducing thoughts of getting into food business before we were born. And then one day we both sat on a glass of Chivas when we decided to get into the pool together. The decision was made almost 9 months ago. So were we sitting on the thought and waiting for it to hetch? well sort of. We both had our full fledged careers where we were making decent amount of money and spending all the daylight time. Moreover getting into food business is no joke there are hazzaaar things (I will be sharing most of those in coming posts) you got to work on.

It was a glass of Chivas that changed things. I was still with my Bangalore employer and Uday was working in Mumbai. Starting a brick and mortal business would mean we should be in the same geography. So I started looking out for job in Gujarat and Uday decided to call it quits at the right time.

What made us take this decision:
No it was not a mundane job that we were tired off. We both love our jobs still. It was neither the frustration of the bosses. It was not even a spirit of changing the world. I think it was plain sulemani keeda inside us that wanted us to work for ourselves, and enterprising spirit. Probably a cliché that Sindhis are born to do business worked here as well.

We were not our first choices as business partners. Uday had a group of friends and all of them went on to become NRIs. I thought my circle of friends had a different waive length and it would be difficult to work on something together. Involving relatives is too compromising. And after knowing a lot about each other we made this informed choice of becoming partners. So the business line was decided: Food business. And being from Gujarat, Ahmedabad was decided as the playing ground. Ahmedabad market was an obvious choice because people eat out a lot here, the place is becoming more cosmo each day and the realty prices were affordable (at least at the time when we decided). The location had to be good where we would get SEC A crowd, typically working class and college going kids, people in the age group of 20-35. This was not so tricky as other aspects and the area had to be SG Highway, CG road, Drive-in Gurukul or Prahalad nagar. And the search began for the location, coz as one more cliche goes in food business the most important aspect is location, location and location.

Enterprising

Hi guys this is my first entrepreneurial post.

Lots of us nurture the thought of starting something of our own. I have been having this thought for ten years now. I have been craving for starting something of my own since SSC. The thought is now getting actuated, is getting executed. The thought has taken the shape of a small juice bar in Ahmedabad. The bar will serve fresh combination juices, sandwiches and kathi rolls. Yup it’s no rocket science and there is nothing new about it. it’s a tried and tested concept, and that is why I chose it. Doing something of my own was more important than doing something revolutionary. I never thought of anything else but to get into food business. This is one business where u can be as mundane or as creative as you dare. You can go to extreme levels of getting innovative and risk taking or you can chose to play the basic game and be on a safer side. What I am getting into is a reasonably safe and decently innovative concept.

So wish me luck and I will keep you posted about glass full, that’s what the place would be called.

P.S. for those who think guys are complete waste when it comes to cleaning, cooking and housekeeping, this venture is a brain child of two guys who are all game for everything including sweeping the floor and cleaning the doormats.