This is the most impressing farewell letter I have ever seen in my entire career life up to the moment, yet to see more of this kind...which makes farewell equally lovely as welcome, or something not representing The End.

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an Intel insider for the last day...

From: Akundi, Madhusudhan (I'd like to put down the full name, though I never know how to pronounce it, he was from, and now back to, India)

To: APAC Biz Ops Team

such a gloomy day on my last day at Intel... my life in HK and Intel has been quite the opposite though and I can honestly say I enjoyed every moment of it, except for the demand review meetings with Jxxx Anxxxx when he sucked the oxygen out of the room...

lot of good memories and I thought I will pen down a few thoughts from my life in Intel and HK before I say goodbye to both.

when i heard I got a job in the sales and marketing team in Intel, Hong Kong, i assumed everyone would dress formally with at least a tie and the work would revolve around phone calls and expensive lunch meetings and daily happy hours with clients (on intel expense of course) and a whole bunch of travel to exotic locations... my hopes got dashed when i saw Dhanxxx wearing sandals and jeans to work and I caught Pattxx Chxx staring at complex excel files and I heard Craig Nasxxxxxx muttering inane words like TAM/SOM/SAM/MSS... i was told I would be doing all of that, except for wearing sandals to work of course... life took a crazy turn right there...

in the bootcamp, they proudly told us that all intel employees work in cubicles and there are no cabins for any managers... the biggest incentive to progress up the management ladder was removed.. I thought I will quickly become a manager, get a cabin and sleep quietly in the afternoons.... but that's not the case, hence I remain where i was 2 yrs ago, and I blame the 'no cabin' rule...

when i checked my org chart, I realized I was only 6 steps down Paul Otellini... could not believe my luck.... being conservative, i gave myself 6 years to become the CEO... but when i went to ISMC in Anaheim, I saw an ocean of Intel employees.... thousands of them... only then i realized my true place in society....

I never knew much about the power of excel before coming to Intel and only here I realized it's true power.. it truly can mess up and wreak havoc on normal easy lives.... DSS, GIFT - not in this lifetime again..

acronyms being the norm in Intel, never cozied up to me.. the only time my eyes lit up to an acronym was when the first time my calender showed I need to attend (to) a 'BUM' .. only to realize later on it meant something else..

the senior folk always told me to follow the BKMs (best known methods) while I always tried to seek out the 'best yet unknown methods' (BYUMs) ... those methods still remain unknown to me...

BMT folks live and die by details... my only advice is 'always round off numbers, it will save you a lot of time' ... look at everything from a Zbb viewpoint and see what can make ur work more efficient and effective... if you are not leaving the workplace by 6:00 pm, something is wrong in your work strategy...

work outside Intel in a place like Hong Kong is truly spectacular if you can take advantage of it... i treasure my friday 'Happy Hours' which i attended with more sincerity than I ever attended team meetings or trainings..

some of the best humorous moments in intel were reading english emails from folks for who english is not the main language... 'one field sales guy after winning a major deal wrote 'we kiss ass' .. i dont know if he meant 'kick ass' or he truly did what he wrote to win the deal... another disti manager wrote 'we are hardly working but might not hit POR' ... wonder why!!!!

Finally, the biggest 'TAKEAWAY' from my Intel life so far is this ... 16 pairs of expensive sunglasses in the last two years, thanks to our insurance policy ... and add to that two years worth contact lens and two pairs of good regular spectacles... if anyone has topped me, please send an email and I would like to know your 'BKM' .....

I would like to thank all of you for helping me some way or the other and please do thank me if I have been of any help to you... I really appreciate the sincere hard work put in everyday by the pantry attendants, the previous tea lady, the garbage collection ladies, the always smiling receptionists and the fantastic super efficient travel agency lady - Wylexx Yu.

I would finally say to all who think their work lives have too much pressure and that their life sucks, think again .. 'we all have great jobs, work in a great company, get great salaries, get weekends and leaves, go visit places, get to dine in expensive places and stay at expensive hotels on company expense, and are perhaps in the fortunate 5% of the world's population enjoying all these' ... true pressure is when you don't know where your next meal is going to come from.....

so goodbye folks, and keep in touch... have cc'ed my personal email ID in this email, so hope to catch you all somewhere sometime...

P.S: if anyone wants cheap sunglasses, I am going to put up a sale on eBay soon.......................

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