Analyst...Till I Die!

Friday evenings are usually somber. But this one was unusual…atypically grave with a hint of perplexity and yawns as per taste. And when people started heading home at 6 pm, it simply brought a new, strange flavor to this already uncharacteristic evening. While my eyes were busy noticing the mass exodus and my mouth was expanding and contracting like a balloon, my brain was at it again - searching for answers to a one-sentence problem statement.

“A problem statement is the perfect example of how a childhood can go wrong due to parental pressure”, I thought. These problem statements are like foster children, typically adopted after a heated exchange in a high level business meeting, one where none of the parties involved are ready to take the blame for the procreation of the real child – which in most cases is a downward revenue trend. A mutual decision then shifts the focus onto this foster child, while the actual culprit child still continues to live a healthy life in-spite of a non-performing childhood. From this point on, the complexity forced onto the foster child just keeps on multiplying, until one day when all the confusion and pressure makes the child lose his focus, head in a totally unwarranted direction & search for answers of his own existence in the first place. That is when you as an analyst know that you and your business partner have screwed the analysis up…big time!

Another mail with a new set of problem statements strutted into my inbox. My right hand, in a quick reflex action, tried to move the cursor onto the mail so as to enable me to read it. But my brain acted like a road which has just seen a light drizzle of snow pass over it, thus making it slippery and hard to maneuver on. My right hand was not equipped with any ABS mechanism and so it skit across the outlook screen, tentatively at that, and came to a halt only after crashing into the ‘close’ button at the top right. For the second time in my life, I was proud of myself. The first time was about 15 minutes ago, when out of sheer nuisance I had called up a few friends and planned a Friday night out at a lounge bar. The third time was at the lounge bar when I killed the guilt of procrastinating a deliverable with a couple of Tequila shots. Another 2 Tequila shots, a couple of beer mugs & a large vodka later I was proud of myself for a fourth time – apparently for no particular reason. To make it a five-for, I puked on reaching home.

Morning brought with itself the realization of the impending doom, waiting for me in my inbox. Second thoughts, as usual, told me that today was a Saturday - read ‘two more days to Monday’. And, as always, I decided to let the blues remain an undisputed property of Monday.

I switched on the television and changed the channel to Aaj Tak. Another ‘Breaking News’ was creating sensation and out of sheer curiosity I decided to see what it was all about. In exactly 5 seconds I found out that they were going gung-ho about a supposed love affair between two contestants in the Indian Idol show. Thankfully, 10 years back, I had voted against my gut feeling of becoming a journalist. And about a year back, I had also chosen not to become ‘Aapka A.K’ by participating in Indian Idol. The ‘Breaking News’ definitely broke my patience.

I switched over to Star Cricket and started watching the highlights of the India-England test series. I saw Dhoni unleashing a barrage of fours & sixes and thought to myself, “Could I have done that?”. A career in cricket could have been possible if I hadn’t been frustrated with the high frequency of shoe damage as a result of pace bowling. A little bit of more talent and just a few kilograms less would have also helped.

As my thoughts declared an early retirement from the game, an ad about a ‘Dream Commentary Job’ with ESPN-Star Sports stole my attention. “Ah! Now that is a job to live for”, I said to myself. You just have to look at cricket all day long, comment on each ball that is being bowled, and at the end of the match analyze the day’s performances. “Analyze! Doesn’t that sound familiar?”, I thought. Even I look at data all day long, analyze high/low performances, catch trends, and attribute reasons to them. Then I just wait for another day when a new player comes into the equation and creates a new ballgame for me to analyze.

And suddenly I started thinking clearly, despite the hangover from last night. Yes, I could have dreamt of being or have been a singer, writer, cricketer, actor or a vegetable vendor for all you know. But, no matter what I did, I would have had to analyze myself or someone else on a daily basis, and take life decisions based on that analysis. In my case, I was getting paid for it too.

I knew that some day I might just die burning in a ‘Super-ANOVA’ explosion or be crushed under heavy ‘Factor Loadings’. In the worst case, I might be murdered by a really ‘Mean’ value. But all of it, I thought, was worth the excitement of identifying that small little trend crawling like a rattle snake in the data.

I pledged then, and I pledged with my heart. “I am gonna be an Analyst”, I screamed, “Analyst…till I die!”.