The beads of sweat were trickling down my forehead as I sat in the so called lobby of this Multi National Company whose name I could not spell without help. I had to ride my bike for 45 minutes in the scorching sun to get to this place. I had arrived 25 minutes before my scheduled time.
There were at least 35 people sitting in that lobby. All looking prim and proper. I figured they had also comedown for this “Interview”. I had cleared the first two rounds and this was called the “technical round”. Suddenly a door opened and this guy came out with a sheet of paper in his hand. He called out a name and a tall guy sitting next to me got up and went inside. Every eye was on that guy walking in. God help that soul I thought.
I could see everybody doing something constructive. Some people were referring to books, while some were looking up notes. A few of them were role playing and a lot of them were discussing probable questions. By this time the tall guy came out looking happy and someone else went inside. He was soon mobbed by people who wanted to know what was asked inside!!!!
All in all I had a few set of questions which I thought the interviewer may ask me,
- Tell me something about yourself
- What is a bios
- How do you get into safe mode
- What are the different types of operating systems Etc.
I had just finished rehearsing the answers mentally when someone called out my name….
I went inside and a very dangerous looking man asked me to sit down. He was wearing thick glasses and if the room had not been well lit I would have had difficulty in spotting him.
He was ruffling through some sheets, until he picked my resume. He looked up finally and said so, tell me something about yourself.
“Sir, you already know my name. I am 22 years old and an engineering graduate, majored in telecommunications. I stay in jayanagar and my zodiac sign is Scorpio. I am hardworking and honest. Watching TV and listening to music are my hobbies and I don’t have any siblings and ……
“That’s enough. Thank you…how long would you take to learn the operations of a PDA? Then silence prevailed for a long grueling 10 seconds. He raised his eye brows and asked me again “How long?”
By this time my mind was racing and every cell of my brain was being harassed by me. How long will I take? Well, that was not my problem at all. The problem was, what the fuck was a PDA?
After mustering some courage I said, “well….er…er… 2” and even before I could complete my sentence he pounced on me by saying “2 what? Days? Weeks? Months?”
Houston, we have a problem!!!!! With a slight twitch I said “weeks”
He said, “2 weeks??? My god!!!!!!!!”.
Shit, what am I supposed to do now? Was the time too short or was it too long.. I had to say something now. And my next sentence was “I am a perfectionist, Sir.I’ll need that amount of time”.
After saying these profound words, there was silence again. He was staring at me. Then he started to drum his fingers on the table, he began scratching his head and adjusting his gold rimmed glasses.
I am asking myself, will he throw me out? Will he call the university and ask them to take back my certificates. Time had frozen and so had my brains.
Then he took a deep breath and said “suppose you are sitting in a hot spot and your PDA is not working, what will you do?”
Wait a minute. Did he just say hot spot? By this time I was beginning to wonder if we are communicating in the same language!!!! Now we had a bigger problem. First of all, I had no clue what a PDA was and now, I had to deal with a “Hot Spot”. This was too much for me to handle. I mean, ask me something about a computer or my favorite color. How the fuck should I know what I am supposed to do if my “PDA” is not working in a “Hot Spot”
Every second that passed by felt like eternity and finally I said “when you say not working, are you referring to the PDA not working physically?”
He replied, “No, I meant not connecting to the net”
Ok baby, now we are taking, so this PDA is some device that can connect to internet, phewwwwwwww…..
I said “Sir, may be there is problem with the settings”
“What settings?” he frowned.
“Settings on the PDA, may be it’s a configuration issue”
He then slammed his hands on the desk and said. That’s a good answer but you should always start with the basics son. You should check for the signal strength.
I smiled sheepishly and said “I will remember that Sir”
He finally signed on some document and asked me to come the following day for my final round with the HR guys.
The following day was very eventful. I got the job.
Views expressed are solely personal opinions of the author; and do not represent the views of organizations/institutions he is associated in any form. The author has no responsibility for actions taken based on ideas expressed here.
Nice one!!!
hehe..liked it:)