Effect of Accounts Lecture on an Engineer

Before, I start, I daresay, many of you unfortunate "Gadha"s like me have faced such a situation at least once in their life. You have to be a MBA with an Engineering background.

There I was, sitting at a IFRS training session- bored out of mind trying to relate with the various differences between the Indian GAP and the IFRS- which version I couldn't decipher.  The lady trainer, who has an unmistakable air of a University Accounts teacher, and who, I daresay fancies herself as one, often throwing the corporate jargon with a healthy mixture of typical High School lecture habits, droning on and on about the Accounting Policies and Estimates.

I am a MBA Finance with a B. Tech in Information Technology- or in other words, one of the "Gadha"s as rightly labeled by Amir Khan in 3 Idiots. And sitting at such a training, I not only realize the extent of my folly, but also that one's true subject or the dominant attitude towards life is formed based totally on one's school education. If you were a science student in your +2 and you continued in that branch in your bachelor's degree, there is no way in hell you can change your attitude during masters. Being what my background is, I tell you- I still see the net A+B=C and don't understand why and how the hell should I Gross by A= 1/2C-D and B= 1/2C+D and then conclude A+B=C when its plain in front of my eyes!!

And then you sit at such a lecture, pretending your best to look interested at the journal entry displayed on screen and nodding your head as if you have correctly interpreted the law of universe, when all you want is the minute hand to strike 1:30 and its your lunch hour, which would give you a blissful one hour before the afternoon session of "Who can keep their eyes Open" contest. And then you realize that there is still 20 minutes to go before that golden moment and your whole being looks askew at you and purses her lips and says- "Girl! Whatever you are- an Engineer, or a MBA- you are doing neither."

There are so many cases like me. Very proudly displaying their qualifications for everyone to see, but still wonder why would the accrued revenue be different from your payment terms.

Gosh!! I miss my good old Engg. days. When, even if I didn't know the code, I would looking at a piece of it would find some logic. Not saying science subjects have it and not accounts- after all money is the ultimate thing that's running our world; but the logic sort of gets lost in the numerous books of accounts for a non-accountant like me.

Conference/ Training Session

I have always wondered what people feel when they are sitting at a conference or a training session. I don't think its just me, but there are quite a few others at the corners trying to hide their yawns, or speaking quietly on their phones or checking their mails and some sleeping quite openly (sometimes snoring loudly!!).

Well, can't say that this is true for every single conference or training- in most cases this is true. Unless there is a bunch of science geeks with their heads together pondering over some really complicated and illegible rocket design or some newly discovered micro organism, I have never seen these sessions holding people's attention for more than half an hour, especially if the communication is one sided. And, since my MBA days, it feels like I have entered a never ending session of PPTs. 

We spend so much time preparing presentations, many of our performances are judged on how well we can use the special features of Microsoft Power Point, but are equally uninterested in other people's presentations. Feels like you are sitting in a theater, forced to watch a Chinese movie without a subtitle. Actually, the subtitle is standing right in front trying his best to impart his knowledge, but after the introductions and the Agenda, your brain for some reason refuses to take it in. Its quite strange, that people who don't spend even 24 minutes in a day of 24 hours on thinking anything other than their immediate universe, become so imaginative that they can practically draw pink elephants with little straw hats coming out of their ears!!! Literally. If you don't believe me, take a peek at the last pages of the notebooks used in a any such sessions. Mine has creative vines and a beautiful scenery of a hut, mountains in the distance complete with a river. Oh, and not to forget the trees and the fence.

So, any such fellow attendees, who have to endure such phenomenons in the near future, stock up on your notebooks and pens and give full rein to your imagination. Who knows, we might get the next Harry Potter out of one such session?? After all, J K Rowling did get her block buster idea at work ;) Or you might get the idea of your next blog topic- just like I did...