Toon toon go away?

A large part of yesterday, directly or indirectly, was devoted to the mid term review presentation of our summers. All the nine of us (from four IIMs and XLRI) were all keyed up for the show and were wondering aloud about the usefulness or futility of the exercise. We were also wondering as to the audience of our review presentations. We knew that our respective project managers will be in attendance, but exactly what would be the representation of HR and the higher echelons (including partners and directors) was still an open question. In fact, that would have decided the seriousness with which we would have gone into the presentation, assuming, of course, that the respective managers were already aware of our work (or the lack of it).

As it turned out...or as I made it turn out, my presentation had its own share of informal stuff which started giving me cold feet just when it was time for the presentations. By the time the schedule came, I was hoping...no praying that they put me first because as Khaitan had so ominously been wondering (aloud, of course,...curse him :-)) during lunch time, what would happen if the partners say that they wanted me to skip the cartoons and come to the real part. It was not all cartoons, my presentation, but I was still banking on the toons to give that different class to my stuff. The schedule, of course, did not have my name at all. The first six were listed and as for me, Sandipan and another guy from IIMA, with none of us being in the data warehousing projects, we were put on hold.

Fortune takes strage turns, though. Not sooner than I had come back and settled into my seat worrying about my late turn, the presentation co-ordinator came and told me that I had been called by the HR head. Strangely enough, all the time that I was going up the elevator to meet him, I was thinking that he had probably gone through my presentation and was now calling me to admonish me over the cartoons. It was not that, fortunately and more fortunately, he wanted me to start the presentations since the project manager, I was reporting to, would not be available later in the evening. The cartoons went off really well with the two of them and the PM actually seemed to be a Dilbert fan and had already read most of the cartoons I had displayed in my presentation...what good fortune indeed!

The icing on the cake was that the senior partners and directors (just the four of them, actually) came in the latter half of my presentation and as per custom (of not interfering if one is not present from the beginning), did not ask any questions though they did witness the juiciest parts of my presentation. As I came to know later, they were unrelenting and untiring with the other trainees whose presentations followed mine. I got off on this count, too.

As for the other trainees, as I mentioned already, none of them were spared the quick wit and technical skills of the partners. Most of them were on the wrong side of the verbal gun yesterday and were cursing me for my luck...well, a dog has to have his day some day, what say!!! (a nice rhyme, by the way ;-))

But then, there are a lot of things yet to be done. As my project manager told me at the end of it all, the most significant thing that is going to determine my success or failure in this summer internship program is going to be my final gap analysis report which will be a sort of testimonial to my efforts.

I may not have realized it but the presentation had been a source of tension for me over the last few days. When I came back to the PG after the presentation, I immediately fell dead on the bed. As Asif told me later, I had been snoring away to glory, completely oblivious to all the hullaboo that was happening around me with music playing, people shouting and chatting and what not. Though I did go for the guitar lessons when I got up, I did not particularly put my soul into it yesterday...absolutely no practice and almost imperceptible interest in what was happening.

Coming back to the PG, I found that I had been locked out twice in a row (day before yesterday was a late night because of the Joe Satch show). Luckily (my luck was too good yesterday *cross fingers...touch wood*), the maid came to open the door and thus, the PG Aunty had no way of knowing that it was the same guy who had interrupted her dreams two nights in a row with a phone call in the dead of the night (which she defines as 10:30 PM, by the way).

I must start with the rest of my project work pretty soon if I am to complete the thing in time but then, I have to wait for access to be given to me for the new system and only then can I do something worthwhile. As for the time before that, I guess it is going to be another round of net surfing, blog reading, some chatting (at least as much as the highly erratic messenger connection allows me), perhaps even an e-book reading or who knows...there might just be some work :-)