A Whole New Way of Looking at the World

During my undergraduate years in India, I spent summers interning at several companies. I was mostly doing basic engineering projects, and I was definitely the lowest person in the pecking order. I got constant reminders of my status, such as when the tea cart came around each afternoon: High-ranking officers were served tea in a porcelain cup on a tray with milk, sugar, and biscuits or other snacks; midlevel managers received no tray; and workers like me were given premixed tea in an ordinary cup. But there was another gauge of where I ranked in the corporate hierarchy, and it had a big impact on me. It came in the form of a tattered magazine that arrived on my desk one day.