Judgement Day

October 27, 2006. The honeymoon period for the trainees at the Trivandrum training center of TCS was finally coming to an end. The motley crew of youngsters would soon be sent out to their respective workstations, and there would be no late night football, no corridor cricket and more importantly, no more stay at Peepul Park Hostel. Today, was not to be a day for the faint-hearted as it was the day when the not-so-loved MATC (Manpower Allocation Task Committee) would deliver its verdict on who goes where.

Sometimes I feel envious of the pint-sized companies where the CEO and the Trainee share the same floor, atleast the Trainee is not worried about the geography where his workstation would be located post his training period. Having said that, the look in the eyes of my parents, their parents, and my friends' parents on telling them that I am placed with TCS made up for the anxiety which was surging through my veins that morning. "TCS has 15 offices in Mumbai, surely I will get into one of them; if I am lucky, I may aswell get into Yantra Park, I can walk to that office every day!" I kept telling myself in a bid to allay my fears of getting an undesirable allocation. Not too long before it would be out anyways.

The final training session for the day was in progress, and gladly it was a lab session. Not that we were very interested in practicals at that time, but being in front of a computer surely gave us a chance to visit the allocation website at a strike-rate of a certain hundered hits per minute. The site was like a bouncer in front of a pub, it just won't let you in until it was time. And then it happened, news broke out that someone from the adjoining lab had been able to find his allocation and like a swarm of piranhas, the trainees latched onto any available system in our lab. I remember myself having had to wait for a couple of minutes before I was allowed to unravel my destiny. It was quite clear until that point that majority of my batch-mates were either going to Mumbai or to Chennai. Hoping to be in the former one, I logged into the system.

Name: Tejas Totade

Base Branch Location: Chennai

We wish you all the best for all your future endeavours!

Was this some kind of a practical joke? I was surely not in a mood for one. I logged out and logged in again thinking that it has got to be a mistake. I had never even opted for Chennai. To my disappointment, it was not a joke, even if it was one, it didn't bring a smile to my face. Across the lab, there were sounds of delight and despair, some of the latter ones were already pondering on options in other companies. The judgement day had come upon us, and for good or for bad, I was going north from Trivandrum, but not too far up.