Coming back to life

Disclaimer: The writer of this piece is, famously or rather infamously, titled as Jon Snow in his circle, for uh… knowing nothing. He has been told times and again, against his habit of deeply indulging in philosophical aspect of everything in life, much to functional futility. This slice of his life is about how things went upside down and back to normal in his career and how he got to join Appointy- straight outta college.

A day in early May: 

When young, all of us make life-changing decisions at a point of life when we don’t have enough knowledge to make those decisions.

Nope, it wasn’t a wise old monk who was offering me solace against the confusions of life passing down the rite of ancient knowledge. It was an IIM-A grad with 9 years of experience in investment banking. Sarang, COO, Appointy.



(It’s time for the backstory)

Vibhor, based out of Bhopal, pursuing college education from MANIT Bhopal, joined as summer intern at Appointy. (Yup, that’s me)
Fast forward ⏭ (2 months and lot of intern outings later). Internship offer extended, continued the internship as the 7th semester of college begun, continued working hard, partying harder.
Fast forward ⏭ (4 months and interalia a lot of landing pages later). Got a PPO offer from Appointy, while the internship continued at regular pace.

One month later, I decided to quit on the internship.
(Whoops! You didn’t see that coming, did you?)

Meanwhile everything was good at one end, on the other end in college, extremely high pressures started building up, major project thesis, co-curricular responsibilities, daily ordeals, and career confusions. I felt buckling under the immense pressure, and I decided I need some room to breathe.

Last conversation with Sarang:
Take care brother. Chill and enjoy. We support your decision in pursuing whatever it is that you feel is right, but if you ever decide to join back Appointy, and if at that point of time we have the resources to absorb you, you can surely have that as a possibility in your mind.

(Backstory end)



Fast forward ⏭ (Snap back to present: A day in early May)

I decide to join back Appointy, hopeful and motivated. Possibly, a life-changing decision but surely not a leap of faith. Sarang evaluated me, as I evaluated this life decision on my own metrics. (Non-punkster equivalent of saying Mah lyf, Mah rulez).
Here, a gist of my reasons:

Why Appointy is a great workplace to join as a fresher?

Knowledge


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Lord Petyr Baelish being educated on the importance of application of knowledge.

So, coming back to my life, I had diverse but not deep knowledge. I felt that I needed to make the most from the knowledge by applying it, and gaining more in a sustainable manner. I wanted make sure that I come to know the action and consequential part of knowledge i.e. if I do this, then that will happen.  From my time as an intern at Appointy, I was clear that everything that the we learnt was directly contributing to business, reaching out, converting customers, and generating revenue. The thought, and the responsibility was empowering on its own. And else, there was nowhere in the world that I could join as a fresher, and actively contribute to a business deal worth 100,000 $.

Experience

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Niki Lauda to James Hunt
Merciless rivals: F1 champions in the 1970s

Each coin has two faces. The popular, sugar-coated, and highly marketed narrative which tells millennials: follow your dream, and love what you do and do what you love, has a not-so-cheerful but more real side to it. So, irrespective of everything that I don’t know about success, all I know is this: I will have to put myself under a certain process and replace the arbitrary assertions about career by more well-informed experiences, to get an understanding of myself, to better form and pursue a single goal in life. Appointy re-aligned itself as an apt opportunity- with the means, methods and mindset to work under a process, to gain experience, and to help me know my own mettle and its nature in the process.

Growth Mindset


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Quote: Reid Hoffman, Founder- Chairman, LinkedIn

There is only one conclusion that I have been able to draw from the “you are the average of the five people you spend time with” theory: one needs multiple, multi-faceted, and differently opinionated individuals around to make sure of a holistic self-growth. On the top of that, the one thing that is most important in career, also the most contagious and permeating in workplace is the mindset. Appointy has always stood apart due to its founders and leaders, working together with every member of the team, equally, on the front lines, preparing them for the opportunities in future. The growth mindset that prevailed in the team, had one simple message: You don’t have to be know-it-all, you have to learn-it-all, and everything else will find its place.

All in all, we were all just bricks that made up the wall.

No lies, I still have no idea about what I want to 10 years from now, but I’m pretty sure about how I am going to go about knowing the what(s) and how(s). Appointy, as I can see, is like a launchpad, a wing man, or an incubator, rather all of them put together; helping me establish the ‘start-up of me’.

So here I am, you can send me an angel (oops I mean email! *wink*) in case you want to talk about career, life, Appointy, or just have an informal chat about random things like how star-gazing is the most redeeming and liberating activity.

(Door knocks) Time to go, o…

Final Year Student at MANIT Bhopal. Management intern at Appointy. Not really interested in the millennial pop culture. Otherwise, Interested in old books and dead poets

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