The Toughest Month So Far...

It's over. The toughest month in this year and during the course of my MBA ends here. Declared at 750 PM on Saturday, July 11, 2009. I am on the Greyhound bus back to Mt Laurel after a weekend of classes. We are just passing the Newark airport on the NJ Turnpike and United flight xyz has just taken off. And so have my spirits.

For, the last one month, or 29 days to be exact, from June 13 to July 11, 2009 have been downhill all the way. I just learnt about the Business Cycle today in the Operations Management class and I realized how my life seems to go in similar cycles. One of my previous bosses once commented that my emotional state and hence my work capability was like a sine wave. It would go right up once and then it would go all the way down. And today in Operations class, I realized how that was so true.

The six months from Dec 12, 2008 to June 12, 2009 were the upward climb. If you want to know what happened on Dec 12, 2008, go way down on this blog. The sine wave hit peak on June 10, my birthday. It was a day that lasted 36 hours and the euphoria lasted for another 2, until June 12.

I had this crazy, ominous feeling on the morning of Saturday, June 13. I knew something was wrong, but couldn't say what. I just hoped for the best and got through that day at school and the next day at home, but as the new week started and went in to day 1,2 and 3, it was clear. I was going downhill. The sine wave had started descending. The projects I was working on were getting into rough weather and my wife and son were getting ready to go to India in less than 2 weeks. The extra effort into work made sure I did not touch school work that week and come
the weekend I was ready for some rest. (It was a weekend between school weekends, so I could probably afford it.)

Clearly, my son had other plans. He started showing signs of exhaustion on Saturday night and on Sunday morning, his fever was at 103. They were flying to India the following Thursday and the hot topic was the testing that was being done at the Chennai airport for swine flu. The point of contention for me and my wife was whether they should travel as scheduled or not and the visit to the doctor's office on Monday morning made it clear. No way!

Fight the fever, fight the fever it was for the next couple of days and on Wednesday morning, he showed signs of recovering. The sliver lining that day was it was the last day of school and he received several awards including one for Good Citizenship. The awards lifted the spirit a little but the stress was still showing and work wasn't getting any better either.

We had cancelled Thursday's flights and moved the trip to the Sunday coming up, but I had to be back at school on Fri and Sat. Until about 1 am on Friday morning I was not even sure I would go to school but I mustered the strength to pull myself out of home on Friday morning. The ominous signs of Saturday the 13th took effect on Friday the 16th. One of the projects I was handling was now in the middle of a storm and I spent exactly 1.5 hours in class that morning.

The rest of the time, I was in a small discussion room, on the phone for the next 8 or 9 hours,
writing incident responses and answering email. An introduction to Ethiopian cuisine was the highlight of what was the toughest day in the course of the MBA. The tough part about the EMBA program is that one has to make some choices at times, and for me, if I had to choose between work and the MBA, it was clearly work. I thanked God this was not an examination day and prayed this day would never happen again. The stress showed and I slept.

Saturday the 27th was none the better. Even before I left for school, I tried to enthuse myself by doing some of the things I had enjoyed doing so much in the last few months, but once again, it was clear that something was missing. All the same, it was a Saturday morning, I had classes to attend and I decided to go out and do my Karma. Drag, drag, drag and at 510 PM, for the first time in the course of my MBA, I walked out of school, with the Corporate Finance class only half
complete. Clearly, this was the one weekend I was most demotivated.

At least, I would get home early that night. That would help because the India trip for my family was the next night and we had not even considered packing until now. What's more, my wife had now been ill for 2 days. The planning was perfect. Well, almost. Slowly but surely, my wife and I got the luggage to a 95% confidence level at 2 AM on Sunday morning.

7 AM on Sunday morning and I was on my way to the Hindu Temple at Bridgwater, NJ. I obvioulsy wanted to pray for my wife and son to have a safe trip, but more importantly, I was attending the sacred thread ceremony of my cousin's son that morning at the temple's community hall. I don't know if it was the right thing to do, given that my wife and son were getting ready to travel that evening and the trip to Bridgewater and back would be at least 4 or 5 hours, but I was on the way and there was no turning back. Luckily, I was back home for lunch and things were looking normal. No black clouds in the sky.

The next few hours were clockwork. Leave home at 430 PM, check in the luggage and though my family went through their security check and proceeded to the gate, it was time for me to thank the Philadelphia International Airport folks. The international departures area is so wonderfully constructed that I could stay at a certain point from where I could still see my son and wife at their gate and I was on the phone with them for the next couple of hours until it was time for them to board.

I didn't feel it so much when I returned home that night. I think the week's events left me so tired to think of anything and I hit the bed straight. It was the next morning (Monday) that it really hit me. Not only was I unwell, I was now back in the middle of the storm at work that was still looming large and what's more, I was already missing my wife and son.

After managing a bare existence on Monday, on Tuesday, it was time for a long drive. On my way I was to our company's operations in Rochester, NY, which was a 6 hour drive at the least. Things had gotten to a boiling point at work and I decided to be in the middle of the action so I could control whatever was in my control. Of course, the trafiic gods did not smile on me that day and what is usually a 6 hour drive turned out to be 8 hours that night and I reached Rochester
at 1130 PM.

The firefighting continued through the next 3 days into Friday, July 3rd, which was supposed to be a Holiday to make up for July 4 being a Saturday, but there was no respite. Only after I was absolutely sure that everything was all set for the new program launch the following Monday did I leave the office that Friday night.

Now, wait a minute. Isn't this supposed to be a blog about my MBA? Well, yes it is, but do you think I had even a moment to think about school work in the last week?

I decided to make amends on Saturday and made a determined effort to complete some homework assignments and read up some case studies. I was happy at the end of Saturday. I would have continued the same on Sunday, had I not had to take an Indian colleague of mine who was visiting the US for the first time, to the Niagara Falls. Not to say that I did not enjoy the day. My third trip to the Niagara Falls was memorable and I even felt a little relieved that night despite everything that was going on.

The week of July 6 started better. My projects launched without many hiccups, work moved into normal pace and I moved along with life. I was starting to feel better and I suddenly remembered that there was a decision models project that was due the coming Friday at school and that I was way behind on that. I decided to advance my return home by one day and drove back to NJ on Wednesday, but only after I had made sure that everything was under reasonable control at work.

Thursday July 9, was still a rough day and even as I tried to clean up home a little and handle work pressures, I was mindful of the decision models project. Thanks to an hour that Tom (my learning team member and by far the most conscientious in our team) spent with me on the phone walking me through the details of the project, I was able to actually come up with a process flow for the project and even talk through it on Friday, July 10.

Friday, July 10, went really well with a good performance on the Decision Models project presentation and a dinner with another learning team at a Thai restaurant in mid-town Manhattan. Saturday was mixed with highs and lows (like the roller coaster that the operations professor showed to describe the business cycle), but when I walked out of class on Saturday, July 11, I certainly felt better than the last weekend I had left school.

As I was walked across the Columbia Universtiy campus, I thought about the last month and how tough it had been. I have been trying to understand the reason this month was so tough and how I could handle such situations better. I know that such situations could occure again or worse, once I am done with my MBA and if I am any good, I will only assume positions of higher responsibility and that is not going to be any easier.

One thing was clear to me. I have had this tendency in the past to get easily overwhelmed when the going gets tough. I was aware of this and tried really hard this time, but at some point, I guess I fell over the cliff. I have been struggling to find out, exactly what tipped the balance and when and where I fell, but have been unable to understand it. I don't know if it was just the process of thinking through this or the nice breeze of the early evening in New York, but I felt better.

I could have stayed on in New York and done something fun, because there would be no one at home to welcome me, feed me and take care of me and I needed to be in no great hurry to go home, but I found my feet took me straight to the subway station, thereon to the bus station and straight back home. There is no body here with me, not even the TV (it went kaput a few days ago!).

I wish I could talk to someone now, but there is no time for these feelings. It is time to prepare. The next weekend I am in school, I will be writing a final exam in Decision Models and also presenting a project on Marketing. Just one school weekend post that and then it will time for Term 2 finals.

I am definitely at the lowest ebb of the sine wave, but the good news is I can only go up from here. I have 30 days from now until Aug 10 when my family returns to Mt Laurel. I have always dreamt of working efficiently, working 18 hours a day, staying on top of things and getting stuff done. It's not even a chance. I have to do it. And I have 30 days...

If I am worth my salt, I will do it. I will WIN... God be with me.