A Bad Day

I have spent the last two months enjoying quite a few laughs when the HR prof massacred student after student. Today was my day to be massacred. Normally he is quite friendly to me, and I happily make one CP every other class. Don't know exactly what happened, but I made two CPs and he launched into me both times.

Excerpts from the class

Me : Sir, the whole fertilizer business would have been unviable in India in a free market economy...
Prof (without letting me finish) : No, you are very wrong. The business is very profitable. In fact it is more profitable than most others.

I argued a bit, but soon was trembling and just waiting for the exchange to be over. But a few minutes later, I made another attempt at a seemingly simple contribution. It turned out to be disastrous.

Prof : So who controls the posting of the IAS officers?
Me : Sir, the central ministers or the chief minister in the case of state cadre...
Prof : Where do IAS officers serve?
Me : Sir, there are some at the state cadre and some in the Centre...
Prof : What kind of a manger will you become? Are you living in India? You need to study the Indian constitution and the laws and policies of the country. Things like these are taught at the 8th and 10th standard levels...and you don't know... (I still have no idea what exactly was wrong with what I said. A bad day, I guess).

In the next class (MANAC), I made another CP. This too was shot down, though quite painlessly. OM (Operations) was next and I was not going to open my mouth. In any case, though I had prepared the case and come, it was a particularly difficult one and I had no confidence in my process analysis of the paint factory. Unfortunately the whole class had felt the same way and few had prepared well. Our OM professor is really good and quite easygoing. But as the lack of class preparation was exposed, he became disappointed. I would have been more pleased if he had become angry. But he simply chose to end the class 15 minutes before time and asked to prepare the same case for the next class. We were all ashamed of ourselves for disappointing the prof.

In the afternoon, there was an HR lecture by the VP of Hero Honda. It was not bad, but I was more inclined to concentrate on my Computer assignment due tomorrow. The assignment was not tough - just 2 Visual Basic programs, but I could not get the first problem right at all. I tried it yesterday night for 45 minutes. Today I worked on it from 2 pm to 3 pm, then again from 5:30 to 8:30 and finally from 9 to 10. There were only minor errors but the whole day was wasted in debugging the program. I am glad I am not going to do much coding!

The day ended on a better note. The tuchhas' fourth term ends this week. Many will be going for an exchange visit next term. So we organised a small dorm party around midnight. It was great fun.

I also got the Hitchhiker's Guide from Madhuri today. Should be a great read. Though I haven't finished 'The Great Mughals', 'The Goal', 'The Wealth of Nations' and 'Gulliver's Travels' yet. Lots to read...so I better get on with it.