I have always been this highly ambitious little guy. I know it’s a bit of a misfit now, but I was a lot like that back in early 6th sem upto end of 8th sem.

There was this company called Hexaware that came to my college for campus recruitment. That was the first company that came for my batch. Naturally I was excited that I was eligible to attend the recruitment process. I was very excited about the fact of getting placed whilst in third year.

I think it was February 1st 2007. About 160-165 people wrote the preliminary test. I did very badly. I had no touch with placement tests before and hence I thought one had to attempt as many questions as possible. I failed to do just that. I attempted only those that I knew properly. Surprisingly I made it through to the Group Discussion round. Again there, I thought I did pretty badly. I got through. The moderator was a person named Mr. Raghavan. I still suspect brahmin affinity in me clearing the GD. But, let’s leave that for now.

Then came the final round. I was interviewed by a person named Mr. Visvehswaraiyah. He was in his mid 70s. You heard me right! Apparently, he’s a popular placement consultant. He asked me to write 2 programs. I wrote one out of the two well. For the other, there was a more optimal way of doing it, he said. Finally, he concluded the interview saying “You’ve done well, ma. We’ll get back to you“.

Remember his last sentence. That has caught onto my life till today. Every meeting that ends with that sentence is a failure. No exceptions, no ifs, no buts. Literally, ALL the meetings that end with that line never end up with me as the beneficiary!

It didn’t strike me for long. Arun tells me it’s a typical HR way of saying “Better Luck Next Time!“. Srinath, however, tells me it’s the HR way of saying “Keep Your Fingers Crossed!“.

To all the HR Managers and their multi-meaning sentences, this is my kind request.

“Please don’t speak with a positive tone and give a negative decision. You never know how it hurts the candidate to have hope and get disappointed on-the-face!“

At-least for entry-level recruitment!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. I can understand those HR managers who never show a reaction and say “Thank you for giving the interview. See you later” kind of things. I hate it when people frame sentences in such a way as to give hope to the candidate and then pull his/her legs by not hiring/allowing him/her. Be it a Job Interview or Acads Admission!

P.P.S Few other sentences like “We’ll work something out surely” and “You’re pretty impressive” are also unlucky w.r.t my meetings. Dammit!

There is this gang of phellows from my batch called the Rowdie Gang. It consists of a bunch of elite folks from my batch, predominantly from Computer Science Engineering. Of course, there are very few members from other branches as well. The names of these elite individuals (apart from myself) are mentioned here, in no specific order.

Raja Deepak a.k.a. g**b*s a.k.a c*r*h*n

Naveen a.k.a sethji a.k.a r*s**i

Sundar a.k.a wiyoats a.k.a [ahem....let's forget it, shall we?]

Navneeth a.k.a thala a.k.a a**u

Arun a.k.a s*a**y

Praveen a.k.a 2GB a.k.a e**a

Rafi a.k.a ka**a k*d**ran

Sudhir a.k.a [I dunno what he's also known as]
I should say we had the best time of our lives together. All the folks except Praveen and Sudhir belong to CS and hence were almost together all the time. College is over and Praveen is going down to Mangalore to get trained to work at the-then-EDS-owned and now-HP-owned MPhasis.

I know! I know! How lucky you must be to get placed in a company like MPhasis and end up working for HP ?!

We just met up at Navneeth’s house today and ate out and had a nice time overall. I’ll write a nice long post on the day that was May 29th 2008. But for now, I need to sleep. Gotta wake up early and go down to college to pick up a few marksheets.

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. PSP, we’re gonna miss you down here da!

I am sure most of you wouldn’t be in a comfortable position if you had to co-exist with reptiles in your house. I’m not comfortable as well. In addition to this already-existing discomfort, a recent incident has pushed the tolerance levels further down to an all-time low! I just thought I’ll write about it here. Being the noble guy that I am, I don’t want such an incident happening to any of you.

I was searching for this book called ”Made in Japan”. It’s about Akio Morita, the founder of Sony. I couldn’t find it in my living room. I had to go into my bedroom to retrieve it. There was no light switched on in that bedroom. I, unsuspectingly, switched on the tubelight and as usual would take ages to light up. I took a couple of steps forward and felt something unusual rubbing against my right foot thumb. I just nudged it a bit thinking it was some random thing inside the room. Suddenly, the light went on and I saw a lizard running across the room from my direction to that opposite of me. I was shell shocked! I ran into the bathroom and washed my feet and hands with any kind of cleaning liquid that was inside (except the cleaning acid types). Man! It was a terrible experience!

Yours Skeptically,

uleadin

P.S. If at all you feel something strange next to your feet, don’t ever nudge it!