‘Real time’ Abhijit kept saying over and over again. ‘Real time, real time.’

I was itching to get on with things and was relieved when Abhijit said he was leaving me on my own. And then just as he closed the door behind him he told me that due to security reasons I was not to access the Internet, email or any instant messaging client on the laptop.

This was only a minor inconvenience. I hadn’t scored a B+ in computing methods without being able to craft the most complicated yet elegant and clean pieces of code and macros. I informed Abhijit of my grade and he seemed not a little moved. He even said that few people in Dufresne have a B+ in anything. I just smiled, modestly.

After he left I spent some time going through the spreadsheet model. It was very, very complicated and had twenty-two separate sheets. When I clicked on one of the SUBMIT buttons the sheets ran by themselves, making calculations, for twenty minutes before stopping.

I’d never ever seen a spreadsheet like that in my life! The file was huge. 14 MB!

Of course all this did not perturb me one little bit. I quietly reminded myself about my B+ before diving into the sheet whole-heartedly with the spirit of a marauding Visual Basic Viking.

After two hours, when I decided to take a break, I walked over to Abhijit’s cubicle to tell him that things were proceeding very nicely indeed. Then I casually asked him what he thought was a good price for the acquisition. He looked slightly annoyed but then said that anything between 120 and 150 crore was a good price.

I went back to the conference room and spent the next two hours on my own, trying to write code. It wasn’t easy and I had to take a coffee break after I completed coding just one box and button. When I reached the coffee machine Jenson was standing there and we started talking.

Jealous Jenson was evidently disturbed at my sudden assignment. His face fell when I told him that Abhijit had told me to work on a top-secret assignment only known as ‘Project Copper Chimney’. Jenson nodded and told me he knew about the ICICI Bank project.

As you may expect, Diary, I was flabbergasted. The fact that Jenson knew about the client whereas I, who would be creating their valuation model single-handedly, using advanced software, didn’t, was somewhat disturbing. But what really amazed me was the nonchalance with which he revealed the client’s identity.

This was a clear violation of the highest tenets of client confidentiality. And client confidentiality is really the philosophy at the very centre of a consulting firm. I was going to explain to Jenson just how serious his violation of this philosophy was when Vineet came by and asked me if Abhijit had pulled me into the ICICI project as well.

Clearly this blatant disregard for client confidentiality is a rampant malaise that I will have to handle.