So much for summers

I d like to believe that ‘life is a box of chocolates’. It is very hard to tell exactly what you are going to get without first opening the box and trying few flavors. Going into the summer, most interns’ worst fear is to return to school with nothing more to add to one’s résumé than a couple lines about PowerPoint-building, coffee-fetching, and note-taking efficiency. Well, fortunately that was not how it was for us at IIT Kanpur with all being placed in companies of their choice and with desired profiles. A hot debate in management student circles is: how much a short internship of two months can actually teach you? I believe it’s all about perception. If one believes in learning, it can happen in a day, in a week, in a month or year and if it is not to, then it might not happen in a life-time.

Working for developmental organisations bears lots of points of parity and differentiation with working in corporate houses. One can’t say that they are as different as chalk and cheese but yes they do have a distinction which essentially is a reflection of the nature of work that is executed in these organisations. Three of us were placed with United Nations Development Organisation (UNIDO) for its cluster development programme. It’s intimidating to be associated with a UN allied organisation as it brings huge responsibility in terms of sincerity towards work, immense significance attached to knowledge and a high emotional quotient to be able to understand the problems afflicting a small scale industry. With this onerous task on our shoulders we set out to explore the lush terrains of Punjab in the scorching but welcoming (antithesis to its limit) heat of Jalandhar, Punjab. It felt nice to be in the midst of people from the Jalandhar Sports Goods Industry. These were stalwarts who braved the turbulence of partition to establish one of world’s most respected Sporting goods manufacturer’s agglomerate. Jalandhar is synonymous with quality sports goods and the very reason behind that is the courage, endearing spirit and unending zeal in these men many of who are septuagenarian now. The next generation of entrepreneurs has done wonders in bringing glory to the businesses established by their predecessors but they struggle with many more issues like Government apathy and flawed policies. In spite of all these limitations we witnessed the generous and warm spirit of people of Punjab who leave no stones unturned to treat guests royally, even if they are interns.

Interns by day became geeks by night when long hours were spent in discussing methodologies (a favourite word in the UNIDO circles) and intervention plans (another favourite). Plans made by night were altered to extents that the original idea was not even close to documentation. But that is the fun of working in developmental organisations where everything is so fluid that you are bound to say ‘Change is the only constant’. And as we may have it ‘Change increases the Range of success’, most ideas, which otherwise would have gathered dust in elaborate reports, were implemented. Sadly, we were not around to see the results but the feeling that we innovated something brought the much needed satisfaction.

So, what did we get from this intern experience? We learnt the responsibility of engineers and their tremendous value. We learnt the greater responsibility of managers and how they also bear responsibility to the people they work with and the client. Ultimately, whatever managers work on, their product is providing a needed service to a portion of humanity.