But now I am totally in my zone. I feel kicked about my job.

Today, on the way out of office, I shared the elevator with Santanam. He doesn’t speak much, always reading something on his Berry or flipping through some printout or the other.

BTW there is some talk that he might make senior partner this year. Yetch and Rajni were saying that we should convince him to take us out for drinks sometime so that we can bond with him on a ‘personal level’ before appraisals in March. This, of course, is a preposterous idea. Personally I don’t think partners ever allocate projects or decide on bonuses based on personal rapport. In fact, according to the new appraisal system, all promotion decisions are now taken by a committee of partners and principals. Of course, I didn’t discuss all this with Yetch and Rajni. I want to go out for a drink with Santanam, but purely to get to know him personally.

Where was I? Yes, in the elevator.

So Santanam was with me in the lift and he was looking quite cheerful. Smiling and all. When I smiled back at him he told me that he was very pleased indeed with how Tantra (Panchatantra is too long a name for a project) was going. Though, he said he had a feeling that the project would require at least an extra month to complete.

I asked him, delicately, if this meant we were working too slowly. He laughed loudly and told me that I was too new to understand what this meant and that I should talk to one of the senior analysts about it.

Thankfully Tony was standing outside the ATM in the building lobby and I immediately walked up to him.

By the way Tony has been acting maha shady for about a week now. He actually got into an argument with Santanam two days ago and finally Yetch and Rajni had to apologize on Tony’s behalf before we could get back to work. Rajni thinks the incident has irreversibly fucked up Tony’s ratings and annual bonus.

Tony looked very amused when I told him about the conversation I had with Santanam in the lift. He took me to the new Barista outside to chat.

Apparently project extensions weren’t exactly a bad thing when it happened in consulting. I was, of course, quite scandalized. But then Tony explained how it worked. As long as a project delay was being paid for by the client, it was okay because Dufresne would keep getting paid as long the project kept going on.

Tony said that this was why the India Copper Corporation project in Goa, which was supposed to be a three-month strategy review, was now in its sixth year. Dufresne currently has twenty-one consultants at India Copper implementing an optimization and expansion programme for the purchase department and also, simultaneously, a seven-member team preparing a road map on how to outsource the very same purchase department.

I was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with Tony’s gossip. This project extension business was in clear violation of Dufresne’s ‘Good Consulting Code’. I still carry a laminated copy of the code in my wallet. Nobody else in office does. But it is policy.