interiors. I broke a few petals and have included them in this letter. Hope they remind you of me.
Love and kisses,
Ananya.
I opened the folds of the letter. Jasmine petals fell into my lap. They felt soft and smelt wonderful. It was the only thing about this day that made me happy. It
reminded me why I was here.
DX @ www.desibbrg.com
16
It is bad news when you hate your job in the first hour of the first day of office. It isn’t like Citibank did anything to piss me off. In fact, they tried their best to make me feel at home. I already had an assigned cubicle and computer. My first stint
involved working in a group that served ‘priority banking’ clients, a politically
correct term to address ‘stinking rich’ customers. There is little a customer
needed to do to become priority except wave bundles of cash at us. Priority
customers received special service, which included sofas for waiting areas
instead of chairs, free tea while the bank representative discussed new ways to
nibble…oops sorry, invest clients’ money. And the biggest touted perk was you
would get direct access to your Customer Service Managers. These were
supposed to be financial wizards from the top MBA schools who would take your
financial strategy to a whole new level. Yes, that would be me. Of course, we
never mentioned that your customer service manager could hate his job, do it
only for the money and would have come to the city only because his girlfriend
was here.
I had to supervise eight bank representatives. The bank representatives were
younger, typically graduates or MBAs from non-blue-blooded institutions. And I,
being from an IIM and therefore injected with a sense of entitlement for life, would obviously be above them. I didn’t speak Tamil or know anything about banking,
but I had to pretend I knew what I was doing. At least to my boss Balakrishnan or
Bala.
‘Welcome to the family,’ he said as we shook hands.
I wondered if he was related to Ananya. ‘Family?’
‘The Citibank family. And of course, the Priority Banking family. You are so
lucky. New MBAs would die to get a chance to start straight in this group.’
I smiled.
‘Are you excited, young man?’ Bala asked in a high-pitched voice.
‘Super-excited,’ I said, wondering if they’d let me leave early as it was my first day.
He took me to the priority banking area. Eight reps, four guys and four girls
read research reports and tips from various departments on what they could see
DX @ www.desibbrg.com
today. I met everyone though I forgot their similar sounding South Indian names
the minute ii heard them.
‘Customers start coming in at ten, two hours from now,’ Bala said. ‘And that is when the battle begins. We believe trainees learn best by facing action. Ready for
war?’
I looked at him. I could tell he was a Citibank lifer. At forty, he had probably spent twenty years already in the bank.
‘Ready? Any questions, champ?’ Bala asked again.
‘Yeah, what exactly am I supposed to do?’
Bala threw me the first of his many disappointed looks at me. He asked a rep
for the daily research reports. ‘Two things you need to do, actually three,’ Bala
said as he took me to my desk. ‘One, read these reports everyday and see if you
can recommend any investments to the clients. Like look at this.’ He pulled out a
report from the equities group. It recommended shares of Internet companies as
their values had dropped by half.
‘But isn’t the dot com bubble bursting?’ I asked. ‘These companies would
never make money.’
Bala looked at me like I had spoken to him in pure Punjabi.
‘See, our research has given a buy here. This is Citibank’s official research,’
Bala spoke like he was quoting from the Bible. Official research was probably
written by hung-over MBA three years out of business school.
‘Fine, what else?’
‘The second important job is to develop a relationship. Tamilians love
educated
Love and kisses,
Ananya.
I opened the folds of the letter. Jasmine petals fell into my lap. They felt soft and smelt wonderful. It was the only thing about this day that made me happy. It
reminded me why I was here.
DX @ www.desibbrg.com
16
It is bad news when you hate your job in the first hour of the first day of office. It isn’t like Citibank did anything to piss me off. In fact, they tried their best to make me feel at home. I already had an assigned cubicle and computer. My first stint
involved working in a group that served ‘priority banking’ clients, a politically
correct term to address ‘stinking rich’ customers. There is little a customer
needed to do to become priority except wave bundles of cash at us. Priority
customers received special service, which included sofas for waiting areas
instead of chairs, free tea while the bank representative discussed new ways to
nibble…oops sorry, invest clients’ money. And the biggest touted perk was you
would get direct access to your Customer Service Managers. These were
supposed to be financial wizards from the top MBA schools who would take your
financial strategy to a whole new level. Yes, that would be me. Of course, we
never mentioned that your customer service manager could hate his job, do it
only for the money and would have come to the city only because his girlfriend
was here.
I had to supervise eight bank representatives. The bank representatives were
younger, typically graduates or MBAs from non-blue-blooded institutions. And I,
being from an IIM and therefore injected with a sense of entitlement for life, would obviously be above them. I didn’t speak Tamil or know anything about banking,
but I had to pretend I knew what I was doing. At least to my boss Balakrishnan or
Bala.
‘Welcome to the family,’ he said as we shook hands.
I wondered if he was related to Ananya. ‘Family?’
‘The Citibank family. And of course, the Priority Banking family. You are so
lucky. New MBAs would die to get a chance to start straight in this group.’
I smiled.
‘Are you excited, young man?’ Bala asked in a high-pitched voice.
‘Super-excited,’ I said, wondering if they’d let me leave early as it was my first day.
He took me to the priority banking area. Eight reps, four guys and four girls
read research reports and tips from various departments on what they could see
DX @ www.desibbrg.com
today. I met everyone though I forgot their similar sounding South Indian names
the minute ii heard them.
‘Customers start coming in at ten, two hours from now,’ Bala said. ‘And that is when the battle begins. We believe trainees learn best by facing action. Ready for
war?’
I looked at him. I could tell he was a Citibank lifer. At forty, he had probably spent twenty years already in the bank.
‘Ready? Any questions, champ?’ Bala asked again.
‘Yeah, what exactly am I supposed to do?’
Bala threw me the first of his many disappointed looks at me. He asked a rep
for the daily research reports. ‘Two things you need to do, actually three,’ Bala
said as he took me to my desk. ‘One, read these reports everyday and see if you
can recommend any investments to the clients. Like look at this.’ He pulled out a
report from the equities group. It recommended shares of Internet companies as
their values had dropped by half.
‘But isn’t the dot com bubble bursting?’ I asked. ‘These companies would
never make money.’
Bala looked at me like I had spoken to him in pure Punjabi.
‘See, our research has given a buy here. This is Citibank’s official research,’
Bala spoke like he was quoting from the Bible. Official research was probably
written by hung-over MBA three years out of business school.
‘Fine, what else?’
‘The second important job is to develop a relationship. Tamilians love
educated
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