Friday, October 14, 2005

Where's that first rung? Where's the damn ladder? Give me my ladder! (Part2)

ATTENTION: This article is not career advice!The author makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents hereof and shall not be responsible for any loss or damage caused to the audience by the direct or indirect use of this material.

[Scene 1: Wednesday 11 AM, hero still in the pentagonal room, on the phone.]

Tring tring..
(music, Welcome to XYZ press1 press 2, or press 9 to speak to the operator)
Yes Sir?
May I speak to someone in HR please?
This would be regarding?
Hmm.. Well this is business.. Could you connect me to someone there soon, please?
Okay Sir, Please hold on..
Hello, would you be dealing with recruitment?
Oh okay.. if you don’t mind, could you transfer the call to her, then? Oh thank you so much.
Hi, I was wondering if you’d have an opening available for a fresh graduate.. O that’s no problem.. So I’ll call you post lunch, is it?
Okay, can I have the direct line please?
Okay Maya, thank you very much.. I’ll do that..

Hello,… and he would be? Okay, I’ll talk to him then.
Hold on.. [music on IVRS]
… alright, tomorrow then?
Hold on let me take that down. I’ll email it right away..
8.30 AM corporate office.
Thank you very much. Good day!


[Scene 2: Board room, XYZ solutions Pvt. Ltd.
Anxious, spectacled, mustache grown, growing, shaven, genetically absent faces sitting around a long mahogany table with conference equipment.
A particularly obese man in t-shirt near the door with a bunch of freshly Xeroxed sheets tucked under his arm. Puts the stack of paper carefully on the table. Smiles.]

Man: (fundamentally nonsensical speech) .. Now it is most important that you take this with a relaxed mind. Gentlemen, could we do this small exercise before proceeding to the test..
Breathe in.. sloooowly.. [two fat arms going up in the air.. a fat belly getting inflated under the shirt.. sloooowly..]
Now breathe out.. [the arms come down.. the belly deflates… sloooowly.. but doesn’t regain the original size… stops somewhere in between.. the smile appears once again across the face, the terminal ends of a long mouth forming two large blobs of flesh on either side]

Pssst.. man, do you think they’re gonna mark wrong ones negative?
[A nervous, busy head shaking, looking the other way..]
Hey that’s good.. I’ll mark all bs then..
[no response]
30 mins… 50 mins..

Fatman: you have 10 minutes more...

Hey excuse me..
Yes??
Do you mark wrong answers negative?
Well… I’m not sure.. But I think they do that.. yes.. they do that..
[aside: Oh SHIT!!]

[cuts the bs in a vertical line. Oh shit, I shouldn’t have done that.. DAMN!! Forget it.. next time, maybe]

Fatman: Okay, pencils down please..
Fatman: Hope it went well. Thanks for coming. We’ll give you a call in 2 days..




Moral nugget#1: Do not give up!

Quick inventory check: lots of direct lines to a lot of people.
[end of inventory list]

Tring tring..
Hi this is Bala..
Tring tring..
Hellow, this is Bala.. okay I’ll call you tomorrow then..


Fact: there is something called a threshold. Every individual has one, and if you pester them beyond that, they can do impossible things.. Just to escape the torture!

Scene 3: A table, two big chairs, a grumpy looking man and a not-so-grumpy looking man on the farther side.. a smaller chair, me on this side of it.

We understand you’re a special case, and we don’t know exactly what kind of interview you’re expecting..

Oh well, I am pretty new to this.. I keep myself informed, though.. So if you ask me questions that go deep down on specific things, I may not be able to answer, but I’m a quick learner, I think I can catch up soon.

So why do you say we should hire you?
(oh you don’t want to hear all that crap do you?? Skip.)

Okay, I suppose you know pointers?
mm.. I suppose I do, a little.
So, what are they?
Well, they point to a location in memory.
Aha?
That’s all I know. I can catch up, however..
Alright, you’ve ever written code?
Yes, I have.. in school we had basic, and in college we had a sem of C.
[A face looking I give up]
Okay.. you’ve worked on windows I suppose?
[vertical nod]
And unix?
[vertical nod]
Can you tell us the difference between the two?
Well, unix doesn’t have as much color as windows..
So unix is like dos, you mean?
No, it’s tougher!
Hmm. Ever heard of muti threaded architecture, network operating system etcetera?
[frantic vertical nod]
That’s what we meant..
We’ll I was being totally superficial..

That’s all I remember.. but I’ll never forget those two faces across the table, and the way looked... That was my interview into that first rung..
And yes, I guess I’ve caught up pretty well… ;-)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

brilliant aliya.. brilliant.. i mean i cudnt stop laughing reading part 2.. vertical no.. ahahahaha.. brilliant stuff.. i suggest u get rolled here http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~mp/malayalam/blogs/

send a mail to mp@cs.princeton.edu
giving ur blog url and name.. u will break records with this.

Anonymous said...

brilliant aliya.. brilliant.. i mean i cudnt stop laughing reading part 2.. vertical no.. ahahahaha.. brilliant stuff.. i suggest u get rolled here http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~mp/malayalam/blogs/

send a mail to mp@cs.princeton.edu
giving ur blog url and name.. u will break records with this.

Activity said...

Good work.

I have come to the conclusion. All answers in the universe can be summed up as a [Vertical Nod] - Y or a [Horizontal Nod] - N .

The threshold is the limit where the [Vertical Nod]s overcome the [Horizontal Nod] .

N David said...

There is one slight glitch.. most Indians have a nod that is neither vertical nor horizontal. It is the fan nod, when the head moves about the neck the way your palm moves while you wave.. that replaces the vertical node.

You still confuse me. :)) cool piece of writing

ToOothlEss WOndeR! said...

@lash

Thnx mate.. I’ve sent the mail.. I’m listed now..

@activity

Thanx for dropping by..

I have another nod that needs a very special mention – I call it the youreindeepshit nod.

Your boss looking at the screen, biting his lower lip, his head doing steady oscillations in the horizontal plane – you know what I mean, don’t you?

@kd

Nice observation. Clap clap.. bobbing heads adding a lot more of meaning to what you say.. Incredible India!

I only wish I had more global viewership.. then I cold possibly do a detailed post – something in the lines of “(Travelling to India) cranial communication – The complete reference” .. should be fun!

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