Employment brings satisfaction. Everyone wants to be employed. Why wouldn't they? Humans are egoistic above all else, and each wants to be able to have and maintain dignity and self-respect. In a world driven by money, being employed and earning a wage means they are able to support themselves, that their brains and their hands are able to produce something that is considered of enough value that it brings in money. Even the poorest beggar on the street would earn his keep if he could. The begging brings in pity and a corresponding lowering in self respect along with the coins. People do it if they have no other choice, but nobody would want to have to live like that, dependent on someone's pity for their survival.
Heavy funda. It's due to the recent session of on-campus recruitment carried out in my college recently. Companies come every year, analyze and interview young twenty-somethings who have just completed their third year in college and decide if they are worth placing in their company. The software companies usually come first and recruit nearly eighty percent of the total batch. I too have been recruited by one of these companies.
A couple of people put up a drop-box in the canteen, inviting people to write in their feelings and their placement experience, and what was special about it. I saw that, and then it struck me. Do I understand the implications of this? This is the first job I have been offered. This is the first time I spoke face to face with officials of a company, telling them why I think I should be employed by them to work with them, what I can do for them, what they can do for me, the first time that I tell someone that I should work for them and they should pay me for it.
The way it took place was funny too. I was suffering from viral fever two days before this company turned up for the recruitment process. Viral fever means a constant headache, loss of appetite, recurrent high fever, and a general weakness that overpowers every effort you make. I took to my bed and stayed in it for two days, swallowing medicine, bread and cheese sandwiches, and glucose drinks until I felt confident of getting up again. The medicine did help, and I was just left with a heavy head and a complete lack of appetite the day of the recruitment. Oh, I forgot. I was also left with the remnants of a rather unfortunate accident as well. A guy on a motorcycle ramming into me in a big hurry left me with bruises all over, and a rather nasty wound on my right arm. The healing took long enough, thanks to the fact that viral fever had cut my blood count by half.
But life's exciting enough. And fate likes to keep people on their toes. Which means that apart from nursing my injuries and dealing with a heavy head and general tiredness, I swallowed the last dose of medicine and gave the written test with absolutely no preparation. The amazing part is I cleared it too. This in the morning. Happy thoughts of having some time to rest before the next stage were rudely interrupted by the declaration of having that next stage immediately, which means I go to participate in group discussion in the afternoon in the same state of no food, no rest, heavy head and injury. And I clear this stage too!
Okay, so much for one day. At least now I could rest. They'd do the interview thing the next day. But no! They are such energetic people... they declared their intention of starting it in an hour. That very evening. That should give students enough time to change to formal dressing, gather their portfolio, and fill up the employment application form, in preparation for the grilling. For me, it was just enough time to swallow some fruit and an analgesic for my headache, wash my face, dress in formals, pick up my certificates and marksheets and the file they were supposed to be in, and run to the spot where they were checking and verifying students' academic records before sending them to be interviewed.
I had to hurriedly cram all my papers together and fill the form, which I botched up in my fatigue. That meant an extra procedure of ducking around the guy distributing the forms (who happened to be, that day, the senior professor in charge of all training and placement activities in my college) and get a second form out of him. He would have been really mad if he'd directly gotten to know I'd botched up the form. Then the long wait before my turn, and then actually sitting for the first serious interview of my life.
It was an HR interview and it was fun. Okay the guy wasn't smiling or anything, and I don't think he was entirely pleased with the answers I gave him, but somehow I enjoyed the process. His questions came shot after shot like gunfire, and I responded in like fashion. Then he slowed down and asked the questions that required thinking for a few seconds before answering. I bluffed answers in a couple of questions, and got away with it too. All along, I was carefully monitoring my body language and vocal expressions, as well as my eyes, so devastatingly giveaway for me.
Careful to sit the right way, so that I appeared upright and confident and yet wasn't discomfited by my elbow injury, careful to look into my interviewer's eyes but not stare, careful to moderate my voice to contain and display respect as well as self-respect, careful to express softness and yet sharpness, intelligence and yet wonder with my eyes at the appropriate moments, careful to think on my feet but not let my thoughts show in my eyes. The best part was all this came naturally to me, sitting there. I wasn't stiff when trying to control myself. The control was spontaneous, natural. I certainly wasn't stellar, but I must have done well enough, because I cleared it through to the second interview. I hadn't even attended their pre-placement presentation.
The second interview was the next morning, and it was a technical abilities interview. It didn't really go too well. My interviewer was done with me in ten minutes, and I myself was not satisfied with my answers. The one simple question he'd asked me to solve, I botched the logic of it. I didn't think I'd make it, so after another futile attempt to rejuvenate my appetite (really, loss of appetite is dangerous. You won't feel like eating, so you won't eat, and you won't get the strength so necessary for you to actually recover from what you're suffering), I returned to my hostel to sleep. Strangely enough, I cleared the second interview too, because a couple of hours later I was roused by frantic phone calls and messages, telling me I had cleared it and been selected, placed, employed, and I should get there as soon as possible. Not that it really helped me to get there; it was nothing but a set of thank-you-for-your-nice-hospitality speeches and advice for the future with the company and so on and so forth. I returned after this to sleep peacefully again.
Employed. It feels great. Of course, the actual employment, and working and pay package and all comes after a year, when I actually graduate and join the company, but it still does feel good to think that I'm employed. That someone talked to me and actually thought me good enough to work for them and be paid by them. It ain't that easy to convince someone to do that, no matter how good you may be.
