how do they sustain themselves

This blog today is dedicated at the one question that I ask myself everytime i think of Shankar - 'Why?Why would you work this hard?'..

To start off, ill take a couple of steps back and show u the large picture (diligently doing what Alissa - my boss taught me to do.. :p .. 'take a step back Shiv!' ). There are 4 kinds of jobs :

a) High effort and high return : I banking/consulting kinda work i think
b) High effort and low return (god help these ppl ) : sales cos. in india, a lot of non-i banks
c) Low effort and high return : this is the kind that doesnt exist :pp.
d) Low effort and low return : This is the zone of the slackers, the poets, the painters, photographers etc etc and as post MBA options - u have the P&Gs and a host of IT companies

The typical P&G person would lumber in at 9:30ish and makes his way to the pantry area (or if your aussie or wannabe aussie - ud get spinnelli) to get his days first shot of caffeine.. and add to that the subsequent quick exchange of gossipary(is that a word?) notes and you've spent the best part of the next 30 mins.

The rest of the day is not very different - only interspersed with 'meetings' - basically avenues of doing IM! - anyways - i will not digree into a describing a typical day - will leave that for another day..

Back to Shankar - our diligent IIT, IIM topper type guy who is a Tam bram to boot - rational and structured to the core, does not believe in ambiguity - a full head and shoulders above any1 ive met at clarity and depth of thinking ... A guy who will question the smallest thing till he has understood it to a level that u didnt know exist - People call him the 'Why why?' guy. - He is the only one ive met who can break down an emotional response to several smaller rational ones :)

Anyway - our man is a non-typical P&Ger in several ways :
1) He will not stop at a 80:20 analysis - no analysis is complete without doing the full 100% even if that takes 5 more hours
2) He does not believe in constraints like 'personal time' and 'sleep' - supposedly the only question he asks himself is 'can i work a little more to grow the business'

Anyway - the objective of the blog is not to glorify or vilify shankha - its to try and understand what makes these people that driven? Ive got several very very driven frends - Gopi, Tholia, Anuj, Soumi etc etc - but none of the others put so much fight for so less return .. and I continue to wonder..

So we did a 'why-why' analysis with Shankha - and it turns out that he wants to do it for himself - to feel good about what he is doing at work - to revel in self glory that he has gone that extra distance today ... and his learning everyday sustains him!

And im surprised - and pleasantly - cos everytime some said in an interview that im there for the 'learning' - i thought it was a whole load of bull - and today to see some1 really live that life.. wow...

anyway - yet another useless blog - doesnt help any1 - doesnt talk about issues.. just a rambling of whats going on in my mind.. and especially when in a confused head - its a sureshot recipe for what shankar would call - 'hopeless meandering in the desert'.