Lakshminarayanan Lakshmanan BE, MS, MBA

Well, that is it folks! I have officially completed the requirements to earn an MBA. All that remains is the conferring of the actual degree! As always, this blog too starts with a caution - this is also going to rant based.

August 2010 - April 2013. Approximately three years. What did I learn? Well, I learnt a lot. I have new perspective on businesses, strategic decisions etc. Let me be honest, when I started my MBA there were friends who said "Oh this program sucks. People don't get jobs. What a waste of my money". I countered it by saying, "My takeaway is the knowledge I am gaining. Yes I do want  a job at the end of the program but I won't be dissing the program if I don't get one". What I was trying to say is I am learning something everyday and that is all I need. But as the years rolled by and I lost my job at AMD, my whole perspective changed. Now I wanted A job, in the business side of things. Unfortunately, I didn't get one and still haven't.

Let's change gears a little here. Am I glad my MBA is done? I am not sure. I sure don't feel euphoric that I have completed my MBA. I don't feel proud and have this sense of achievement that I have earned my MBA. If the above leads to happiness that I have finished my MBA, then no, I am not happy. Any discerning reader would by troubled enough by this sentiment of mine to ask me "Are you alright? Do you need to be checked in at the mental institution?". Fret not dear reader. Let me tell you why I feel this way. I am overwhelmed by all this travelling I have done in the past 3 months. I am tired. I am not my usual enthusiastic self (at least I think I am an enthu fellow). I feel weighed down by my own high expectations. Again the root-cause of this feeling stems from the fact that........ let me not mention it again.

The thing is, if it is something I care about so much, I haven't done enough justice in terms of effort to finding one. With all the travelling done in the last 3 months, I hardly found time to apply. I have to restart my application process now. The ones that seem promising don't seem promising anymore because the process takes such a long time!

Finally, I understood something. When I was working for AMD and I took a day off, I would miss work. Seriously! Now I when I take a day off, I enjoy it, cherish it so much that I don't want to go to work the next day or after the weekend. I take it this is a sign of me enjoying my work at AMD not enjoying it here. I know what I have to do now. Today is the first day of the rest of my life!

The past few months...

This post is going to be a vehicle for me to vent and crib...

People who even remotely know me would know that I got laid off last year in October. Having gone through this horrendous experience, I sincerely hope this fate doesn't befall anyone. Many might argue that I have nothing to complain about as I secured employment almost immediately. Well here are some aspects which gets masked..

Getting laid off is a severe blow to one's self confidence. It makes you question your self-worth. There are two aspects to being let go. One is being fired for the individual's performance or lack thereof and the other is dismal performance of the employer. I got hit by the latter. 

Waking up the next day and not having to get ready for work is when it hits you. A sense of desperation sets in and at least in my case a complete lack of direction. This is where being sure about what you want to do, how you want to do it, having the courage to stick by your decisions helps you a lot.  Me, I was in a confused state. Being one semester and couple of months away from graduating from an MBA didn't help either. I guess I didn't learn some of the finer aspects of management - Have long-term focus. Make decisions in the short-term that help you achieve long-term success. That went totally out of the window. I can counter it by saying, hey I have to be in status to do things I want to do! 

Being an immigrant and then being laid off is a double whammy, especially when you are one semester away from graduation and your spouse as well! I couldn't have been even more helpless. The only revenue stream, if I was a corporation, has been cut-off. Highly leveraged in terms of debt, no equity to speak of, not even brand equity I guess. Miller-Modigliani would have to come up with a different theorem to say that any outsider is indifferent to my capital structure!

Monetary aspect out of the way, friends and family into the picture. Don't get me wrong, they want the best for you and out of the goodness of their heart help you out. But sometimes no help can be the best help. Or just being a sounding board without offering any advice in return would have been awesome. Few know where to draw the line. If you are a person like me to not offend anyone, I pray you have loads of patience. 

Continuing where I left off a paragraph ago, after I got laid off, I thought "Hmm this might not be a bad situation after all. I can transition into a management job and after earning the degree go on to bigger and better things". The thing with plans is that they always sound good in theory. Practically it hardly ever gets implemented. Ever planned how to lose weight? how to be more active and less lazy? Ever built castles in the air and day dream about how great it'll be when you put into action those plans? And 2 months down the road, you are still heavy and still lazy and enjoying a cozy life in the comfort zone? You get the point. I started applying to management related jobs, no luck. I applied to Electrical Engineering jobs which I had lost touch with, no luck. Now I am back at where I started my career. Applications Engineer! That too in neighboring city. 

So now I commute, fly, every Monday and Tuesday to my basetown (for I don't want to use the word hometown. Chennai will be my hometown forever) to attend classes fly back the next day (Tuesday and Wednesday) to attend work. Go back to basetown on the weekends because that is where my apartment is and that is where I am most comfortable. So you can see I am in a state of perpetual motion! Now I am nearing graduation, having no end-game so to speak. No management job in sight, no encouraging signs.

I am hoping for a massive change in luck! Massive as in Himalayan massive. 

On the flipside people might argue - Hey you have a job, your revenue stream has restarted, you are in status. Agreed! But when you don't necessarily enjoy the job you are doing and the tunnel is never-ending, never mind it there being light at the end of it or not, it only exacerbates the already pitiful situation I am in!

But all I can do is, keep trying, keep my head down, expect less, not worry about the results and the endgame and finally keep fighting!