The Long Wait

Now that I've got most of my essays ready for my top business schools, most of the stuff I have to do is jut clerical. And then I guess I just have to wait. December end seems like such a long time away, especially for someone as obsessive as me. I guess the time will go even slower now that there's not much work, with the business almost completely closed down. Speaking about that, I wonder whether it will ever completely finish. I mean I know it will, at some point, but having no control over it is so frustrating.

Decided to close the company down in mid-Feb and things started happening really fast. There were so many things to plan out and do, and things were happening much faster than we had originally thought. I finished over 90% of the work by May, retrenching the workers, selling off most of the stocks, selling our brand, as well as find a buyer for the factory. Till then, things were happening as fast as I could do them, the only real limitation on it, being my time. Luck played a large role (as I feel it always does in everything) in helping get through that so fast. In May anyway, I calculated that since I accomplished 90% of the work in three months, the remaining 10% should take me 10 days, and giving time for unforeseeable developments, I gave it a month to finish everything.

But life continuously surprises you. If in Feb, someone had told me that I would finish the most of the work by May, I would have thought it close to impossible. If someone told me in May by September, I would finish less than 10% of the remaining work, I would have laughed. But here I am, alone at home, having had to rush back mid-holiday to meet with the Bank manager.

This part of the job is teaching me patience beyond my expectations. I have had to go to the bank every single day for the past two weeks, playing the chess game of negotiating for a One Time Settlement. Well it would be sort of like chess, if you played chess by moving one pawn forward and then back for three months straight, without making any other moves. The majority of my work now includes just waiting. Waiting on the bank to make some move.

Like I had mentioned, I will be putting up a detailed post on banking later, maybe after the settlement is over, but I just want to mention that it is impossible for an organization to become efficient without some risk-reward ratio. The same lacks in the civil service, and a bank manager in a public sector bank is more or less like a bureaucrat. And I'm not blaming him, (well not right now anyway) but he is not motivated to make a difference, to help people, or even his own organization. He is only motivated to keep his papers clear. As long as that is taken care of, the bank could write off our entire loan amount, or force us to sell our house, and neither makes a difference to him, or to anyone else in the bank.

Anyway, planning to do a Lord of the Rings marathon session on Monday and Tuesday since its anyway a holiday here. Luckily the special dvd editions are 45 mins longer, and I have to wait that much less for the MBA admission results.