The King(s) of the Good or the Bad Times... who cares!!

As I mentioned in my previous post, it is indeed disturbing that I have so much time at my disposal. With the approaching placement season, we are all to work our posteriors off figuring out the nitty-gritties of Finance and try our best to untangle the mess of HR (Hamara Rape) questions. And rightly so, I must add.
From the interactions I have had with members of the industry and my brethren from the student community, it actually seems that Mr. Porter and his famed 5-forces of bargaining power have undergone a tectonic shift in the recruiter-recruit landscape. Bad timing one would say but as is my wont to take a look at things from unusual (read useless) perspectives, let us try and understand how the fina preparation of a final year MBA student would vary from the Good to the Bad times.
Before starting on this rather controversial, and yet soul-searching, quest lets set some benchmarks to demarcate the Gooooood times from the Bad ones:

• Good times are HR-killers, Bad times are Placecom-killers
• Average packages are cooked up in Good times, they are cooked harder in Bad times
• Good time gossips include packages, locations, profiles, parties, Bad times gossip is just one question "sab place ho jayenge?"
• In Good times entrepreneurship is a fad, in Bad times it is a different perspective of looking at life

Apart from remonstrating on the various differences that exist between the Good and Bad times, I did get one striking similarity in the two times. The preparation enthu of the students. Yes, come what may the students have distinct apathy towards "placement preparation". The Good times cause this phenomena by virtue of the euphoria surrounding everything in the world while the Bad times bring upon you a depression, almost resembling decay.
Most of the time is spent researching (read Google-ing) the Web in search of some arcane topic, which eventually gives way to "Top 10 ______ movies of all time" where _______ is filled by a particular genre, depending on your mood. In Good times, the genres are comedy, romance while in Bad times the focus is on drama and crime (possibly as an alternative career choice!!). While the students live between meals, new passions like untried sports, photography, poetry (the sad type, especially) are cultivated, which we hope will earn us brownie HR points. Sleep knows no upperbound while all the requisite books are neatly stacked near the bed, untouched.
Come Boom or Bust boss... we are the King of all times... Good or Bad who cares!!!