The First Client and the ‘3G Market’

And so the last days of the internship have come about. In spite of the constant cribbing about Gurgaon and the heat, I have got used to it (4 years of Pilani have definitely helped), though that doesn't mean that Gurgaon has become my favourite village in India.

Anyways, the week has been hectic; with my first ever visit to a client office as part of my project. I had to go all alone, and the visit was to an industrial estate in Delhi, some 50 kms from Gurgaon. The trip itself was "eventful" as you can see below:

9:55 am: Call cab driver Sunil

Me: Are Bhaiya, kal shaam aapse baat ki thi na, Mathura Road jaana hai.

Cab driver: Are aisi kya baat hai ji, aa jao upper basement mein.

10 am: Leave office.

10:05 am: Open slides on the lappy, try to rework them, think on what to speak blah blah

10:15 am: Open gmail, check mail, google news, WC 2010 updates etc.

10:30 am: Sheer boredom forces me to "try to" rework those slides again.

10:35 am: Doze off in the back seat.

10:45 am: I realize that the lappy is running on battery, as I am comfortably dozing. Switch off lappy and doze off again.

11:15 am: We reach Mathura Road, and the driver wakes me up and asks for the address. The road has been dug up due to Delhi Metro construction (one of the few things which I like about N.Delhi). Now, go through small arbit lanes, go wrong way once, take a wrong turning before finally landing up.

11:45 am: I alight from the car and ask the security guard at the gate, and he dismisses any notion of the supposed client's existence in that building. I call up the client, but no response. Open notebook to confirm address, and find out that one small word "extension" has made some difference.

Anyways, I got back to the cab driver Sunil, who, it must be said, is an extremely patient and cordial middle-aged fellow. He had started sipping tea on the roadside stall, and invited me for a cup, before we moved to the "extension". After the tea, as I stepped up to pay, he waved me aside and said:

"Aap to abhi student ho, aapke full time appointment hone par hum aapse treat zaroor lenge."

Heartwarming moment of the day, no doubt. J

Noon: Finally, make it to client's office, at which time I am informed that the accounts manager is busy in some meeting.

1 pm: After an hour of fidgeting, drinking water with some facebooking interspersed in between, I get to meet the manager and his team.

I was taken aback by the respect shown by the team, who thought that I was a full time employee. The meeting consisted of coffee, some arbit talk, and most of all, cribbing about some transaction or the other (Since I was alone, I had to bear the brunt and nod with "dekh lenge sir, we will surely look into it"). This was interspersed with some useful work (READ: Pitching the product, which is one of my projects).

Anyways, those few minutes were fortunately enough for me to get them to say "Aye". And thus ended my first successful sales pitch. This was followed by more coffee and biscuits and cribbing.

2:15 pm: Leave the office. The return journey was far less eventful, and I spent time by looking at metro constructions/traffic jams/....

And so it ends. This post has become a bit long in itself. The "3G market" post shall follow soon enough.

And no, "3G Market" has NOTHING to do with A Raja or Airtel.

HINT: It is actually the name of a well-known hindi movie which released about an year ago.