Careers

Its 9pm here in Vijayawada airport. I landed here at 8am this morning from a 6am Delhi flight. And had landed in Delhi at 8pm the night before from Singapore. My first flights as I start work this new year.

I met the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and his team to discuss a balanced, inclusive growth plan for the state; as well as to help with a PR crisis he is now facing. PR risks are now part and parcel of advising governments. In this age of social media, everything a public figure say or do (in private and in public) can and will be captured and published and often out of context, esp. now as we live in a world of polarising politics.

Tough job indeed! But then again here at the airport I got to witness poor ground staff being harassed and verbally abused by passengers of a delayed flight. It reminded me of my own experiences (some quarter of a century ago now) of having to handle very much these situations. There are others too like lost bags, wrong seats, and worse of all overbooking!

I had sought to get out of such frontline jobs only to land myself in another frontline job, this time with more high powered customers! Talk about leaping from the frying pan into the fire. I am not sure though if I would do it any other way, or rather if I would do it again, i think i would still take a front office job over a back office one. There is something to be said about human interaction and solving these problems dynamically.

At some level, all jobs are the same. Its about delivering a good/service to a customer who has paid for it. The key difference is at what stage of the value chain one plays. Some are upstream, designing the product. Some play midstream, making the product. Others downstream, fulfilling the order. Still others orchestrate the whole chain. And then the managers who see to everyone doing their jobs.

At the end of the day, the most fulfilling job is the one you like, because it makes you feel you have been purposeful.