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Penguin Books Ltd - Sidin Vadukut

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134 pages

English

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In April 2006 Robin Einstein Varghese, a stupendously na ve young man graduates from one of India s best business schools with a job at Dufresne Partners, a mediocre mid-market management consulting firm largely run by complete morons. Varghese finds that he fits into the culture remarkably well. Or does he? Through a stunning series of blunders, mishaps and inadvertent errors, Robin begins to make his superiors rue the day they were driven by desperation into hiring him. Dork is for all of those who ve ever sat depressed in cubicles and wanted to kill themselves with office stationery.

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Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	15 août 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184750164
Langue	English

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Sidin Vadukut

DORK
The Incredible Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese
Contents
About the Author
Also by the Same Author
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Acknowledgments
Follow Penguin
Copyright
PENGUIN BOOKS
DORK: THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN EINSTEIN VARGHESE
Sidin Vadukut was born in a small town near Irinjalakuda in Kerala, and spent most of his growing years in Abu Dhabi eating falafals. Once even with sambar. He is an engineer from NIT Trichy and an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. Over the last decade he has made auto parts, developed online trading platforms, worked as a consultant and once had a sizeable portion of a tree fall on him. Sidin is currently the managing editor of Livemint.com . He is also a cricket columnist for ESPNCricinfo and a full-time freelance Twitterer.
He lives in London with his remarkably patient wife, a plethora of Apple products and a growing collection of Buddha statues. He blogs at http://www.whatay.com and tweets with the handle @sidin .
Also by the Same Author
God Save the Dork Who Let the Dork Out?
This book is dedicated to the Vadukuts and the Kapoors. But most of all to K. God only knows how you cope.
1. DISCOVERY
Under the Sink
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Any resemblance between the characters in this book and people you, the reader, may know in real life are absolutely NOT purely coincidental. In fact such similarities are entirely plausible.
That is because somewhere out there is the real Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese. One day, perhaps soon perhaps later perhaps already, Varghese will pick up this book in a bookstore, or from a footpath vendor or will be gifted it by an adequately unclose friend from the office or housing complex. The room will immediately begin to spin around him. And then Varghese will wonder how in God’s name I got access to his diaries.
And my answer to him is this: Bloody fool!
Followed by: Never hide your uber-personal diaries, written in Microsoft Word and burnt on to compact discs, under the kitchen sink!
Now they are mine. My precious compact discs.
A few months ago, while I was still struggling to come up with an idea for a book to impress the people at Penguin India with, I moved into a new apartment in Delhi. While commencing on a thorough examination of the premises I found an old Domino’s Pizza box, quite beaten up, wedged under the kitchen sink inside the wooden cabinet. It had been tightly stuffed into the space behind the mouldy green drainpipe.
Common sense told me that the box was perhaps used to hold the pipe straight. But then a smaller voice in my head said there may be free pizza or some such involved. So I pulled it out and out fell seven compact discs (Moser Baer, non-rewritable). The discs were slightly scratched, but not unusable. There were no markings at all on any of the CDs to identify the data within.
My heart leapt for joy. Putting this discovery together with the fact that I knew some MBA type had lived in the flat before me, I instantly knew what was on those CDs.
Alas only three of the seven CDs had porn on them and all from the Numb Nuts Big Butts collection. (Which I already own on DVD, iPod Video and audio—only for flights.) This was a letdown. Then one CD had 300 MB worth of data on ball bearings, another had entire saved Wikipedia pages and the second last one had hundreds of pictures of dogs downloaded from the Internet.
And then I saw the last CD. Which helped me make sense of all the CDs before.
The last CD had three years of diary entries, typed in several MS Word documents. They were the funniest things I’d ever read in my life.
I immediately ran with the samples to the Penguin India office. They were apprehensive. My previous book proposals—a comedy novel, The Kungpao Tiger, which comprises letters and legal notices sent by the Chinese premier to a domestic help in India asking him to cease and desist from writing to him, and a horror thriller erotic novel set in a branch of Saravana Bhavan, Pongal ‘O’ Pon-Girl— had not gone down well. But they instantly knew we had a winner with the diaries on CD no. 7.
But while the feeling of becoming an author was awesome, I was also concerned for the privacy of the protagonist, not to mention potential legal hassles. Therefore at the advice of the wise people at Penguin, I have changed all the names of the characters in these diary entries. However most of the plot and biographical data has been left untouched. And none of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese’s unique approach to life has been tampered with at all.
Varghese, I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed cutting and pasting the text and changing the font to Georgia. (Comic Sans? Really?) Also Varghese, remember that a good book is seldom about the royalties or the rights to the story, but about the story itself. The joy of storytelling is what is paramount.
Still if you do have any issues at all, all legal proceedings will be subject to the jurisdiction of Delhi Courts.
I welcome all other readers to enjoy this book. While many people have helped to make this book a reality, remember that the responsibility for any error, oversight or omission anywhere is entirely Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese’s.
20 November 2009
Sidin Vadukut
2. DUFRESNE
Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese’s Diary
2 April 2006
4 p.m.
I HAVE DONE IT! I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD! THE UNIVERSE EVEN!
Bow to me, Diary! I am now officially a Business Process Analyst—Trainee.
Who knew, three months ago, when I got a C minus in advanced business strategy that I would join the elite international strategy consulting firm of Dufresne Partners one day? The world mocked me when I sent my résumés to consulting firms and investment banks. Rahul Gupta’s exact words were: ‘Einstein, you are a complete idiot!’
IN YOUR FACE, RAHUL GUPTA! PODA PATTI!
Bastard. Just because you topped the batch does NOT mean you can screw around with Einstein.
Phew. Wow. I need to hold my breath. This is a big moment—my first job. And that too a Day Zero job. Wow.
I called Dad on his cell three times but he cut the call each time. He’s started taking tantric yoga classes in the evenings. Perhaps I caught him during his ‘Sensory Deprivation Kriya’.
Okay, now let me describe everything that happened after I updated you last week and told you I’d been shortlisted for interviews by Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Co., JP Morgan and Dufresne Partners. I know I haven’t written entries since then, but you know how it is with placements and the pressure to get a job on Day Zero.
Oh! My fingertips tingle with earnestness.
At the time, I may have told everyone that I was all set to join Goldman Sachs, the greatest bank in the world. I may also have suggested that Dufresne Partners was my ‘safety application’ and I had no intention of joining a ‘second-grade consulting firm of questionable pedigree’.
Diary, I was deeply mistaken. Little did I know that Dufresne Partners, despite the lower revenues, lower profile, and near global bankruptcy in 2001, stood shoulders and head above the others when you considered the job in a holistic fashion. Especially with that exciting and sensible ‘performance and global marketplace dependent variable bonus payout scheme’ that was introduced earlier this year.
My impression of firms was corrupted by the likes of Rahul Gupta. By the way, that pig made it into Goldman Sachs. His work—life balance is so screwed. Does he even know how many more hours bankers have to put in compared to consultants? In a way I feel sorry for him, my arch-nemesis. I look forward to hearing from him soon with a request to refer him for a vacancy at Dufresne. I will first promise to help him. Assure him that I hold no grudge.
And then I will ignore him and dash his hopes. Awesome.
Now, onward I go with my tales of triumphant employment.
My first interview for the day was with JP Morgan.
I had sat up all night watching CNBC in the common room, trying to keep myself up to date with the bleeding edge of news and information from the global financial markets. Unfortunately I fell asleep on the wooden bench in front of the TV and woke up only at nine after Shashank from the placement office rolled me off the bench on to the floor and kicked me in the underbelly.
Apparently JPM had started interviews at 8 a.m. as scheduled and if I didn’t get my first interview started in ten minutes they would skip me entirely for the second round. I tried to calm Shashank down by telling him that this was part of my optimal interview preparation programme whereby I reduce my metabolism to impossible lows just before peak performance. He walked away shaking his head in disbelief at my nerves of solid steel.
I had approximately eight minutes to be interview ready. Which meant I had to prioritize: Brush teeth? bathe? shave? loo?
I decided to go to the loo, brush and change into my suit. My hair had been crushed into the armrests of the stupid bench and pressed into a reverse Mohawk: nothing in the middle, nice stiff peaks on both sides. It was embarrassing.
BUT I HAD NO TIME FOR A BLOW DRY!
With one minute left in my deadline I ran to the classroom block with my tie flapping around my neck and the twin peaks of my hair rock-solid.
I was gasping for breath when I reached the student pool, but once I entered the room I acted nonchalant and relaxed. This was a little psychological warfare to weaken the morale of the competition. Most guys get nervous when they see people like me take it so cool.
The atmosphere in the pool was sombre. People were beginning to get eliminated. A cold shiver passed down my spine. Shashank stood in the centre of the pool screaming out instructions. And then he saw me, looked at my head and went completely silent.
He came up to me and said I had ten minutes to get my hair straightened out. Or they would debar me from campus placements under the ‘Potential cause of institutional ill-repute’ clause.
I ran