Schmoozing Secundrabad...

Just got back from Secundrabad, AP; had a good 4 days of loads of activity and fun. The Satyam office called and invited me over for a 4-day conference on HR to Secundrabad, all expenses paid – but of course!

Imagining it to be another one of those corporate gyan sessions, I set out for Secundrabad expecting no more than 4 days of relentless Corporate gupshup. Boy, was I wrong or was I wrrronggg!

Man, going by the way my non-descript vacation has been shaping up, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to state that those four days have, by far, been the best part of my vacation. I met and interacted with a congregation of around 250 odd HR people from across the ranks at Satyam.

We were put at the Le Meredian resorts, by the poolside in rooms that came fitted with their own steam showers and musical bath tubs! As for food, OHH MY GOD, there was the choicest of it to suite your taste and your palette - Chinese, Continental, Thai, Mexican, South Indian and Moughlai. Food, food everywhere and only one tummy to stomach it all :-( Some food riot that was!

On a more serious note, we were also put through mammoth sessions of corporate confabulations on understanding the business model, sources of revenue streams, profit models, strategy, growth and competition etc. All this, through the morning interspersed with a more than generous two hour break for lunch that befitted a King, around noon.

Post-lunch, the focus of the sessions would revolve around understanding the ever-changing role of HR as the aligning force with each of the above mentioned spheres. Amidst failed efforts at keeping my eyes open, and a zillion regrets for having gorged myself with food to face, I realised one thing loud and clear: it’s heartening to learn that there is more to HR than just Recruiting and RAPM! Sitting through all those sessions - and it does'nt require rocket science logic to fathom this one - I now know how much I don’t know about the subject that is HR, passionate and reasonably well-read as I am on it.


Meanwhile, evenings in Secundrabad were lovely! The weather'd be simply delightful as it settled down cool after the arid heat of the morning sun; the plains for you. After the regimented rigours of some amazing out-bound training programs and telly games that were more a test of mental grit than physical effort, it was time to party.

We kicked-up our heels, swerving our hips as we loosened our bodies, to the grind of sensuous Salsa, guided as we were by supple and limbered dancers who went great lengths to defy all elastic limits in the course of their dance workshop held amidst the lusciously landscaped gardens of Hi-Tech city against the backdrop of a moonlit stage.

Indeed, the whole experience was cloaked by a halo of phantasmagoric aura as rhythm flirtatiously courted rhyme in the throes of it passionate serenades!


Cocktail sessions would begin at 9:00 pm with drinks flowing down parched throats like water, with (well-deserved; I'm always hungry, can't help it) dinner finally being served around 11:30-12:00 at mid-nite. Dinner, everyday, was accompanied by a dress code – ethnic, bohemian, mask and formal for the final day.

My stay also presented me with the opportunity to meet and interact with the other HR-management trainees (MT’s) who'd come there as well. And I dare say, we pretty much got along like a house on fire - all of us!

And now…for the climax of it all!. At the end of my paid holiday (what else could I call it, but that!) all of us MT’s were allocated our respective profiles at designated locations. And I've been posted in Chennai now, as Mgmt Trainee, HR-SAP, at the Chamiers Rd office, Teynampet. Competency-fit is the reason they attributed for the sudden shift. Guess 2 years spent in Chennai have taken their toll on not just my genetic DNA, but on my competencies and skill-sets as well!!! :-)

However I'll be training in Hyderabad for the entire month of June before I move to Chennai later.

That's that then, at least for now. So long...