The (bitter)sweet MBA internship
Inspired to write this since most ‘resources’ available to the uninitiated on an internship is so laden with corporate jargon and niceties that it is difficult to understand what was going on. Knowing that it was “a unique opportunity with a steep learning curve where out of the box thinking will help you stand out of the crowd” probably falls short in helping build a real picture.
Summers, is one among a list of words/acronyms that lose their original meaning once you enter B-school <watch this space for DCP,Gas/Globe & PPT> replacing association from visiting your grandparents and sleeping in as much as you want, with sleepless nights during which your CVs get mentored, you write convincing answers to HR questions asking you why you’re the best fit for any job that opened on campus while battling the peer/placecomm induced anxiety about those few fateful days.
I had bagged an internship at the sweetest most silkiest company on campus — Mondelez, the giant behind the likes of Dairy Milk, Oreo and Tang. It all felt perfect as this is what I thought I wanted, an FMCG Sales & Marketing role in a highly contested Day 0 company, not that I really had any idea of what that meant, nor did most people around me.
Fast forward 5 months and we were to figure out and fast, the first blow was knowing that I wouldn’t be based out of Mumbai for the 2-months, where I had already scouted for apartments and weekend hangouts, following a phone call with the HR centered on if whether I spoke any of the South Indian languages, I was relocated— to the less exciting east-coast, to Chennai. I was, at this point, under the impression that the internship would be chill, something relayed to me by a senior of mine from undergrad who got a PPO there, one of the few insiders I knew at this first-time recruiter at campus. What I didn’t factor in was that he was in HR. <insert random demeaning joke about HRs here>
Having made peace with being sent to Chennai, the work-part of the internship began on an upbeat note with us sharing the Mumbai-Chennai flight with the whole CSK team. I was to be working out of the South India HO and was warmly received, to an office that sadly didn’t seem to have anyone within a 10 year range of mine. I wasn’t to spend too much in the office though, since my project guide charted out a busy schedule of market visits that would help me get a feel of things.
Thus began my South Indian city-hop, flights every few days to a new city, cabs to the hotel and to meet the local manager maybe but invariably as pillion on bikes to some of the countless stores in narrow lanes that are still the most popular mode of FMCG retail. With that begins the comedy of errors, the average Sales Executive you are assigned to assist you is unlikely to be proficient in any language other than his mother-tongue and asking him to take you to “3 stores in the locality, one each for where the owners are satisfied, unsatisfied and indifferent to our offering” is harder than it may seem. This hurdle crossed, you would reach a shopkeeper who will give you a roundup about all the issues that they’re facing, occasionally even digressing to the personal.
This was kept up for a while and on one Saturday night at Vellore, waiting at a non-descript highway stop for my bus to Chennai, I caught myself thinking back to the week I had spent, 4 cities in 6 days, wondering if I wanted to travel every other day (laughs in future Consultant Job). More importantly, it felt like a matter of choice (to those like me who had the luxury of making one), of deciding what you wanted to do. This job would mean interacting with a lot of folks whose priorities aren’t exactly your own and brings with it a different set of complexities as compared to working for an organization that deals with other organizations filled with people like you. This I feel is something you have to ask yourself before you decide to lock in on a job.
Time went rather quickly after that and it would be a disservice to not mention that it was in fact a great learning experience, working with people more than twice your age, getting presentation tips from the HR and much more, not least a very generous stipend.
The internship culminated with a presentation back at Mumbai which gave me one of the more valuable commodities that a second-year B-School student can have, a PPI (A PPO is obviously, the most, forming the base below Wi-Fi and Water in Maslov’s Hierarchy). What I thought strange at the moment was how the experience had made me more confused and not less, about what to do with my life, it did open up new doors, but left me with the feeling that there was more dabbling to be done before the path is set to stone, if ever.
*Originally written during the throes of joblessness at the start of the Pandemic, initial plan was to share it as a light note for the juniors who would get to their internships after the “2-week lockdown post which everything will go back to normal” which in hindsight would’ve played out as a cruel joke.
