ExpertDabbler

My cousin was here last week, looking to sneak through the proverbial “cycle-gap” in the hallowed doors of TCS, CTS, Wipro, Satyam and Infosys which would make her the financially pampered, mentally tortured, socially showcased, BIG 5 IT professional. An MCA graduate, 80+ % avg. throughout and that irritates me no end. That 80+% betrays a disciplined attitude, hard work and all other extra-terrestrial stuff I despise with all my heart.

I, for one would never associate my life with, of all the words in the English dictionary, discipline. It’s like associating George Bush with intelligence. Too oxymoronic for my taste. I spoke to her at length though. She wants to start her career with a bang. Not bad I thought. Looking back, I think even my career started with a bang, in a different sense though.

Year - 2000.
Month - October.

It was about 2 months since Appa passed away. I was done with the Death Certificate part. Not done with the Legal Heir certificate part yet.

(I am planning to start a course titled “ How to get a Legal Heir Certificate in 5 days. Whom to bribe what?” on a later date.Those of you who are interested, please look for an advertisement in Velachery Times in the first week of August.Early bird offer: First ten students will get a DVD titled “How Sylvia Saint became a saint” absolutely free.)

Appa had not given nomination to any of his accounts. No Legal Heir Certificate implied no access to Appa’s funds in the bank. Appa was smart. He had wanted me to learn the intricacies of Hindu Succession Act with a real world case study.

No LHC also meant no Family Pension to Amma. And we had a princely 3000 bucks (rent from house property) to spend for the whole month which includes provision of Rs. 2500 for rent towards the house we stayed then. Even Karthik could sense that something had to be done to prevent our Family budget from looking like National budget. And we could not even print currency notes in our backyard.

Government pannina seri. Nama pannina thappu. Enna Ulagamada. Che!!.

The Phone bell rang.

Me: Hello

Loganathan : Dei, Naan Loganathan pesaren. Hmm enna pannitu irukkei?. Enna pannaradha irukkei?

Me: Onnum pannalai. Saaptitu thoongalamnu irukken.

Logs: Naan seriousa pesaren. Life la enna panna pore? Appa vera illai.. Poruppu jasthi inimae unakku.

Me: Indha ICWA vai dhaan padichu mudikanum da.. Appa voda kanavu naan professional qualification edhavadhu vanganumnu.

Logs: Oho, Yen kaekarenna enakku velaiku oru aal thevai padudhu .Adhaan nee interested a nu parthen.

Me: Dei velaya? naan varen da. ICWA ellam kedakudhu. Enna velai? Sollu.

Logs: Ippo dhaan Appa kanavu nu yedho sonne?

Me: Summa oru gethukku sonen da. Nee matterai sollu.

Logs: Office la finance, accounts ellam handle panna oru nambagamana aal thevai (and he found me, blame it on destiny. Folks be careful when you choose your employees.). Nee office va, nerla pesikalam.

Loganathan is our entrepreneur. Vyaabaara Gandham. Business Magnate. He finished his graduation in electronics and went on his own. A real whiz in his speciality - computers, electronics gadgets and troubleshooting them. Practical, hands-on person. Sometimes too practical.
“If you can’t fix it, throw it” kinda person. He was running his own business in IT peripherals / PC assembling.

I went to his office and after the initial small-talk with his team, got the much coveted post of General Manager (Finance) in M/s A…. Systems.

Now before, you build notions about Karthik being a whiz kid in Capital Budgeting and Working Capital Management, let me tell you what we guys mean by finance is kind of different from what guys like Prasanna Chandra and IM Pandey mean. That is dumb theory. We practiced it the way small businsses practice finance principles.

Since Karthik and Loganathan are street-smart guys, we figured out the cost of acquiring capital was high (what with interest and all that) but the cost of acquiring “Kaimaathu” was unimaginably low. Heck, most of the times it came free. So we always opted for this model to fund and run our day-to-day operations.

Those who thought that this GM Finance post thingie was the bang I was talking about in my career and those who are looking for some real excitement in their finance functions, please read Part II carefully ok? Golden words cannot be repeated.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 23rd, 2005 at 5:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.