Working in a Start-up vs Big Organisation

After working for 3 years with well-established companies, I am now working with a one year old start-up. In initial 3 years of my career, in first year I worked with a mid-size company, having employee strength of around 200. After that, for next 2 years, I worked with a very old and large company, having over 2 lakh employees, though the environment and working culture there also was very relaxed, no-nonsense kind, courtesy to my manager and all teammates. Coming from that huge company to directly a start-up feels very different. Start-Up, the word seems to tell:  Start and work your way up, if you were sleeping till now. Though it has just been a week since I joined my new start-up company, so it may be a very early to compare both, I would still like to list few differences I have noticed.
I would start with very visible and common things. Here in start-up, there is no restriction on you should wear at work. You don’t have to be very formal with your attire. You can wear t-shirts, jeans daily. There is a guy in my office who comes in half pants daily. You do not need a pair of formal shoes. Your casual sports shoes or even sandals will do.  There are no specific timings. You can come late if you don’t like to get up early, and work till late. There is no specified number of hours that you have to spend in office. Although, that means that often you end up working long hours in office, as there is a lot of work and few people in small company. If you don’t feel like coming to office, you can work from home. So you can see, there is a lot of flexibility in a start-up.
There are other more important benefits of working in a start-up. There are less number of people, so everyone is important and your opinion counts.  You are noticed for almost everything you do, for every step you take, though it applies for your mistakes also, as much it does for your contributions. In starting years, there is generally only one office, and that also is small, so you end up sharing your space with the people who matter most: the founders and CEOs/CTOs of the company. You can see how they are running the organisation, how much effort they are putting, what new ideas they are thinking of, their decision process etc. You can even give them your suggestions, and thus directly become even more important part of the company. In big organisations, you sometimes have not even seen these people even after working for years. In those big companies, some big guys, sitting in some other part of the planet, will take decision for you, and you don’t even know that who has done what to you. There you are just another drop in the ocean; here you are like a river, which after meeting with other rivers will form the ocean someday. There you are just going with the flow; here you are actually deciding the direction of the flow.
In small companies, you can try new things, fail at them, then retry something new again. There are no monolithic hierarchies for decision making. Instead of deliberating on pros and cons of something in meeting rooms for hours without actually trying it, here you just try it, learn from failures, and move on. Whatever work you do, its effects, whether good or bad, are in front of you very soon. There is no waiting for months to see the result of your work. That is called failing fast approach.
But there are lot of things that I will miss from my previous companies. Here I cannot sit in canteen and chat with colleagues on latest news, cricket or movies. Nobody seems to have much time for long discussions on Sachin’s 100th hundred, or Dravid’s retirement, or the movie released last Friday, or share market, or the next scandal done by UPA government.  But as they say, nothing comes for free in life. Here you are important, your time is important, so you do only important thing.
Welcome to Start-Up !!!.


Edit: As one friend pointed out, I forgot to mention that there are some exceptions among big organisations, where still a start-up environment is maintained as Google,Facebook,Cisco etc.

Is Negativity more powerful than positivity?

Today a friend inquired about why I don’t drink, don’t smoke and don’t eat non veg. He wanted to know that why I am still missing the enjoyment he and other friends get from these things. His thoughts were that I might not have done these things early in my life because my parents had not allowed me. Now when I was living hundreds of kilometers away from them, independent, free to make any decision, why had I not started any of these enjoyments? I have been asked these types of questions often by friends. Most of the times, I am not able to satisfy them logically by my answer, because my answer includes some reference to my religion, Jainism, but they want is pure logic. It was no different this time. But after many incidents of this type, my mind was forced to find logic behind this choice of mine of not smoking, drinking or having pieces of meat and bones of a poor unlucky animal in my plate.

I had been a science student, and science says that there is logic behind everything in this world. So, logically, there has to be some logic behind this reasoning of mine. And after some logical thinking, I found that there is a reason for everything we do. We eat because we feel hungry, we earn because we can have something (veg or non-veg) to eat, and I am writing this because I want to share my thoughts with you. So perhaps there is a reason behind everything, and reason can be positive or negative. Positive reasons encourage us to do something, while negative ones make us frightened, skeptical of doing something, and sometimes force us to take a back seat. But the question here is that which one is more powerful? I find negative reasons to be more powerful in most cases. You may have lots of positive reasons for doing something, but most of the times, one negative reason is powerful enough to convince us to not to do that thing. For example, fear of failure stops us from trying something new in our life. A novice speaker has fear of crowd; students do not answer questions in class because they might get their answer wrong and others might laugh on them, juniors do not put their idea in team meetings because seniors might reject it. A batsman looses an opportunity of hitting a six because he is feared of getting caught if he plays his shot in air. And those don’t fear; end up making bowlers feared from them, like Sehwag or Chris Gayle. In Math, you multiply infinite number of positive numbers with one negative number, and the whole result is negative. In software, a program of thousands of lines of code gets spoiled by one wrong statement.

So negativity is much more powerful in most cases. That’s why great men tell us to think positive, to be optimistic.

In my case, I can think of many negative reasons, but not even a single positive reason to drink, smoke or eat non-veg, so I don’t do it. I am thinking highly negative here, but will continue to do so, irrespective of what wise men say.
Which one is more powerful in your case? What do you think?

What to write about?

After a lot of days, I happened to recall about my long forgotten hobby of blogging. I browsed through the old posts and thought of adding one more today. But cannot decide what to write. Should I write about my office and the work I do (or made to do) there? Nah! Today is Sunday and I will be at that place after few hours tomorrow, i.e. Monday morning. So let’s not bring the thoughts of it before tomorrow. Should I write about how I passed the whole day today? But there is nothing special to tell about it. Same routine, sleeping, eating, watching TV, then sleeping again. Then waking up and suddenly wanting to write a post here, then will go to sleep again and waking up on Monday morning to be in office. Nothing interesting to write about! Should I write about the current happenings? About the Mumbai blasts, then Delhi High Court blasts? Or about the unfolding of one after another scandals about our corrupt politicians, who seem to come at the helm only to make money? Leave it. You already have had a lot of it on news channels buzzing 24 hours. Oh! I remember about one thing that interests me a lot. Cricket! So I can write about it, but what? Let’s try. Indian team lost badly to England in all formats, returning with a tied match only. Not a single victory for a world champion team in the whole tour. And Rahul Dravid retired from ODIs. So here also nothing good to write about.

After so much thinking, I do not know what to write about. So let’s leave it for some other day. Let’s talk about what I am doing now. Hey, you already know it. I am writing this post, even if not knowing what to write, and my 4 years old computer, on my 8 years old speakers, is playing songs of latest movies. Great Na! That’s called new wine in old bottle. Let’s rest all of this for now, as I have to go to bed, to wake up on Monday Morning. Wish me Luck!

One Year of Corporate Life

Today is 1 July, 2010. The date marks the completion of one year of corporate life for me. Since I joined Rave Technologies as my first company last year, things have changed a lot, including me. That Ghaziabad college boy is now a software developer in Mumbai. I have become more distant to my family, hence more unreachable. Until last year, I was one phone call and 4 hours away. Now, still one phone call, but 20 hours.

There are lot more things that have changed. Friends have been replaced by colleagues, seniors by mentors, teachers by managers. In college, if you don’t go to classes, you will get more time with friends, hence more fun. But here, if I don’t go to office, I will be alone, no one to be with, no one to talk. Apart from that, you can’t choose not to go to office at your will, it depends on your manager’s will. He’ll choose whether you can take a day off or not. But the more difficult and strange thing comes now. In college, you call a guy one year senior to you Sir or Mam. It looks that you are giving respect to that person, but you are doing it because you are told to do so, and that person knows it. But here, you can turn it around. The person may have as many years of experience as your age, but still you call him/her by name. It looks that you are showing no respect to him, but you truly respect him for all his knowledge and experience.

There are few more things. A few bucks given by parents for monthly expenses have changed to a bigger amount of salary, but still you find it tough to meet your expenses. The list of changes may go on, but here I leave to discuss other things for the next time…

P.S. You may also put comments to share your views about this experience

A New Beginning, in a New City....

Hi,greetings to all! It has been more than a month since I wrote any post here.After finishing a vigorous,very happening and crucial college life of 4 years,last few days have been a bit static,lazy and sleepy, with a sense of relief,a feeling of being without friends after so many days and some apprehensions about future life.But after roaming on those joyful and colorful paths of college life, finally life has taken a new turn from today.Today was the first day in office of Rave Technology,Mumbai,where I put my first step in the corporate world with some excitement,some pinches in the heart.

And on all these things, this city itself says a lot about it.I have passed my last 4 years nearby a metro city,the capital of India,but this another metro city has got a tons of different things in terms of lifestyle,local languages and a lot other things.A city of filmstars,businessmen and other high profile people,the city has lot of stories of success,struggle,terror burried in it. So being here gives a different feeling.You pass through the ways where some greats lingered in the past searching their ways of life during their struggle times,the roads where some terrorists fired the bullets last year,in local trains reviving the memories of 1993 blasts,but inspite of all this fright and intrigue,there is something magnetic in this city, that keeps its people attached to it, inspite of all this uproar.And now,I am going to be a part of it.

So now,back to some work, catch you all later.....

First Interview of My Life(in Sapient Coorporation)

The Common Room--A big hall, stairs sprawling from one side of the floor heading high upto other side, red colour sofas on them, a handsome number of young boys and girls sitting together, with their brains concentrated on just one thing in front of them. Few of them whispering something to their friends sitting besides them, but there was no loud noise by any of them. All of this may drive you nostalgic about the last weekend you enjoyed with your friends in a movie theatre. But here, there was no projector, no speakers and the lights were still not off.The show had yet to begun.But there was no eagerness for a newly released movie, the nervousness playing the protagonist on every face.This was a sight of a room where few budding engineers gathered for an interview to decide their fate.Having a job in your pocket, perhaps this is the most desired feat in four years of enginering.The most awaited, but the most crucial and shivering moment of life was yet to come.

The guys (the volunteers) in front of us, with a list in hand, were going to make the first call to begin the process. In this kind of situation, one can see different kind of emotions on different faces. Few try to smile looking at each other.Few, with both hands closed together praying to their Gods. There are few moments,when we finally have the time for that Almighty, in our busy lives. Among all these, few seem relaxed.They are the ones with "don't care" or "just chill" type of attitude. The candidates who enter in the room after finishing their interviews are crowded by friends, facing another bunch of questions after finishing one inside interview room. "Hey, how was your interview?", "How many people are there taking interview?", "What did they ask?", "What did you answer?", these are some common queries asked by others, to mitigate their fears,perhaps. Afterall, one of their colleagues have lived those moments, which they are going to live in next few instants. Amid all this, I was waiting for my call, and the moment finally arrived.

The Interview Room-- "May I come in, Sir?" I uttered my first few words of the most important conversation of my life that was about to begin. An interview is not less than a battle, perhaps it is the tougher one of the two. Here you are alone in the field, with your opponents (the interviewers), generally 2 , 3 or more(your tough luck). Here you can not attack, just defend yourself, while your opponents are full of armoury( the list of questions), ready to launch at you. What you can do is just smile(or atleast try to smile, I know it is an onerous task at that time) and regurgitate "what you have in you what they would like you to have". Now I was going to be a part of all this.

"Yes , Come in", about 30 years old, a fair coloured guy, said. Finally I took my first stride inside the room. He was standing just on the door, with a bottle of water in his hand. I was not expecting that. I took my seat.

A girl, seeming like a student, came to me. She asked about my branch and college. I answered her as anyone would answer to a friend or colleague. She remained standing there and then the guy came. He first introduced himself as a DBA in Sapient and then that girl. OOPSss!! That girl was an employee of company and was a part of interview panel, and till then I thought her as one of the volunteers of that college where the interview was being conducted in Delhi.Thank God! I came to know this at right time.

The interview begun with the typical question "Tell me something about yourself". Many times in past, I learned the answer of this question, but everything was there out of sequence.I answered him in a way I would not want. But I could not help it.Then began the technical questions(Well, I can describe here those questions also,but most of you would feel like kicking me on this).All questions came from the guy, the girl just being a scrupulous observer. Only last question came from her. Then I was offered to ask something, which signaled that the battle is about to finish. I grabbed the opportunity and threw a question to their side. The answer came instantly, but I could not grasp much. Perhaps, I knew that the mission was accomplished, and was not willing to pay much attention now. Then we completed the handshake, the last formality, and I left the room.

My task was finished.The result was awaited.Rest was a hope,and engraved in me were the endless feelings of eagerness, an incessant awe, and a long wait....

My idol, My mentor

"There is always a woman behind a successful man". We all have heard this famous quote.But there is no woman behind my success.One minute,you must be wondering that what success am I talking about? Who am I to talk about success? It is like choota muh badi bat. But whatever meagre I have achieved till now, is very significant for me.

It is not always easy for a lad of a small town, having no support for him in terms of educational help(like tutions,coachings, because of lack of availability of these things in the area), to get admission in engineering. Well, I don't say I have done a good job, being in this kind of college, I should have done better to be able talk about these things, yet efforts were put in great deal, what it could have at that time, in the crave for something better.What I have achieved, It is not that much bad. But it could not have been possible without a great man, to whom I always admire. I haven't met Dhirubhai Ambani, Bill Gates and other greats, but he, not being anyone of these above famous and very successful personalities, has always been a constant source of inspiritation for me. He was the only one, who constantly kept the fire inside me always burning. He was the one who gave me a dream, which I am living now. A man of few words, but very effective words, he gave direction to me whenever I was lingering around among many confusing paths of life, which could have consumed me to lead me astray, had he not been with me. A conversation of even very few minutes with him is well effective to change my thoughts about the mooted topic.

Now you must be thinking who is he? He is my maternal uncle, my mamaji, who is in the field of s/w industry for 14-15 years. As a boy from very small village, he has achieved so much in these years that everyone in his village tells his children to follow him. But people like him are not always easy to pursue, as efforts has to be put like them, not a cup of tea for everyone.

So I can say that "there is a man behind a successful man" in my case.