maRtiN’s cUbicLE: The Chronicles of “Being Grown Up” and “Growing Up”…

u might wonder what the hell cognitare is… well, it’s a business case cca in smu… i know, u might straight away get the impression of geeks mugging cracking business case there… hahaha… wrong… instead, i saw those ppl as smartass geniuses, yet they’re still sort-of-speak ‘humanly alive’… to sum up, they’re bright… okey… so these bunch of ppl annually held a business case competition… to crack a case n present them in front of the judges… yay… sounds like fun… lol…

so despite my cramped tight schedule with all those works n assignments, out of nowhere i joined this competition… it’s a team competition, so my team was me, yong, lius, n erwin… hahaha yerrite erwin! erwin saudara-saudara! skali lagi ah, ERWIN! ok enough… hahaha… buat yg lagi baca ini blog dgn tampang mlongo, disclaimer: i also dunno why i joined this team… yg ngajakin gw lius, but gw ngga ngeh klo ternyata lius ya diajakin ama erwin… duh!

eniwei, so yeah the competition kicked off with a workshop on how to crack a case… on one of the exercises, our team successfully estimated how many badminton rackets will sell in indonesia n how many revenues will the company earn if the company were to enter indonesia badminton racket market… so yeah, a good start i thought… hahaha… but the worst is yet to come…

we were given the case at about 7.30pm… n allocated 15 hours to analyze n crack the case… fun eh? overnighting at school from fri night to sat morning to crack a case, spent weekend having fun with my fabulous team… hahaha u bet… awal2 masi bisa ketawa2 lah… dunia masih terasa indah… eh lama2… by 1am, when we already planned that we were supposed to start making the ppt slides, we haven’t even come up with the same understandings of the case… malah ada yg ngotot minjem 6 books dari library which ended up ngga kepake… yah lo tau lah siapa… hahaha… saking udh gedegnya, team kita kaya sekumpulan orang gila di sel penjara lah… by 4am, ada yg tinggal make boxer ama baju doang, ada yg udh tiduran di bench depan kelas (ironically, the class mentioned is supposed to be Msc. for wealth management class, meaning master degree class, a.k.a kelasnya orang-orang elit)… gila dah pokoknya…

n akhirnya dengan slides setengah jadi n understandings yg ngga ketemu ke satu titik terang, jm 7an kita mencar balik ke rumah masing2… buat mandi n siap2 gitu lah, cuz by 10.30 the ppt was supposed to be emailed to cognitare n by that very time the team was supposed to gather at school… gw sempet tidur around 15mins i think… yong (which home is at woodlands) was overslept at MRT on his way back home bablas ampe jurong east… trus ada yg ngga balik juga, untuk alasan yg gw aja ngga tau ampe skarang… yah lo tau lah siapa… hahaha…

okeh, finally slides were finished around 1minute before deadline… kita smua udah kumpul di skolah… with formal attire lengkap ama dasi n some of us pake jas… keren punya lah pokoknya… hahaha… trus presentasi deh… n damn damn damn… awal2nya oke lah… ampe akhirnya lancar2 aj… baru deh pas QnA… dihajar bener ama juri2nya sangar gila… "how u want to advertise and sell this product to the low-end market?"… "u were saying that acquisition is the optimal strategy, so u think that companies like l’oreal which wants to enter a new market should always take over local companies?"… u know that kind of a thing…

sampe akhirnya ada satu judge, who is orang indo cewe, who is a member of cognitare, who we all didn’t even know who the hell she is, yg bilang something like this pas akhir2 QnA…
"let me make this clear for them (ngomong ke juri2 laennya)… (ngarahin pandangan mata ke kita) u are all indonesian right? (ngangguk2 kitanya)…… kalian itu yah… (loh kok dia ngomong pake bahasa indo? batin kita) dari tadi bilang sell sell, tapi sell pake apa? (CREP… yaq mulai nancep dah…) apa mau jual lewat supermarket? atau dititipin ke warung2? (CREP lagi…) ato pake gerobak sekalian datengin customer satu per satu? (CREP CREP CREP… duh sakit…) Terus kalian itu tadi contradict ur own point… kalian bilang acquisition itu optimal, trus pas ditekan ama juri kalian malah bingung dan contradict point kalian sendiri… (CREP lagi… trus salah satu dari kita ada yg ngomong… "iya kita juga sebenernya not very sure klo acquisition itu the best way sih… jadi under pressure tadi kita jadi makin ngga sure") nah walaupun kalian ngga yakin, jangan pernah nunjukin bahwa kalian ngga yakin di depan juri… (n the list went on… makin nancep dah pokoknya…)

in the end, keluarlah kita… lesu… i know what she said is correct n really true, but is that no better way to deliver them to us… n worse still, one of my teammate masi ada yg comment, "lo tadi salah sih <nama one of us - sensor>… mestinya jangan contradict point kita di depan juri…" yah lo tau lah gitu lah… n the rest of us were all like… wtf…

moral pengalaman ini… jangan deh pokoknya jangan jangan jangan pernah ikut cognitare business case competition klo ngga ada team dynamics… oh n haram hukumnya lo ikut cognitare with all year one students within ur team… n amit2 dah klo lo ampe kepikiran ikut cognitare when u have a whole stack of homework to be done on ur weekend… for me, sekali aja udha cukup dah… nyesel gw… capek ati, capek pikiran, capek fisik… balik2 hari sabtunya gw langsung tepar 16hours straight… n masi tetep aj capek…