Fond Memories from Deloitte

These are some my fond professional memories from my 6 years, 11 month and 15 day (give or take 5 days) association with Deloitte. There have many many personal fond memories from Deloitte, but it would not be possible to narrate the same unless I am writing my autobiography.

Warning!!!!!

It is a dry blog as it has lots of me and my vocabulary is not vast to generate extremely deep touching sentences or my writing is to that level that I can use satire and humor constructively.

· Day One - The Red Pill

Day one when me, Yogesh and Rachana and then month later on Kapil joined, we were given a red book on AS2 by George Sir (which we used to call red pill based on the movie Matrix analogy). It has so happened that anybody who read this book on day or two of their joining Deloitte as Article Trainee has had a long association with the firm. All four of us gave around 7 years of our professional life (that is 28 man year!!!!!) to Deloitte. We all have left or will be leaving Deloitte in this second half of 2010 only. Even Neha Zutshi if I am not wrong was given the same book and continues to be associated with Deloitte. Siddharth skipped reading it and then the trend left with batch of Jigar, Spandan, Toral, Golak, Vishal, Kalpesh & Sanket.

Also on day one, we were given watches of Titan, celebrating centenary year of SBB. The watch was a really nice one and lasted me till my to-be wife got me new one on her first salary in 2007.

· Finalizing Transpek Silox 2004

It was January 2005. Neetu, Pritesh and Abhiram all were in England under professional exchange program. Only Maulin was the professional left in Baroda that too busy with his own work. Kamat Sir gave me the chance to lead the team of Rachana and Anshul and finalize their 2004 years accounts. I took the opportunity and accounts were finalized without any major glitches. I looked at every aspect of the accounts except for portions related to AS 22. For the first time I felt like Manager. Even some the client personnel felt that I am a qualified CA and when I went to give them sweets on clearing my PE-II they were very very surprised. It was one the best achievements in life.

· HOEC memories & compliments received on HOEC 2004-05

The assignment was managed by Pritesh with me looking into accounts of their two major oil wells and overall consolidation. The work was completed in time and it was to be reviewed by Late Mohammed Merchant rather the usual partner Mr. Nalin Shah. The work was completed in Baroda and review was held in Mumbai by the Partner. He appreciated the work highly. However what surprised me was the way this compliment got back to me. Even before Pritesh could relay me in the usual course of time, I got congratulation calls from HOEC personnel Mr. Amit Shah and Mr. Sandeep Khamesra just after initialising of Balance Sheet. It was a happy moment that client called up at 9 PM in night to compliment.

Apart from this, HOEC provided me the fondest memories of my article ship duration. The long nights, the all guys environments, the pizza parties and almost being to all the restaurants in Baroda, on the west side of Baroda Rail line. HOEC’s unofficial slogan in those days was “Work hard and Party harder”. This assignment used to make us sweat like anything but that sweat was very sweet.

· The Jeddah Experience

After completing my article ship in august of 2005, I concentrated on clearing the CA exams. In October of 2006, I got this opportunity to go to Deloitte KSA under professional exchange program. I took the opportunity. I went there with Anurag, Siddarth and Kiran. The beginning of the experience was shaky but in the end of it, I was professionally happy with the assignment. I stayed there for around four months. Socially it were most isolated four months of my life but professionally they were very fulfilling. I worked with Egyptians, Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, Britishers, Pakistanis, Bangladesis and many other nationalities. I understood the value of being a qualified Indian Professional over there. The moment you say you are an Indian professional, they are in awe. They tend help you in any which ways possible and on doing a proper work appreciate you really well. The prime example of the appreciation was the farewell dinner given by Farhan Faroukh (Sr. Director) at Deloitte KSA to our team. They had never given such farewell to teams arriving from our neighboring country.

· Getting into Consulting & fulfilling stage I dreams

From the day I got chance work on CVM assignment during my article ship, I wanted to work in consulting after clearing C.A. From that day there were three goals to be achieved in life at the earliest

1. Clear C.A. Exams

2. Get Married to girl of my choice

3. Get into Consulting

On getting into Consulting, I my third goal was complete and within one month all the preparations were ready to complete my second goal.

· Compliments on GIL first meeting

GIL was my first assignment in consulting. There was this first meeting with client’s advisor Mr. Kamlesh Bhadani to update him on work done and initial findings. The meeting went of very well. Hemant was leaving for his vacation trip after the meeting, so was not able to talk to me after wards. However Hemant called me after leaving office and complimented me for the work done and client handling. It felt good.

· Designing the lunch room

Guest room in our office was also our lunch room. However after certain period it continuing to be a guest room cum lunch room was not feasible. So Hemant wanted to convert it to a proper lunch room. He announced a small contest to design the lunch room. I provided two designs to Hemant. One of them got selected but just partially and part of it was from my other collegue Anil Chauhan. I was asked to prepare the final layout merging both the designs and promised half the prize for designing the lunch room. I never got the half prize promised but it felt good designing the lunch room.