The Love and Hate Relationship

My love and hate relationship with Aricent grows even more. Aricent came up as a savior in these troubled times. They provided me with a pre-placement offer, which is in rarity nowadays. This is year 2008, the great economic crunch causing troubled waters even in the most withstanding organizations. All firms have gone into no hiring or firing mode. It spells doom, it certainly does for us management students, who once were so much sought after. Slowly but surely spark has gone out. The flame burning is slowly dimming out, but I know it will not vanish. Markets are going to come back. It is a temporary phase. But this temporary phase is causing ripples which seem like cyclonic tides. But something has happened with me which is surely amazing. I lived to fight another day. The life was handed out to me by Aricent.

May 12th 2008 – This is the day on which I joined Aricent. First impression about the firm by the looks of its infrastructure was a feeling of awe. They have some of the best buildings in Gurgaon. As I entered the building on Plot-17, Electronic city, I was convinced of a great 6 month long internship with this firm. We were asked to wait in the reception and later we met our mentors. Later in the day I was the first one to be allocated a project with Mr. Manohar. It was a dream come true. Day 1 and I get a project, well that is something. As the first week went by I was convinced of the level of professionalism in the firm. But as the second, third and fourth week unfolded I was shrouded with failures in my project. One after another, they kept on coming. It was not a pretty sight for me. In these times, however, I used to give out long sighs and continue with my work. It was imminent from my attitude that I was in crunch. Daily jobs made me sick. But luckily I have a innate ability to hang on. That is what I am good at and I applied it to my success. Slowly people in the organization started appreciating my work. This was the beginning of the love and hate.

The surviving friends – Apart from my colleagues from VGSOM, I met some very interesting people inside Aricent. The most important of these people were, Ram, Rohit, Deepak and Vidit. Ram is going to be my colleague and Rohit, Deepak and Vidit are from the engineering teams. I met them by coincidence and they became my best buddies. Later point of my work had me interact with some of the most optimistic people I have ever seen, Shiba, Manandeep, Malathi (in Chennai) and Subbu (also from Chennai). I also met some of the most interesting people like Akash from the Administration who handles the Bus services in Aricent. All these people made a big extended family for me. They are excellent people in their work and they correlate their work with keeping good relationships with others. I learnt a lot from them. However, the people from whom I learnt most were Sudhir (my boss), Rakesh (my boss, with whom I met only once) and Prakash (my senior from college). All of them provided me different dimensions of what people and relationships mean. I am so overflowed with joy that I might not have named all you guys.

The farewell and the continuance – We were given a grand farewell by our mentors and seniors. It was so heart touching and it meant a lot to me. I left with a heavy heart. But this was soon about to change. We left on November 7th 2008. I was uncertain whether I will ever get an opportunity to be back with these excellent people again. Alas! It happened. As I was reaching back, I got the news. The news was like millions of roses showered on me. I was with my fiancée at the time when this news came to me. I have very few words to describe, how we both felt. It was the most pleasant surprise.

Looking towards joining you guys again...

Ashish