Going through old visiting cards is as nostalgic as going through old photo graphs. Yesterday as Jasmine was cleaning the cards file she came across quite a few of my really really old cards. I don’t think I would be able to talk about all of them today but let’s take the oldest of the lot.
My first job. This was a summer job that I did while in college. V-inu asked me if I wanted to join and I was all game. The company was called Lawandes Direct Marketing. Run by an enterprising guy named Bhusan Lawande (I hope I get the name right). 7 o clock had launched the disposable razor called Presto and were trying to market the same. We were called in for that. Later on we realized that our job was actually to sell 7 o’ clock PII blades at the defense canteen at Navy Nagar. V-inu got one canteen at the start, I got the big ‘gol’ canteen and one other guy got the officers canteen. The idea was to give out a santoor soap free with two packets of P II blades. Pretty straight forward. There used to be a line at the counters with the navy guys getting lists and awaiting their turn. I just sat at the counter just before and spoke to everyone. I remember selling around 30-40 twin packs. That was better than expected. And I could only manage one counter well, the other two I had to leave. But I still sold enough. In the next round I got the officers canteen, which was a super market style one with air conditioners newly installed at the billing counters and not at the shopping level. It was best to stand at the billing counters and catch people. Those buying blades were easy to convert. Either ask them to buy two or flip the brand. One customer I wont forget is one lady that I approached. I gave the entire spiel to have her laugh like crazy. I was like, “what happened”. She was trying to hold her laughter and she said she was buying the blades for her son while I gave her the spiel about her husband appreciating the blades. Her husband has a Beard. Navy man you see. No what’s so funny about that? But it was sweet. Another thing I wont forget is – I used to wear a tie and short sleeves. The good part fo eth short sleeves is that I used to put my hand overt the Ac vents (window A/c’s) and let the cool breeze run into my chest through my arm pits. That used to help me cool off as the AC was quite inadequate.
A fallout of this job was that I got a few santoor soaps at home. Unethically of course. Fibbing a few sales figures as no one was really tracking. I felt guilty but I flicked around a dozen in the days I was there. It was pretty silly but we at the time saw it as a perk. But at least I was on time and did my job without shirking and goofing off. Hence the high sales numbers. The other kids were just relaxing and roaming around instead of doing their job. That was bad. But I guess my ethics evolved over a period of time. Enough to resist pocketing Oakley’s glares while I could have easily done whatever I wanted to them. It’s been a long journey. Coming back to the soap, I then got tired of the sandalwood smell of the soap and horribly bored of it. Instead of bathing with it I decided to use to create soap sculptures. A ganesha was one of them.
Briefly I worked for the Presto blades which was a flop show as the outlet at lokhandwala at Andheri hardly had footfalls. This was around ’93 and the suburb was yet to take off.
Lawande, seeing my work (I assume) put me on Glucovita project. A glucose product that needed to be doctor sampled. Basically I led a team of kids trying to go from doctor to doctor sampling the product and talking about the benefits. Simple one but my first taste of leadership. It didn’t taste like anything. Simple water I guess.
What I get from all this? Well those days we were paid 180 bucks a day plus 20 bucks for traveling. So you have 200 bucks a day. Not bad. You got around 15 days of employment. We saved a lot of that money. I used to take the bus from kings circle to navy nagar for four rupees and twenty five paise as it was cheaper than the train to VT and a bus thereon, by around one buck. That’s it, one measly buck. V-inu used to go by train as his dad was in the railways and hence a free pass.
We sweet talked the navy canteen guys to let us shop there as you got stuff cheaper there thanks to the tax cuts. We even managed to get some booze for friends, and some champagne for cheap. I never did drink it yet I got great kicks from doing it for friends. The few things I remember buying for my self was a swimming trunk, the real sexy cut ones… hehhehe. And one pair of lotto shoes for 400 bucks. That was half the price. And that too LOTTO. That was amongst the early foreign brands available in India. I felt good. I also had some money to spend with Jasmine. Finally! She had financed a lot of our courtship. But it still was much less than what she had. She was always loaded.
But the most important thing the work did for me was during my MBA, I was amongst the few to have some work experience written on my CV. I could speak about it as opposed to others who had nothing to write and nothing to talk about. That helped my CV stand out and help me get short listed. That was the coolest thing for me.
I sure wish Jispa does some summer jobs, works a bit while in college and learns a lot. I had some low days, some high days ad lot of them were pretty flat. But I loved them. I never complained, I had no reason to. Wearing my Lottos to the pool and changing into my costume with some cash in my piggy was an awesome feeling. I wanted to do a napoleon and crown myself. but, here's thank you Bhusan, thank you V-inu, than you to a guy I think named satish. he was the team leader types guy. He was a bit political but I was ok with him.
My first job. This was a summer job that I did while in college. V-inu asked me if I wanted to join and I was all game. The company was called Lawandes Direct Marketing. Run by an enterprising guy named Bhusan Lawande (I hope I get the name right). 7 o clock had launched the disposable razor called Presto and were trying to market the same. We were called in for that. Later on we realized that our job was actually to sell 7 o’ clock PII blades at the defense canteen at Navy Nagar. V-inu got one canteen at the start, I got the big ‘gol’ canteen and one other guy got the officers canteen. The idea was to give out a santoor soap free with two packets of P II blades. Pretty straight forward. There used to be a line at the counters with the navy guys getting lists and awaiting their turn. I just sat at the counter just before and spoke to everyone. I remember selling around 30-40 twin packs. That was better than expected. And I could only manage one counter well, the other two I had to leave. But I still sold enough. In the next round I got the officers canteen, which was a super market style one with air conditioners newly installed at the billing counters and not at the shopping level. It was best to stand at the billing counters and catch people. Those buying blades were easy to convert. Either ask them to buy two or flip the brand. One customer I wont forget is one lady that I approached. I gave the entire spiel to have her laugh like crazy. I was like, “what happened”. She was trying to hold her laughter and she said she was buying the blades for her son while I gave her the spiel about her husband appreciating the blades. Her husband has a Beard. Navy man you see. No what’s so funny about that? But it was sweet. Another thing I wont forget is – I used to wear a tie and short sleeves. The good part fo eth short sleeves is that I used to put my hand overt the Ac vents (window A/c’s) and let the cool breeze run into my chest through my arm pits. That used to help me cool off as the AC was quite inadequate.
A fallout of this job was that I got a few santoor soaps at home. Unethically of course. Fibbing a few sales figures as no one was really tracking. I felt guilty but I flicked around a dozen in the days I was there. It was pretty silly but we at the time saw it as a perk. But at least I was on time and did my job without shirking and goofing off. Hence the high sales numbers. The other kids were just relaxing and roaming around instead of doing their job. That was bad. But I guess my ethics evolved over a period of time. Enough to resist pocketing Oakley’s glares while I could have easily done whatever I wanted to them. It’s been a long journey. Coming back to the soap, I then got tired of the sandalwood smell of the soap and horribly bored of it. Instead of bathing with it I decided to use to create soap sculptures. A ganesha was one of them.
Briefly I worked for the Presto blades which was a flop show as the outlet at lokhandwala at Andheri hardly had footfalls. This was around ’93 and the suburb was yet to take off.
Lawande, seeing my work (I assume) put me on Glucovita project. A glucose product that needed to be doctor sampled. Basically I led a team of kids trying to go from doctor to doctor sampling the product and talking about the benefits. Simple one but my first taste of leadership. It didn’t taste like anything. Simple water I guess.
What I get from all this? Well those days we were paid 180 bucks a day plus 20 bucks for traveling. So you have 200 bucks a day. Not bad. You got around 15 days of employment. We saved a lot of that money. I used to take the bus from kings circle to navy nagar for four rupees and twenty five paise as it was cheaper than the train to VT and a bus thereon, by around one buck. That’s it, one measly buck. V-inu used to go by train as his dad was in the railways and hence a free pass.
We sweet talked the navy canteen guys to let us shop there as you got stuff cheaper there thanks to the tax cuts. We even managed to get some booze for friends, and some champagne for cheap. I never did drink it yet I got great kicks from doing it for friends. The few things I remember buying for my self was a swimming trunk, the real sexy cut ones… hehhehe. And one pair of lotto shoes for 400 bucks. That was half the price. And that too LOTTO. That was amongst the early foreign brands available in India. I felt good. I also had some money to spend with Jasmine. Finally! She had financed a lot of our courtship. But it still was much less than what she had. She was always loaded.
But the most important thing the work did for me was during my MBA, I was amongst the few to have some work experience written on my CV. I could speak about it as opposed to others who had nothing to write and nothing to talk about. That helped my CV stand out and help me get short listed. That was the coolest thing for me.
I sure wish Jispa does some summer jobs, works a bit while in college and learns a lot. I had some low days, some high days ad lot of them were pretty flat. But I loved them. I never complained, I had no reason to. Wearing my Lottos to the pool and changing into my costume with some cash in my piggy was an awesome feeling. I wanted to do a napoleon and crown myself. but, here's thank you Bhusan, thank you V-inu, than you to a guy I think named satish. he was the team leader types guy. He was a bit political but I was ok with him.
An odd ball - some one later told me that there was a chick who tried hitting on me in the Glucovita project. I honestly never noticed and never cared. I was too busy 'leading' I guess. I remember her being very irritating instead. i cont remember her name or face, but can vaguely place her. forget it!
Here is the lawandes visiting card.
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