A Roller Coaster Corporate Boot Camp (eleven weeks of madness!)

Some three months ago it was the painful time of transition, to leave the jungles of IIT Bombay and come out in the big bad world. But some crazy stuff happened in the last 11 weeks. Versata's (Trilogy of the past) "Boot Camp" was meant to make life go crazy. It was exceeded and everything was totally worth going through :)

"Work Hard, Party Harder", take this to an extreme and then you can get a twelve thousand feet view of this Boot Camp. This training could make a South Park episode - "Child Molestation at VU" :-P. But now I look back and see, these were truly the days of slogging to help in the long way ahead! Coming out fresh from academia, this could be the best training to wear the corporate shoes and get dancing on the corporate dance-floor.

Some two and a half months ago, after harassment by autowaalas and skilled-to-fool brokers of Bangalore, a nice flat and better knowledge of one-way-roads brought little peace. The feel of VU life started right from the first day itself! Introduction by playing 5-6 games, just all administrative work, 3-4 talks and 5* party at night.. everything on the very first day! The talks were throwing new light but at the same time sitting on bean bags was too much comfortable to avoid sleeping :P. Just in first few days we got used to a daily 14-15 hrs working office life. The most interesting part started after a week when the technologies were introduced. Things which should be taught in few months were taught in just one and a half week! Each day seemed to be terribly hectic, very exhausting but every next day was tougher and more interesting than the earlier. Best analogy can be, for our thirst these people blew the fire brigade water pipes at our mouth.. No exaggeration :-P. Hard work was very well rewarded with more and more challenging work. It was fun when I struggled to code my first few programs in Java (for I never did coding in IIT :P) and everybody paced up to the next level. The same old you-are-doomed feeling gripped me, but fortunately enthusiasm was never doomed. Despite terribly screwing up the initial assignments, things went decently later and even better. May be the initial downslide just added more to the madness and fun! May be I could learn that cogging the assignments in IIT screws you up eventually :P In the closed office space, days and nights looked the same, breakfast-lunch-dinner were dynamically defined. Even in the little sleep, I felt like thinking about the problem at hand. Deadlines couldn't get more deadly and the experience of these crazy days is priceless!

Who the hell will work so much for any salary! It all came for there was even more crazy partying and fun all the way! Bangalore, the land of pubs and 5* hotels, gave all that enjoyment. Bar nights, wine-champagne and the dance floor every wednesday night made life, in the true sense of the word - Rocking! The saturday freakouts are the most memorable moments of the VU life. Wonder Valley, Wonder-la, over-night kaveri fishing camp, amazing rafting in the waters of Kaveri, Gold-class movie, the talent competitions, bowling at Leela Palace, the memorable cricket matches.. Cheers to VU! It all just taught how to enjoy much more than work and that too in a Royal way.

The real experience started with the project. Fortunately, I got to work on a high priority project which is to be shipped to Ford directly after we finish it. It meant a lot of responsibility. I look back at the incredible last two weeks' slog! It earned us bean bags for putting maximum number of night-outs in the training :-D. Finally the icing on the cake was the memorable project-success-treat at Taj followed by the Goa trip. Not as much amazing as the French Beaches :-P, but Goa is the land of enjoyment and with fundoo people and the nice resort the fun was worth cherishing.

At the end of an amazing roller-coaster there is a sigh and this is the moment of that sigh. From now on work will be peaceful, weekends will be off, but all the madness and crazy fun will go away and these days will remain as the best memories! Eric Cartman says - "What awaits each one of us in heaven is eternal bliss, divine rest and one million dollars cash". Donno when the heaven may be attained, the real gear after the IIT life is attained :-)