A corporate lunch worth 7.50/-

Summer internship- the only time of the 2 months of an MBA`s life which is most entertaining , awesome thing which is the most looked into piece by everyone. Its exciting if your internship is fixed, scary if u havent got it still. The one I am about to tell you is a small incident of my internship with Reliance communication in Lucknow (my hometown ). Its about a lunch that we (4 people ) gobbled down at 7.50/- per head. Yep thats the cost which came to us.

Our field work required us to survey 200 mobile shops in the whole of lucknow. Mind you that it was the year 2008 when mobile were not so rampant as they are today and we were tasked to survey the mobile shops selling CDMA handset sales. We were a group of 5 people who had decided to divide the area between ourselves. We were a bunch of people coming from various institutes and places. 2 were from Lucknow university, 1 from amity, Me from jaipur and my neighbour Amit from Wellingkar. The only advantage – we all were from Lucknow basically.

The cafetaria was our board room. All our decisions and all happened there over endless cups of coffee ( which was free). We went to the office only when our project guide called us or we had something to discuss regarding the current status of the survey. So one day me and Amit went to the office around noon and saw Rajat and his partner having lunch. It was buffet system there and we sat down while we caught our breaths. The table around which we were sitting was partially obsured by a pillar. So that meant that me, amit and his partner were hidden from the view of the service counter. Rajat offered us lunch and being the lazy bunches we were we said yes without bothering to go and pick up plates. So he brings us lunch in the same plate in which he and his partner were eating ( just like you bring food for your family in your plate at weddings). We gobbled down the food three times. And not to forget it was full to the brim each and everytime sometimes even being overloaded.

Image is only representational

So a plate full of food was served 5 times between 4 people and the Service guy at the counter must have been wondering that how much food can one person eat? He could only see rajat with the plate. We 3 were completely hidden from the view. He could see that we had arrived but couldnt ask us to take another plate as he couldnt see us eating. That time one lunch cost us 30/- per plate and you can imagine how much did it cost us.. 7.50/- per person. That was a misery trick combined with laziness as we were hell bent on saving money. The company was not providing any stipend so we had decided to make the most of the oppurtunities which came by us.

So this was our 7.50/- corporate lunch and we all have a hearty laugh whenever we think about those awesome training days. It doesn`t get any cheaper than this.