Seven Years Already !!

Seven Years Already !!

Memories rule our life.  Every single moment or thing, that we live or do morphs into memories.Our brain maps each memory to a certain set of keywords which might be a visual image or a thought. One can try to decipher the route which our train of thoughts takes  and i am sure they would find themselves laughing or at the least smiling at what actually was the origin of the thoughts . And with an associative memory , it doesn’t take much to start a trip down the memory lane and relive them.

For the past couple of weeks , i have been attending job interviews. And i just can not seem to stop myself from reminiscing my first ever job interview with Infosys !. And what’s more special is that it happened on this day 29th June,just seven years earlier!  The campus interviews  for  my batch of  engineering students (back then , a graduate now , obviously :P) were scheduled during the initial days of our final year. And TCS  had been given the first slot like every year. I had not gone past the aptitude round  for that. But i wasn’t disappointed much , I don’t know why. That year was the first time Infosys had planned to be one of the companies in the campus recruitment and they had the second slot . I had resolved and made a decision to succeed  in the recruitment process with them. I had to somehow.

So the day dawned bright and early. I got ready and like most days , dad dropped me off and left . All the eligible candidates gathered in the college auditorium and Infy’s famous Power-Point presentation which has the awe-inspiring Mysore  campus pictures and  “This is my infy ” song was about to start. But then ,to my horror i realized , I had forgotten my college ID card !  And ID card was totally necessary to enter into the exam hall where the aptitude had been scheduled. Mobile phones were restricted back then. But some of my friends did bring it with them . So i called dad from a mobile and asked him to bring my ID. Like every concerned parent does, he admonished me for my careless attitude  ,but he said he will bring it .

The presentation had started and it was supposed to last for 25 minutes. The aptitude test was to start right after. I was not able to concentrate properly, was so damn tensed and nervous. “What a bad start ! ” was the thought in my mind and it worried me ,as to how the day will progress. The presentation ended and i was nervous wreck , by then, almost on the verge of tears. I came out of the auditorium ,thinking that i am going to have to sit this one out. But my father , just as always , had rushed(literally) to my rescue and had handed my ID card to a friend , who gave it to me . I was so happy that i couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear.

Praising Appa (that’s how i call dad ), I almost skipped to the exam hall with a newly found confidence. The aptitude was pretty easy and i thought most of my classmates would find it the same way,as we all had prepared together for it.The duration for the aptitude got over and i had finished well before time . I came out of the hall and my dear friend , Karthik , who had already been placed in TCS , a geek by nature , asked me how i had performed. I flashed him my smile and showed him thumbs up sign. I told him it was easy. As others came out and i looked at their face reaction , i was like “huh oh , something is wrong”.As we started discussing , each of them telling how difficult they found the test to be , self-doubt creep-ed in . I thought i must have missed something , and i didn’t tell the others that i found it was a workable paper.An hour later , the names of the people who had cleared the aptitude round were announced in the auditorium .They had almost reached the end of the list and i was almost sure i hadn’t made it ! But no , my name was the second last . Whew !!

The interviews started and they were occurring in our college library , my favorite place !! 😀 . Infosys doesn’t have a technical round , only the HR interview. So my turn came and i went in. It started with the infamous “Tell me about yourself” question. So i told her about myself , then came the hobbies and how would i not mention books. So she asked me , whether i have read ramyana and mahabharata , i said yes . From then on she asked me questions related to my opinion about them, the characters , my take away from each book, characters which inspired me . Questions about books ! Who wouldn’t love to talk about books? In between she did ask me totally unrelated question stopping me in the middle of my answer for the previous question , then the next question would be the same question she had asked earlier which i had answered. But still it was fun .And the final question

HR:”Will you be flexible about your work location ?”

Me:”Of course, sure i would be willing to work anywhere , as long as it is not Kashmir,cause i am scared of terrorists”

And i walked off with a goofy grin !!

Gosh !! what a ridiculous answer !! Now when i think about it , i understand the incredulous look on the HR’s face ! I feel like i should dig up and go underground after answering like that! Damn embarrassing !! That answer should have actually nullified all the correct answers . But  no ,destiny had other thoughts ! I got in 😀 :D.When i called home , my parents and my elder brother were super happy. But till i got the offer letter , my appa used to ask me,periodically, “did you really get recruited ? Did  you really hear your name being announced ?” and i would badger my friends whether they heard my name when the results were announced. It got to a point where they told me off for worrying about it 😛

First job is always pretty close to everyone’s heart !  And so is mine . There have been many life defining moments when i was with Infosys and it has helped a great extent in my ever happening transformation.If not  for infy, i wouldn’t have met such wonderful persons and great bloggers. Nor would i have met people who are in my besties club,now. I never thought i would quit infosys! But there comes a point in life , where letting go and moving on is the best option for all the people involved.

So yeah , missing some one or some thing or some particular moment ? Dont worry ! What are memories for !

Jump in and enjoy your trip down memory lane !! 🙂 🙂 🙂