Overloading the camel
THE OTHER day I was invited to the release of a placement brochure of a management institute. Frankly, I went because the first invitation arrived by e-mail, accompanied by a polite note. This was followed by a telephone call from a student member of the placement cell, and finally, the deputy director (placements) called me himself, and requested me to please make it convenient to attend. I had no excuse and to return their insistent courtesy, made every effort to attend, notwithstanding the awful traffic snarling around me at that critical time when everybody and their first cousin hurry back from work to be amidst the opulent surroundings of their homes.
Matters were made worse by the fact that they chose a hotel, arguably the best in town, located bang in front of where the Chief Minister lives. It is here, where consequent traffic grinds to a halt so often that it becomes a cause for wild celebration on the rare occasions it does move. The clogged entrance to the hotel did not improve the fraying temper of anybody. After wearily handing over the keys to a harassed valet, I shambled into the impressive foyer of the hotel.
There were several well dressed and richly appointed young persons smiling and chatting away in joyous abandon from whom I thought it appropriate to ask for directions. To their credit, one of them offered to escort me to the hall where the event was taking place. Five stars notwithstanding, what met one's eyes some fifty paces away from the venue was a churning maelstrom of humanity all talking incomprehensibly to each other generating a noise that would put several fish markets to shame. To make matters worse, the stench of several hundred people packed in restrictive clothing in contact proximity to each other was overpowering, especially since myriad deodorants vied with each other for world domination.
I was quickly ushered in and shown to a vacant seat, and I remarked - to myself, since my escort had returned to his interrupted conversation with his fetching young colleague upstairs - that it was incredibly quieter in the hall itself where everybody had the decency to speak to each other in whispers. The speakers in the front of the room spoke inaudibly into malfunctioning microphones while the audience that consisted of a multitude of former students, their families, some parents and several infants gave up listening to them and continued to pick up lost threads with former classmates.
Audience-generated sound levelling out to a dull roar, the function went on, regardless of the hapless chief guest who looked as if he would much rather release himself than the placement brochure he was there to release.
After the release and the inevitable thanking and gloatings and wheezing interspersed with angry squawks from the adenoidal sound system, the master of ceremonies whispered to the front row (they were the only ones that could hear his unaided voice as the sound engineers were in a collective sulk at the time) that all thirteen batches would share their thoughts for the edification of the assembled masses seated in the hall.
Then ensued a continual stream of inarticulate and thankfully inaudible people that shared, again with the first few rows, their joys and happiness at having been part of the wonderful institution.
While this may have been of gripping interest to the graduating batch, and even perhaps to past batches, as revelations go, they were singularly inapt, and to burden recruiters and guests such as myself that had attended to witness the release of the brochure was an act of unforgivable cruelty and certainly damaging to the future careers of the graduating batch.
The idea of holding the release of the brochure at an upmarket venue was a stroke of wisdom if not genius - but it might have been better to choose one that had a reliable sound system and was less congested and unfortunately located. To club recruiters and the press with an alumni meet was an act of monumental mental collapse.
While recruiters are interested in the fresh crop of graduates, and will attend to see the deportment and soft-skill capabilities of the students, the alumni are interested only to meet old friends and batch mates. To try and cater to both audience groups is fatal and is akin to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Alumni in India will bring along families, children and any visiting guest in the house, and these rob the occasion of professionalism, which is what recruiters are there to see.
When faced with a heaving mass of humanity, dressed, for the most part most inappropriately, the thin patina of assumed professionalism wears away leaving behind a dismal view of the underlying naïveté. Recruiters are unlikely to look too long or too closely at the placement brochure, and perhaps it is as well they do not because proof-reading did not appear very highly on the editor's list of priorities, where `Hight Tech' vied with `Extra Curriculur' and `Fully Time Faculty' for attention.
Any such event is a big thing for the graduating class since it has a direct relation to their individual careers. They need all the help their institution can give, and they can do without the efforts to jeopardise their future.
All good ideas start well - until they are diluted by overloading an event with too many objectives after all, it was the last straw that broke the proverbial camel's back for recruiters, forgotten after the personal calls and invitations, it was an experience to gratefully forget.
ABHIMANYU ACHARYA
abhi.hyd@cnkonline.com
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