There are non-peak times in projects and we all testers love it. However, here is Mampi Das, our workforce and office admin who has a job where there are no off-peak times but more peak times. She has been instrumental in helping Moolya grow because she made Moolya her own. She has a Masters Degree in Business Administration and her college should be proud of what she is doing – business, administration.
She came through a referral of my student Sonia Bansal and she was quite energetic and bright when we interviewed her. When I spoke to her for the first time, I tried setting in right expectations on what to expect when she lands at our office for an interview. I said, “There is no reception or receptionist to welcome you, get you seated and make you comfortable waiting. We are in a garage, probably small that you can see it entirely at one glance” and to which she replied, “I don’t mind how the place looks like”. She came in and proved herself wrong. She does mind how the place looks like and she did make the place very good to work.
She is very humble and respects all jobs. When there was a moment to do some cleaning for the office, she just took up a cloth and started cleaning whatever she could. I felt sorry to get people do it but then they loved doing it as they considered Moolya their second home. Don’t you laundry your clothes? Exactly like that.
She has this great ability to gel with people and make them very comfortable to speak to her. She has been a great listener too and hence she is able to pick things up. It is because of her dedicated we have been able to move forward in plenty of non-testing areas. It is so important that we have someone like Mampi who facilitates us to do our jobs. For the usage of a metaphor, she is our Keke. Who is Keke? Keke is a superwoman from one of our customers. Her role in the project is to facilitate people to be effective. Mampi does that, very well. My own worries on administration have been taken and owned by her very well.
Here is what Mampi has to say
PS: Mampi, you were our first non-testing hire. What were your impressions when you walked into our garage office and what made you excited about joining us?
MD: The day I got a call from you for an interview, that was the first impression of Moolya. The way you explained to me about Moolya was the best part. About office look, I don’t care about it. It’s true that I was confused when I was searching for old Moolya office but Thanks to Pari, She instructed me properly and after 10 mins I reached there. She told me to look straight “She was in orange colour dress”, I saw her from half km distance. She went inside the office and I entered in that small lane. For few seconds, I was thinking in which office I have to go. Finally, I saw Moolya board, entered in office. Then Pradeep and Pari welcomed me with a very cute smile.
The first day in Moolya office made me very happy. Every person is caring & gives lots of respect to each other. I can say that Moolya is the best place where I found mix of everything. Here, I would like to thanks to my friend Nibedita and Sonia who referred me to join Moolya.
PS: How difficult and different is Moolya compared to other companies you have worked or seen or heard?
MD: There is no doubt that Moolya is different from other companies as I have changed so many consultancies and company. I was famous for changing companies in my friend circle. They used to tease me I can’t stay in 1 company for more than 3 to 6 months. I can say it was not my fault, as it totally depends on luck and environment of the company. The main things I don’t like in other company are politics, misunderstanding, ego, etc.
Moolya is free from all these things and I wish Moolya will not be affected by any of these bad things.
PS: You were involved in conferences, events, workshops, interview drives and much more. Do you want to share some of your experience doing it all?
MD: That was an awesome experience when I was doing all the events. Maybe it was my first live experience but the workshop arrangement was awesome. I remember when we were organizing all the materials for the workshop; I can say our workshop stall was the best one. On the previous night of eSpark event, I was much tensed – what if I will forget something to carry, at the last moment we were making one poster for “drop your cards here” :). Nice creativity by me, Sunil & Yagnesh.
I got chance to get involved in organizing events like “E-Sparks 2011″, attend testing conferences likes “Bug.De.Bug 2012″, & have conducted many interviews drives for Moolya. As the first workforce admin of Moolya, I had to play lots of responsibilities & co-ordination to make these events & drives alive. I have learned tons of pointers & other minute details which assist in making the events alive & excited.
Apart from experience & learning, these events & drives have also given me many good memories of fun. Hmm, few bad ones too when some of the arrangements made went little bad 🙂
I don’t know what happens in other companies but being a part of Moolya, I have got exposure to various situations & how to handle them, all within the time span of 1 year 🙂
PS: What kind of pressure you have and continue to handle in Moolya? How do you handle it?
MD: After reading the above question, the first thing that popped up in my mind is the famous quote from the 3-idiots movie “Life is a pressure cooker”. If I will talk about pressure, I can say life is full of pressures. So, I don’t want to talk about it. But yes, one tip for tackling the situations would be “best remedy is just to forget everything & concentrate on your work and think how I can do it better.”
PS: You have cared a lot for Moolya. I am sure it is not because we pay you but has to be from heart. How did you fall in love with Moolya?
Everyone loves Moolya not only me. I believe that we Moolyavans are the best employee, as we respect it from our heart. I know you must be thinking why I am using “we” everywhere. The answer is “Moolya is not made of only one employee; It’s a pool of all kind of talented testers and non-testers”.
Love is natural it comes directly from heart and we don’t realize that we are in love. The same thing has happened with me here in Moolya and this is my short love story about Moolya. J
PS: You work under very strict and stringent timelines. What keeps you motivated to keep hitting the target most of the times?
MD: Feedback is the main pointer which makes me hit my target & allowed me to get achievement most of the time. Moolya means “Value”, name itself motivates me that “if I have to be in Moolya, I should give more value here.”
PS: Here is a space for you to write about specific people in Moolya and your funny / interesting experience working with them?
MD: Hurrah! Here I can say few interesting working experience with Moolya people.
- One day Pradeep told me to show him the “function” key in keyboard and I was so stupid that I didn’t know.
- We used to tease Yagnesh “Kitna khayega”.
- When we were shifting to new office Vipin was in his native, unfortunately the place Vipin has choose to sit he didn’t get it after coming back from his home
- Karaoke song event at Moolya which made 2 songs popular in Moolya. “O Mariya” song sung my Mohan Psk and “Adda” (Bengali Song) song sung by PS
- PS was trying to scare Sunil by showing the water bottle with open cap over his laptop. Accidently he did drop the water on his favourite Dell Laptop. :p
PS: What were some cool moments for you in Moolya?
MD: Moolya itself is cool. I don’t know about many cool moments but I would like to include the following few points in the “cool moments” categories:
- I badly miss my old moments of our old garage office. It’s very true that “Old is Gold”.
- Attending Bug.De.Bug Conference and organizing events like eSparks and many interview drives for Moolya.
- Organizing the Bug Bash for Moolyavans.
- Playing foosball in office.
- I was not aware about various documents required for the client interaction from the business perspective. But, as of today it’s a cool moment for me that I have learned so many things from business perspective.
PS: What would you like to do in your 2nd year at Moolya that you have not done in the 1st year?
Everyone does promise in a new year or for future. But, I believe in showing rather than saying that I will do this and that. May be I am wrong but I am like this only, who knows what is going to happen tomorrow.
I want to change few things in Moolya where I feel I should improve, like we can take new desktop for our employees rather than paying for rental desktops.
PS: What memories do you want to share about working with people in Moolya?
There are so many memories I had while working in Moolya. Some of them would be:
- Listening “Kolavari-D” song in old office.
- Going for work after lunch from Madras Central/Aditya.
- Having fun with Manju while walking from “Office-Aditya snacks-Bus Stop” while going home.
- Enjoying the bus ride with Moolyavan from Bangalore to Chennai in order to attend Bug.De.Bug conference.
- Madras central ka jala hua Aloo Paratha
- When Santhosh came to office he kept on telling me ideas on how to simplify the workforce admin activities.
- When I look at Pari from the work prospective, I always remember her checklist and the way she tries to manage the checklist.
- DS who is famous for MindMap. I remembered the day when he told me to prepare a Mindmap for preparing a Laptop checklist. Finally I have sent lower version of Mindmap and really saying it’s helped me a lot.
PS: You carry a beautiful smile throughout the day, throughout the year. How do you do that?
If I can make someone happy from my smile, I can do it every time.
PS: (For fun) Who is a good boss? Mohan PSK or Pradeep Soundararajan? (You can’t say “both” 😛 )
Very clever 🙂 I was expecting this question. According to me, in Moolya there is no Boss. Everyone is co-owner of the company.
_end of interview_
Isn’t it awesome when someone says, “Everyone is a co-owner of the company”. It is so true. I realized that if employees are not co-owner, they start to expect someone (perhaps, the so called management) to solve their problems. Here in Moolya, people pick things up and solve it. That is why we believe we are an awesome company and who makes it awesome are people like Mampi.
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