Wipro Campus Arena

What is culture?

I am supposed to be the culture vulture of the campus outfit of Wipro Technologies. I had spent the first ten years of my  career with an organization that is steeped in culture, a culture that is unique and distinct in each of it’s flavours, I am speaking of the Indian Army of course.  And when I joined the campus team and was given the sobriquet of the Culture Vulture, I got down thinking. This article is born out of that thinking, ………The last ten years of my life was spent with the Indian Army. Ahh., those were heady days of adventure and fun. The work was hard of course but that ever present threat to one’s life was a drug which always had me on the high. Sweet was the aroma of adventure and sweeter the ache in my muscles after the long arduous treks in the mountains. How much ever the work, however hard the task, we always went about it with a cheer. Never did we cry, never did we crib. We always used to convert the work assigned into a challenge. 

     In the National Defence Academy,  our punishment for failing to get the weekly haircut was to be sent on a 20 KM trek with 20 kilos on  backs. Did we cry?  Did we crib?  Did we write to our parents crying our hearts out ? OH NO!!   We were bashful enough to engage ourselves in a competition with each other, for the closest time possible to complete the run. Oh! They were days. We were on a masochist trip.

 What challenges could the corporate environment throw for me. And then they told me to resource people for Wipro Technologies, I laughed to myself and thought “Yeh to baya haath ka khel hai ”.  And then the requirements started pouring in. 

My boss called me up early one day and said, Bharat, we have an urgent requirementand we need tons of resources, What are you doing about it? Hardly had I had the time to articulate a reply and my mobile phone started buzzing. This time it was the campus head: “ Bharat, Can you a draw a strategy for us for next year?”         

Even as I was trying to make a plan this task, I receive yet another call. Oh our operations manager:  “ Bharat, We want you to plan and conduct a drive  the  day after tomorrow”

The challenges were coming in like a downpour in Chirapunjee, and I was neither equipped with an umbrella nor a rain cape.  The tasking was unending, the time  of reaction short and requirements building up faster than the killer Tsunami Wave.

What was I to do? Whom should I consult? Where should I turn ? So, I called my boss and said, “Help me through”. He spent the next one hour guiding me through the intrigues of campus recruitment, the processes, the challenges, the environment and the competition. And mind you he is a man who receives hundreds of  mails a day. He had a choice that day. To leave me to my destiny. But he chose otherwise. He chose to spend an hour with me. He chose to assist and guide me at the cost of his own personal time. That is the culture of Wipro technologies. We make and cater time for each other at great expense to our own selves.

Then called up my operations manager. She had an off that day. She too had a choice. She need not have returned my call. She could have chosen to remain silent. But she returned the call at 1930h. She answered my queries, with patience, with empathy and with a smile. Did I notice an irritation in her voice? NO.  Could I sense impatience in her tone ? NO. Was she paid to take and answer an official call on a holiday? NO. Why did she chose to assist me? Yet again, because she shares the spirit of Wipro.

I am perhaps prejudiced, in my choice of people. But that is because, I chose the people with whom I interact daily. Wipro Technologies is family that is 75000 strong and growing and I am sure that each one of us shares this undying and fiery spirit. The spirit of Wipro.

If you gotta be somewhere, you gotta be here!!!