Moving on the streets....looking for a days job

If you want to achieve something which you haven’t achieved till now then you must do something which you haven’t done till now....
We Indians are famous for cribbing...yeh theek nahi... log kharab hai... no respect... cheaters all around... not safe... and the list goes on and on...But after reading my blog today, i am sure you would at least think once before saying all this..

Well on a Sunday morning my day started at 7am in the hostel room of my MBA College in Pune. Get ready fast we have a class at 8.15 and Kamath sir hate late comers, people shouting around me.Phew.. Just managed to reach on time and sir seemed to be happy with everyone coming on time. As along the session we were given a task to go out on streets of pune to a place called Kalyani Nagar and search for a job without spending a penny in the whole day and earn Rs 300 in a group of 2. A job only for 1 day, that too without any money and without disclosing the identity (you see my college has a brand that speaks) …How will we reach there? Who will pay us without knowing our identity? Who could be that liberal and open minded and most importantly desperate for hiring people on a Sunday afternoon?
Well as they say take a step and the path to your destination will follow…

At 9 we started on roads of pune in a group of 2 (CEOz for 1 day) looking for some decent people who could give us lifts. After a walk of 10 min on a sunny soon-to-be-afternoon one Innova shows pity on us and drops us after 5km near the Mumbai – pune highway. Then another lift from there with industrialists dropping us to our destination on his way to the site.The real work starts now… All those who have been to pune could surely know where Kalyani nagar is. And if you are a foody you would love this place. It’s got restaurants serving sizzlers to kebabs to chicken to idle dosaz and not to forget the famous lounge bar SOHO.

So the obvious way was to work as a waiter in any of these places.. Now who wants to spoil their Sunday morning by coming to the restaurants they own.We moved from 1 restaurant to another and landed up to this place called Bounty Sizzlers. The place had not even open by now. Tables were yet to be made, floor was dirty from the long Saturday night and the cooks were moving around in chaddis. At 10.45am me and my CEO buddy (as we were tagged) asked for our 1st job. We explained them we are smart and have good experience in industry and can work for them for today.The head there was some probably was just a head waiter and said he can’t do anything, but we can wait for their managers coming at 12. Now we just had time till 4pm, couldn’t afford to sit and wait. So we discussed with them how this restaurant works and how much profits they make, from their staff to their menu, to their competitors to a lot more and then after making a good rapport we moved on and told them would get back to them later once their manger is back.
Now we moved to this Salon called Meggs… we started here by saying that we can do a research for you. We tried to convince that we can do market survey and can tell what people like in your salon, what customer expects from any salon and about pricing, competitors and the trends the age group and what not… the owner was nice lady and had let us speak for 20 min. Our MBA in its first 5 days had taught us how to mesmerize clients…but probably the whole course was still required..hehe

As we couldn’t convince her completely.. Though she liked our idea and said that they are a small salon and can’t pay us for our services. She then directed us to this big salon 1km away. Now in a sari (yes that’s our uniform) and a sunny afternoon I didn’t wanted to walk that much and planned to search for some other restaurants.
Our next destination was a near by bakery shop called Krems & Krusts. After a 10 min dispute with my buddy (this place is too small… can’t pay usno point wasting time… no sitting too… Blah blah) we finally moved in. Mr Aditya meets us here. We started with our small introduction and then asked for any kind of job which could pay us. Till the time of introduction things were fine but with the pay thing he says he needs to talk to the owner. In the meanwhile we asked him about his bakery.. egg without egg business… cakes and pastries and his cliental, profit and other things..

After calling twice, a lady as Mrs Priyanka Shinde picks up the call confirming the ownership of this chain of bakerys (to be precise 4) in pune. Now this lady was very skeptical about our identity whether we are from any media group or some competitor’s agent and what not… it was hard to convince her that information about her business will remain a secret and we are just students.

We decided then to go to the best eating joint in the place.. this was called SOHO. Really big place to eat… huge sitting area.. we tried our luck here too but got a NO from them even when the place was enormous and would be making thousands just in a day. Then again here too we started interacting in the hope of any work they could give but just ended by collecting information about them and left with a good rapport.

Then we moved to some more similar restaurant and had got NO from all..
Finally at 1.30pm we realized we are running short of time and can’t afford to miss anything now. We were exhausted, disheartened and had lost all hopes. There was no more energy left too.. Hungry and with just 1lt water we some how survived a sunny afternoon.

Suddenly then we got this idea of consulting. We had collected lots of information about these restaurants and there eating trends and had all sorts of data. Then we thought of analyzing this data and going back to these restaurants with our ideas, how can they improve their sales or some tips or any analysis we can give them. As a tis we had lost hopes of earning.. So we thought we would do this for free and ask them if they think it’s of any worth to them.

After 1 hr of our analysis we started going back to these restaurants. Out of all the restaurants we were obliged with 3.

We first went to Bounty Sizzlers… we told them how they can increase their sales by collaborating with near by bakery shops and having some more chains and where they are lacking as compared to their competitors. The discussion went on for 30 min and we could convince them with our ideas. Finally we told them if they think our information is worthy enough so they can pay us any amount. And we received our 1st Rs 100. It was Rs 50 for each. Wow that was amazing… we were worth something atleast. I don’t know whether he paid coz he thought we are talking so much or he thought we knew something or probably thinking just to let them go…. But I got some money… we were excited now, wanted to do this with few more and thought we are doing good…

With are recently build confidence we moved to the bakery shop and delivered some similar analysis (except few dedicated point for them). The bakery guy was very happy… with all smiles and paid us some more..
So we were doing well for ourselves.

Then here came the surprise package…… suddenly his boss the lady we spoke to before called up on my cell (imagine the owner of 4 up market bakeries calling you on your cell).. she seemed to be very impressed and asked us from where we were.. nw that we had got our money we told tell her that we are MBA students. To our surprise she then said she is planning to widen her business and could take both of us for a sponsored market research kinda project for summers. Probably it wasn’t that BIG a thing but I took it as a summer job option. Hehe

By now we were completely confident that we were good with our market research and could give good consultancy….
So now we moved to the famous SOHO…
Here we taught them how to market their brand, how to publicize and spread the word around. The manager was delighted to hear such ideas and graced us with our worth…

We then finally were able to make our minimum wage for the day….. I was happy, delighted, shocked and excited to tell all this to our professor.

Now the second part of this exercise was to contact sir and meet at a common location which was till now kept secret. So we reached this another restaurant where we saw our other batch mates and sir sitting, enjoying, talking and having a tea. The place was specially booked for us to have a meeting point. We all were very excited to share our experiences and couldn’t resist talking…
But in the process it got difficult to catch sir and tell him our whole story. Just then he assigns another task… blog down all your experiences and submit them.
Yes now you guessed it write, this blog is a part of this life teaching assignment.

Sir, just wanted to thank you for giving me an opportunity to see the world from a different angle and helping us to come out of our comfort zone…

WE CAME.. WE DID AND WE LEARNED… love, respect and faith on our surroundings..
Life isn’t that difficult… just stop giving excuses to yourself…

With that note I end…… oh before I end I want to request Kamath Sir that from next time please allow us to return back to colleges in autos, as nobody was giving us lifts and we had to walk for 5km… hehe….. fun

A dayz CEO sleep now…

DISCLAIMER:-
The names of the people have been changed to keep their identity confidential and have no similarities with the original person. Though the names of the restaurants are correct and a must try for all.