SiddharthGollapudi's Blog

I still remember the day 20^th September 2007, arguably the happiest day of my life, when Satyam visited our college (IBS, Chennai) to hire. Scores of anxious batch mates awaited the interview panel to arrive and give us a pre placement talk. The team from Satyam arrived a good 45 mins later. They breezed us through a very brief presentation about the company and job profile on offer for us.

 A few disappointed souls (intelligent ones) opted out of the process.

 The process began with a round of group discussions, fortunately for me the topic asked to discuss was the one I had come well prepared for. Close to 50 students cleared the group discussions. Personal interviews followed the group discussions.

First to go was my close friend and then room mate Arindam. Time was passing at snail’s pace that day. Arindam came out after 55 mins and said in his characteristic style “pura puri stress interview”.

He looked completely a$@ f***ed !!!

This sent a shiver down my spine…..After another couple of guys, it was my turn!

I took the name of Lord Sai and walked in with a big smile on my face. 45 minutes later I came out with an even bigger smile, quietly confident that I will be through.

It was close to 7.30 pm when the panel was done with the interviews. We all were eagerly waiting for the results.

The panel then started announcing the names of candidates who made it.

After the announcement of a few names, the announcer found some difficulty in pronouncing a name; I knew it had to be my name, after all pronouncing “Gollapudi” for a North Indian at the first go, isn’t that easy.

The announcement of my name was followed by me yelling “yes”. I stood up, looked upwards and thanked the almighty.

Arindam’s name was also announced but, sadly then and fortunately now, my other room mate Sayan missed out. Both I and Arindam were on cloud 9; we hugged and congratulated each other.

I still remember me saying to Abhinav (one of my friends) “yaar meri life bana di bhagwaan ne”

Joining Satyam

6^th May 2008, was the day when I joined Satyam as a management trainee in Hyderabad. All of us assembled at SSL (Satyam School of Learning). I must admit that it was quite an impressive building. We all completed the joining formalities and finally received the coveted Satyam Identity card. I felt a sense of achievement, when I wore the card for the first time.

We all were supposed to attend a 15 day induction cum training cum “whatever” program at Satyam Techology Centre (STC) from the 8^th of May.

We needed to board a STC bound Satyam bus from Anand theatre. An hour after boarding the bus we reached STC, the green sprawling Satyam International headquarters campus.

I don’t think anything in Satyam can get better than STC.

It boasts of a tennis court, swimming pool, gym, synthetic basket ball court, snooker tables and a small zoo. I fell in love with STC because of the tennis court and swimming pool.    

The training program commenced and after a few hours all of us lost interest in it.

With every passing day the program became a pain in the ass for every one. The post lunch session usually witnessed a meager turnout with people bunking sessions to leave home early. I and Arindam couldn’t muster courage to bunk the classes so, we started enjoying cat naps in the training hall itself.

A few days later all of us were allotted to different departments. Arindam was allotted a different unit and subsequently transferred to Chennai. 

I wanted to my office to be in STC, so that I could stay at the dorms and enjoy the club facilities but as it turned out; my place of work was in the other corner of the city. I was grossly disappointed….

22^nd May was the day when I began my working relationship with Satyam.

I was part of a newly formed team and was very happy with the kind of work I was assigned. Ramesh, my first boss was a gem of a person, very friendly and protective. Ours was a great team; all of the teammates gelled very well with each other and soon became good friends. Office seemed to me like an extension to college.  

Weekends @ STC

I don’t know why, but I was very fascinated with tennis, as a child I used to dream of playing tennis and STC was the place where I could realize my dream.

I just could not wait to lay my hands on the Wilson tennis racquets and play on the clay courts of STC.  

I reached STC at around 4 in the evening; there was not even a single soul on the court. I went to the club office took the trainer along with me and started playing. The game of tennis is a lot more difficult than it seems. An hour later, sweat soaked, I headed for the swimming pool and followed it up with a steam and sauna bath session. At the end of it all, I was physically drained and mentally refreshed. As a result of my weekends at STC, I was more active both physically and mentally.

That was probably the best phase of my life. I was financially independent, physically fit and mentally active.

At this juncture life seemed like a bed of roses to me!

The last few months…

Yeah! Life was indeed a bed of roses but, not without a few thorns which kept pricking my little “culo” time and again.

I received the first of those pricks on Jan 7^th.

I and one of my colleagues on our way back to the office after a tea break, observed lot of worried faces from the glass doors. We swiped in and walked into a noisy environment. We were shell shocked when we got to know that our Chairman had resigned.

Without wasting much time I logged into my system to check the authencity of the news. To my horror, our chairman had not only resigned but, confessed to involvement in fraudulent activities.

Once the news broke out, the stock prices went for a toss! This was the second prick, I had some investments.

Ouch! That was painful.

That day was really tough for all of the employees. I couldn’t sleep all night. The next few days were spent pondering about issues like, salary and job security. The govt appointed board was very protective of the associates. Every other day we received emails, which assured that associates were the top priority.

An old proverb says “hope for the best and prepare for the worst”. I followed it and started looking for opportunities elsewhere as I knew my unit wasn’t a revenue generating unit and people from my unit will be the first ones to face the axe.

Meanwhile, we continued to receive emails about Associate protection and future course of action for the company.

A takeover seemed to be the only option left to save the sinking ship. One fine day in the month of April, another company took over Satyam. This was a breather of sorts for us. All of us were now hopeful of some good news coming our way.

Good news came our way in the form of a Sabbatical. The third prick! Close to 10k employees were handed out a sabbatical with only basic pay for 6 months. I was disappointed but, I knew it could have been lot worse.

Lot of people had lot of things to say about the Sabbatical and the way the company treated us but, in my heart I knew the company treated us well by not sacking us…. Another company might have just said “fuck off” and thank you! and we could have done nothing about it.          

A couple of months later, I got an offer from another company and I finally resigned from satyam in the third week of August putting an end to the bitter sweet relationship.

 Being my first company, Satyam will always have a special place in my heart. I still sometimes miss Satyam, more so STC….