I am doing an internship in an e-commerce startup here in Gurgaon. It was mainly the three months of boredom at home and a desire to do some non-technical, business related work that brought me here (I would have preferred working in Bombay, but didn't get a similar opportunity there).
On the work side, I worked in the company's warehouse for first 10 days - trying to structure the quality control part of supply chain. I am currently working on customer order cancellations and customer feedback in collaboration with call center executives and mainly doing some data analysis, trying to find actionable business points. I also worked on finding the efficiency of the supply chain (obtaining cycle time, bottlenecks etc.) In the beginning, the work didn't seem interesting at all. But as time passed and more responsibility was given to me, it turned out to be a pretty good experience. The best part about it is I am given small and diverse projects in different departments to give me a good overall picture of the startup.
On the fun side, it has been great! Visited delhi twice; delhi food is awesome (paranthe wali gali in Chandi Chowk, ice pan in CP particularly), went to IIT Kanpur once to meet my brother. There are many people from IITB here in Gurgaon. I am staying with my crazy school friend here. My flatmates are very cool - there is one who is a travel addict and has been taking me around, one who has switched 7 jobs in 3 years and one with a very cute dog. I also once lost my wallet and finally caught the thief by tracing through the CCTV camera footage (details below).
So, in all it has been a mixed experience. I would have preferred better working hours, better work culture and a non-sexist city! But sitting in my office and pondering about the past month, I have realized that there were quite many good things that I got to experience - thorough knowledge about a company's operations, living in apartments with strangers-at-first-friends-to-be, my first house party (dancing and drinking; well coke for me), pub culture and living with a pet dog! After having lived in a city as dangerous as Gurgaon, I suppose this gives one some confidence of come-what-may-we'll-survive.
Wallet Incident: One evening in food court, I suddenly realized that my wallet was not with me. I remembered taking cash out from it an hour back. I searched all places where we went in last hour, thoroughly, taking help of security personnel there. After searching for half an hour, I had given up hope on finding it back. Then my friend suggested to go to the control room in the basement of the building and see the CCTV recordings.
The person incharge (let's call him RH) was very cooperative. He let us enter the control room. It resembled those shown in movies - multiple screens showing different parts of the buildings and many control buttons. We scanned through the past hour's recordings. We traced our movements, focusing on who were in close proximity to us to steal, at which points I had my wallet and where I was seen without it etc. Finally, RH spotted a guy hovering around us and finally picking up the wallet I had forgotten while sitting on the stairs. But the recording didn't show the guy's face properly to identify. Again, we traced his movements through various cameras to get a better look. RH identified him as working in a nearby place. Then, we went and caught the guy and I got back my wallet. We left then, didn't wait to find out what they did with him (after all it was Gurgaon and best to avoid trouble)
On the work side, I worked in the company's warehouse for first 10 days - trying to structure the quality control part of supply chain. I am currently working on customer order cancellations and customer feedback in collaboration with call center executives and mainly doing some data analysis, trying to find actionable business points. I also worked on finding the efficiency of the supply chain (obtaining cycle time, bottlenecks etc.) In the beginning, the work didn't seem interesting at all. But as time passed and more responsibility was given to me, it turned out to be a pretty good experience. The best part about it is I am given small and diverse projects in different departments to give me a good overall picture of the startup.
On the fun side, it has been great! Visited delhi twice; delhi food is awesome (paranthe wali gali in Chandi Chowk, ice pan in CP particularly), went to IIT Kanpur once to meet my brother. There are many people from IITB here in Gurgaon. I am staying with my crazy school friend here. My flatmates are very cool - there is one who is a travel addict and has been taking me around, one who has switched 7 jobs in 3 years and one with a very cute dog. I also once lost my wallet and finally caught the thief by tracing through the CCTV camera footage (details below).
So, in all it has been a mixed experience. I would have preferred better working hours, better work culture and a non-sexist city! But sitting in my office and pondering about the past month, I have realized that there were quite many good things that I got to experience - thorough knowledge about a company's operations, living in apartments with strangers-at-first-friends-to-be, my first house party (dancing and drinking; well coke for me), pub culture and living with a pet dog! After having lived in a city as dangerous as Gurgaon, I suppose this gives one some confidence of come-what-may-we'll-survive.
Wallet Incident: One evening in food court, I suddenly realized that my wallet was not with me. I remembered taking cash out from it an hour back. I searched all places where we went in last hour, thoroughly, taking help of security personnel there. After searching for half an hour, I had given up hope on finding it back. Then my friend suggested to go to the control room in the basement of the building and see the CCTV recordings.
The person incharge (let's call him RH) was very cooperative. He let us enter the control room. It resembled those shown in movies - multiple screens showing different parts of the buildings and many control buttons. We scanned through the past hour's recordings. We traced our movements, focusing on who were in close proximity to us to steal, at which points I had my wallet and where I was seen without it etc. Finally, RH spotted a guy hovering around us and finally picking up the wallet I had forgotten while sitting on the stairs. But the recording didn't show the guy's face properly to identify. Again, we traced his movements through various cameras to get a better look. RH identified him as working in a nearby place. Then, we went and caught the guy and I got back my wallet. We left then, didn't wait to find out what they did with him (after all it was Gurgaon and best to avoid trouble)
