Quarter 4 - Week 7

This week was by far the most hectic week we've faced. Or so I felt. I think my last blog entry is an indication of that. I seem to have written something about a website(?) and I was talking about the chapter or book I guess. Anyway, I was pretty thrilled (very wierd actually) to have made a slumber mistake, that's when you're hammering away at the keyboard but you are actually sleeping, that I didnt bother to correct it. Dont try this at home, or in your car. Bad consequences!

So why was this week so bad? Because we've just finished two exams and left college at 7:00! As if it wasn't enough that we were scribbling whatever little we knew from 2:30 all the way till 6:30, it began to pour cats and dogs and we couldn't even go home! And some of the more enthu mugpots amongst us were discussing solutions despite our dirty stares. The fact that I was paying keen attention through one ear to the solutions and listening to a project team mate discuss our next week woes through the other, AND that none of my answers matched the said solutions was pretty much winding me up. And the blasted rain..!

But enough about me and my general woes, close to one year into the course I should probably learn to suck it in and move along. You dont get an IIMB backing if you're solving exams with a smile now, do you? And so, on to this week's bhaashan..

OperMan - This week we played a game, not as fun sounding as the last Beer Game, but good fun nonetheless.... we had a case were we had to forecast the demand in the coming weeks and place orders accordingly so that our net inventory was as close to the minimum as possible. First some gambling when we were just trying to fool around, then some wisdom dawned when we kept getting screwed in our numbers and so we made a master plan.... which was supposed to work. I am still not sure how we arrived at it, just that it made a lot of sense at the time. The word 'delirium' keeps popping up in my mind.

The next day we discussed how we could have gone about the actual task and what patterns we were to look for. The prof mentioned that while it's good to forecast demand, you should also try to keep it somewhat stable.Why...? Because we have PEOPLE doing the actual manufacturing! Now what kind of a good manager would you be if you let your employees chill off one day, and slog like their life depended on it the next day! So, inventory optimization be damned, be a nice guy. Keep it to a minimum, but you dont have to be oh-so-efficient. Fancy my Operations Management professor telling me that!

CorpFin - Miller and Modigliani seemed to have a lot of time on their hands, they kept coming up with new nuances for their theorems. Maybe they weren't doing the PGSEM. Or maybe they just knew that they ought to come up with some cool theorems with the unterior motive that people all around the globe would be burning the midnight oil just to understand what these guys were trying to prove.

I'm just cranky from the exams I guess, it wasn't really all that bad. The prof really knows how to make it all sound like fun. From what I remember, we were essentially talking about how taking too much debt can be bad for the company. The whole principle goes as follows, you can take up two times the equity(or share value) as debt. Yes, you're allowed to take loans... no, it's not a bad sign. No, your Indian uncle and aunty won't look at you with pity... Yes, you can marry your neighbour's daughter, this is not a financial problem. But. If you cross it like 4 or 5 times, then the equity shareholders start beginning to think, and they think really hard because they've seen this happen before, and they all hightail it for the exit! So, be responsible and dont hide the bad news was what was coming across.

The next session seemed to roam a little bit around the point, we even had a nice looking graph that told us at what time we should stop pushing for debt, or even if we were, try and buy some companies who were profitable so that your equity value goes up... SO you can take more debt! It keeps coming down to one fact. If your company goes bankrupt, your equity shareholders are able to limit their losses to their investments, but the debt guys, sure they get all the assets repossessed.. but they'll never be able to get their true value.

MPPO - I am getting a little more bored than usual now. The topics were all good, Performance Appraisal and all that... how to appraise, what kind of interaction to have etc. etc. etc., but I just kept getting distracted... maybe because of the exams. But even the cases seem to be so obvious, I am not sure how much new stuff I learnt this week. We saw a video in the second session, it was all about how you conduct an appraisal and what can go wrong... there were a couple of interesting points in it, but I dont know, it all seemed so.... general! This was supposed to be common sense, how could we miss this? And sure, it was nice to know that everyone seems to hate appraisals... the fact that I'm being given a letter grade and in a way rebuked like a child, is not something that everyone felt pleasant about. And here we are getting As, Bs and Cs...

All in all, a tiresome week. I'm just glad we're done with the exams.

I really am.

Flashback - The CAT

Woke up at 6 AM. Wasn't able to sleep beyond that, the last time I wrote an exam was almost four years ago! Luckily for me, my life didnt depend on this one. At least I could continue working even if things didn't work out fine. In any case, the butterflies in my stomach were happy at being freed after so long and flitted all around keeping me sufficiently nervous. Against all the warnings and cautions yelled at me by the book, I stuffed myself both with breakfast and some last minute quant fundas before rushing away to the centre at breakneck speed.

Must have reached the centre around 30 minutes in advance, the gates were open and people trudging in to the classes. It took me 10 minutes just to find which building I was in. I finally found my seat and sat down. Got my pencil, pen and hall ticket out. The arrangements were very well done. There were loudspeakers at each corner. The paths to the classes had been clearly marked. People were there to help guide the frantic test takers to their rooms and seats. After an announcement that the test would start at exactly the scheduled time, a bell rang and the papers were distributed.

While writing the paper, I must say things went like clockwork. I had practiced enough tests, and knew my plan of action. Saw the question, could do - attempt, couldnt - leave. Kept looking at the clock every now and then. It's very important to ensure you're ahead of time. If behind time, it's very important to see how far behind you really are and if it's worth it. Since the time allotted was now for the entire paper, and not just per section, I started off with what I thought would let me have enough time to get the speed up for quant, and hence began with verbal. I thought it was a good decision, everyone tells me later that was stoopid. In any case, while working on verbal, when I saw that the time I had allotted for it had elapsed, I went on to the next section - quant. And similarly, at the end, DI. When I was done with the paper, I realized that I had left quite a few questions and had some time left to answer some more. I then went back to the questions over the entire paper, which I had marked knowing that if I had more time, I'd continue working on them.

Finally the bell went off, the paper was submitted, and I left for home. It was only when I reached home, that I let out a sigh and went to sleep. No point bothering about the results, they'll only come out this evening, or the next morning. This was November 16th 2008.

The next morning, I went to the PagalGuy forums, set up my answer sheet on their cool scorecard. Saved me a hell of a lot of time, comparing against the expected results. Within a week, sufficient scores were in to let me know how I had approximately done against other people. Looked like I'd get somewhere around 97 percentile A little anxious and excited, I began the long wait for Jan 2009, when the results would be formally announced.