How time flies~

Nov 26 – Jan 23 – MYSELF

This article is just an outburst of satisfaction. I work for an amazing company. I work for a team that deals with American customers. I studied in a school run and built by the English. So, I needed to change the whole thing. I meant English. To abide by the rules of writing emails to Google advertisers I’m not allowed to use British English. But, aren’t they the ones who own the language? Yes, but who is paying you?

I started the American English training everyone goes through before they start their email training. It is called Fast Track. Two whole weeks of intensive unlearning, learning and changing all the English I know. Nothing is left out in this training. Nouns, articles, verbs, tense, clauses, subjects… a lot more! It’s intense and annoying! Yes, it is a part of my job. Which frustrated advertiser who writes in with a problem is going to check if I said ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello?’

I’m not in a state to complain now. I’ve done a lot of that earlier. I’ve settled for that fact that I’m going to write good Amerikaan emails. Phew! Training for Fast Track started on Nov 26. It was 2 weeks of arguing about why a comma comes where, why this particular word is the subject, why the preposition has to come here… “DON’T GET ME STARTED! AGAIN!!”

Two weeks of English, English, more English… and a lot more English. At the end of everything my flat mates and I were correcting each other in normal speech. This is what everyone does. Everyone who finishes this training… even the ones who don’t listen in class. I was done with this training. I was graded: Meets Expectations.

Then two weeks of work. I worked on 3 workflows. I got trained in a new process - Traditional media process. We’re going offline and more now. I review reports for companies and send it to a higher sales team.

Then comes the week where I have to pass an exam to have me sticking to the company. GAP – Google Advertising Professionals. Criteria : 75%. What amount of frustration will someone get when she studies hard and gets 74.8%. After miserable attempts I passed. 83.5%. I’m a GAP certified professional. Welcome to the world of ERT – Email Response Training.

Then comes the third week – MBA week: Dec 26 – Dec 30. This week is solely dedicated to something extra. MBA – The extra three letters I’ve always wanted to get from a university in Australia. The extra three letters that I’ve wanted to do in International Business. The extra three letters that mean a lot in a marriage invitation in Tirupur. The three letters which I dedicated myself to that one week. I would finish work and get back home to study. Subjects were tough. I had no choice. I studied. I traveled 40 kilometers every morning with no breakfast and wrote these exams with middle-aged people. This happened for 5 days. Continuously! It was a rough week. I traveled a lot and studied a lot. My anger flew up the terrace those days. I was mentally loaded and needed rest.

I finish exams on Dec 30. I return and rest. I slept a lot that weekend. New year’s was the best part. I was completely de – stressed but the load of having to do something was still on. New year 2008 was good. I did nothing much. Hung out in one room and watched TV, used up the couch and lazed. This is what my fun was. But it was the best.

Then starts the week of Email Training. This is a three week long program which educates employees about the AdWords product. Online advertising makes millions of money in the US. It’s not big in India right now, but in India travel has a great thing to do with online advertising. So everything was America focused. The first week was slow and the second week was nerve breaking. The third week is called the Special Week. It’s drilling in knowledge about other products of Google like AdSense, Checkout and Analytics. Advertisers use all products to advertise online and they are linked! In these 3 weeks we break our brains and write about 29 emails totally and at the end, a test. Then, we have seniors who teach us navigate the various resources and tools. And then, the mission (WRITING EMAILS) begins. Training ends.

I finish training today. I’m going back home on Friday, which is day after. I first booked tickets for returning on Tuesday but then decided to spoil myself till the next weekend at home. That makes it 10 full days of luxury at home, cuddles from parents, gossips with grandma, helping grandpa with the newspapers, irritating grandma for all those murukkus she makes for me to take back home, welcoming aunties, and all that luxury of happiness and freedom and smiles and warmth. It also means I get to wake late, eat hot dosas, play around in the kitchen, call my brother and bug him from home (he’s in boarding school!), long hours of TV, yummy south Indian lunches. The lapful lot of words above this paragraph don’t mean much now right? Yes, it doesn’t to me. I’m going home. I’m getting my time after long. I’m going to enjoy it.