The Placement Season

Two people running down the aisle with a cordless phone in hand, worried if they would be able to catch up sir to make calls to the company. Two upstairs are arranging the call-sheets in order of the preference of the calls to be made for the day. Couple others are calling up companies for fixing appointments with Prof. Then there are others running helter skelter between the placement room and the reception trying to courier the brochure. This is the normal routine of the placement folks of PGPM. One thought, one discussion, one worry – whether we will be able to beat the last year’s placement given the gloomy scenario around.

When the worry gets in to too many of us, we call for a placement meeting. Surrounded and “hounded” by tonnes of assignments, group works and quizzes, we set the deadline for the closure of the meeting at the outset every time; even though we know that we would never be able to achieve it. Well who cares, managers set the deadlines; adherence to the deadline is an act which is more often than not forgotten. The meeting starts with a bash, with all the hungry attendees ordering for their own set of delicacies from bistro. Till the snacks come, each one, start pulling legs of others and mimicking the Profs. Now its all fun in the air.

Then the COCO starts writing the agenda of the meeting on the board, with the others adding their own points. Pick one point from the agenda, and tempers start loosing. This transition from a light hearted environment to a tenser environment hardly takes any time. All “WHATs” and “WHYs” come pouring. Ears become red and hot as the discussion intensifies. Grey cells work at their peak to make the matters black and white. At the end of it, the discussion objectively boils down to couple of options for which the voting is done and we close the meeting, errr.. the first agenda, in a truly democratic manner. Well, hold your breath; we also do reach the end of meeting as well.

As placements get closer, people get busy in making unending calls, numerous pleads, uncountable follow-ups – all of which when result in a single “YES” from a company, the team feels elated and victorious and starts congratulating each other. At the same time, when the company bangs the phone down with a rude “NO”, our hearts are broken. We try to dissect every conversation and interaction with the company and pull out even the minuscule reasons which might have apparently offended the company.

Success or Failure of the entire exercise of placement can only bring temporary happiness or sadness in us. But the attitude we develop in terms of well wishing for others, being joyous at the joy of others and mourning at the tears of others, in course of all these activities, truly inculcates a radically different behaviour and changes the entire approach towards life. I am proud of being a part of this team – a FEAT that I will cherish life-long.