The year was 1995 when I somehow managed to pass my MBA examination, in Bombay. I had definitely studied well and scored 66% which was reasonable and I had majored in Finance. I thought of a plush office, great girls to work with and a fantastic life. But then, I started getting jitters, imagining of 9 to 5 life as something dreadful, awful and full of shit. I couldn’t get selected in the campus round and so I was jobless and that also was making me feel awful. So, I was a stupid wreck. Finally one of my relatives, a big bureaucrat, got me a job in a start-up petrochemicals firm, that too in their plant based at one God forsaken place. I reluctantly joined there and after few days I informed my parents that I was unwell and repeated the same the very next day. As I was a pampered kid, i was immediately summoned to my hometown, where I took rest for few days and then I expressed my wish to work in Bombay and not in that plant. So, through my uncle, I got a transfer to Bombay, in November 1995 and I joined that company, in the corporate office. The very first day, a manager in the Finance department asked me to calculate Internal Rate of Return. I was flabbergasted as I didn’t know how to do that and I had majored in Finance! I shamefully regretted my inability to do so and I remember getting a big lecture from him. And then i saw my Boss, an aggressive fellow who always used to shout! My parents had never ever shouted at me and here I was, feeling like a loser who was always being shouted at. Considering this, I lost my interest in either learning applied finance or taking interest in the work i was assigned which became worse later on and I was given unimportant tasks, like photocopying, getting spiral bindings done etc. Funnily, I had also joined a Masters degree in Finance through distance education and in my job I was distancing myself from Finance!

More of my memoirs in the next blog post!