Thinking
The phone beeped.
It was a message on LinkedIn. I barely go to LinkedIn unless prompted like this. I have not even updated my LinkedIn profile for a very long time. Anyway, I clicked on the notification to check who it was.
Hi, I just happened to go through your LinkedIn profile and impressed with your skill set. We have an exciting opportunity for you at India’s No 1 ED-Tech company based out of Bengaluru. Let’s connect to discuss.
It was a recruiter. Since Embibe is expanding and we are hiring a lot, I thought it was for our company. And so, I replied:
Hello, I think this message was sent to me by mistake. I am already working with India’s No. 1 Ed-Tech company. :)
The person replied next day:
Thanks For Connecting PFA JD For the role. If this interests you share me your resume with below details filled.
- Current CTC,
- Expected CTC,
- Notice period…
I understood that the person didn’t even bother to read my response. Anyway, I opened the doc file. Apparently, India’s No. 1 Ed-Tech company is Byju’s.
Now that I knew it was for Byju’s, the response of that person made sense.
When I had just joined Embibe as an intern to handle Quora, I did a lot of research to understand the industry. This research involved understanding not only our own products but also what our competitors were offering. In order to do that, there were times when I interacted with the support team of other Ed-Tech companies, including Byju’s. Of all those companies, the responese of Byju’s, every single time, exhibited heights of desparation. I asked them tons of questions but the only thing they cared about was my email ID and phone number.
Q: What is adaptive learning?
A: I will definitely help you out. Please share your email ID and phone number.
Q: When is CAT notification coming out?
A: I will definitely help you out. Please share your email ID and phone number.
Q: Hey, buddy. You had lunch?
A: I will definitely…
Ok, the last one was a joke. But I am not making it up when I say that they are desparate to make a sale.
So, I remembered all these the moment I saw Byju’s logo on the doc file shared by that recruiter.
And I remembered my initial days at Embibe when we were a small team of 40-50 and every one had to wear many hats.
For example, every one from the Content Marketing team used to take chats for a couple of hours every day. Just a month or so after I had joined, one morning while I was on chat, a guy messaged. Despite studying hard for two long years, he couldn’t clear a certain exam. He was so depressed and wanted some guidance on what he should do now. At one point, he even said he felt like committing suicide.
When I told my boss about it, she told me to continue talking to the guy, assure him that everything was going to be fine, and make sure he felt better.
Empathically Strong
I chatted with him for the next three hours. Not to tell him to prepare for the exam again, not to convince him to purchase our product for his preparation. But to make him understand that clearing or not clearing an exam is not the end of the world. To tell him that it’s OK if he doesn’t become an engineer or a doctor. My boss made sure I was empathetic and understanding.
And over the next two and half years, I saw this empathetic side of this company multiple times. Another time, just after the results of a particular exam was declared and we were making calls to our students. It was 11 at night. Every body was dead tired. But we had to finish making the calls and get data for our Success Stories.
This guy who did extremely well in his mock tests failed to clear the actual exam. He refused to talk to anyone. There wasn’t any ‘Success Story’ here and yet my CEO picked up the phone and spoke with him for almost 45 minutes.
In a world of Chatur Ramalingams, Embibe is the Phunsukh Wangdu.
And this is just one of the many reasons why I love working here.
In the past two and half years, my role in the company has changed a lot and yet it never even ouccured to me to update my LinkedIn profile for I never contemplated looking for another job. Most of my friends have changed their companies two-three times in the last few years. And they often ask me why I am still working here. I am happy that I got the message from that recruiter. It got me into thinking and the train of thoughts has led me write this post.
Apart from being Empathically Strong, there are tons of other reasons why I love working here.
Intellectually Fierce
This is a place where you can literally get into a heated debate with your boss if you are not convinced about why you should do a certain task.
I remember once my boss assigned a certain task to me. Apparently, it came from someone senior to her.
Now, we are impact-driven - every task we pick up must have a measurable impact. But this particular task didn’t make any sense to me. So, I told her that I was not going to do it and gave my reasons. She agreed to whatever I had to say but then again the task came from her senior. So, it had to be done. It wasn’t good enough a reason for me to pick up the task. So, I said that I wasn’t going to do it. She said OK.
Then she went to her senior and told her about it. The guy, one of the VPs of the company, could have just fired me. Instead, he came and had a chat with me, explained why we need to do that particular task. I shot questions at him and got my doubts clarified. I was now convincedand picked up the task.
Hierarchy goes down the drain when it comes to intellectual debates (and many other such things) in the company. The guy, currently pursuing his PhD from one of the IITs, had no reason to come over and explain things to me and clarify my doubts. And yet he did.
This type of incidents happened multiple times.
Once a certain politician passed off. One of my seniors asked me to write a post on him, his role in education.
Now, this political leader comes from a party which I abhor with all my heart. So, writing something good about him or glorifying him in any way isn’t something I could do. This is one of the few things I have always been extremely strict about. I told my senior the same. He just smiled and said that it was OK.
Another time, I got into a confrontation with my reporting manager because of some confusion about how my metrics will be measured. She didn’t have an answer as this particular confusion was something new.
She didn’t say anything that day. But next day, she came to the office all prepared. She did her research, found out how this particular issue is addressed in other top companies, and came up with a solution.