My experiments with Interviews - part 2

"..Aah....yes...why not?..."...we all said in agreement......and then he gave a brief rundown of job description and there was a guy who pitched in a few typical questions apparently vomiting out everything he knew on the subject.....may be he thought he would just try to outrun others.....and to tell you......it was uncalled-for........I don't usually ask questions unless I really have one.....I have always observed that in such situations people tend to fabricate strange and wired doubts in their mind just to speak out something, so that they won't be regarded as dumb....and in that pursuit they dismiss all doubts that they really are one.....so coming back to the subject......finally, the big guy said that we are going to be having few rounds of personal interviews......by the time he was done speaking, 3-4 staff people showed up in the same room.....and one after other we were taken to separate rooms for interviews.......I somehow got fixed up with a lady who seemed to be unversed (may be their way to screen candidate through the least experienced, to ensure standards are met to the bare minimum, atleast).......through the aisle of cubes, she walked me to a interview room which was almost like at the other end of the office.....Since she was lady (ladies....excuse me)....chances were remote that something substantial could have come out of that discussion......and as I had expected she started with some vague questions which at first were ok.....as time passed, she kept me asking more strange, obscure and incomprehensibly open ended questions like:

(RIM - Response In Mind)

Q. What would you do if a machine is down?
RIM: [Hhhmm......how about influencing the machine with a large hammer??.....]

Q.How much time you will take to fill a floppy disk?
RIM: [.....wait a darn minute here!!!......fill with what? data? virus?....@#$!^%@*&%.... ]

Q. What would you do if your page doesn't load in browser?
RIM: [...I'll rip the page and throw in the garbage.....that would help?....]

etcetra......


etcetra.....

For most of the times, I kept on asking my questions after her questions, just to make the sense out of her questions....and sometimes I just assumed what could she possibly be asking......not that I tried to ridicule her while answering, neither did I try to imply that her questions were senseless but surely her questions were worth a sarcasm while (I did not let my sarcasm vent out....though....)........having done and satiated.......she left the room, asking me to wait.....I doubted if she was really convinced......but actually it didn't matter to me much, because I now had time to catch my breathe after she extorted absolutely irrelevant explanations out of me for nearly 40 minutes, which I must say were my worst 40 minutes of time that I had ever spent in interviews........all I wanted was to exit the area as early as possible......

As I sat fixated to my chair in that room waiting for someone to enter and announce my dismissal so that I could get rid of more such stupid questions.......I observed people working outside in cubicals......one of them seemed downright indifferent to his work as he looked to the computer screen with dreary face.....in all boredom, that uninterested fella had his jaw rested on his palm so badly that I bet his elbow could nearly have made an excavation on the desk, had he continued to sit in that posture for another hour....."weekend work.......I can understand"......I spoke to myself and turned my eyes the other side where I saw a few cool dudes with strange hairstyles and unshaved?/halfshaved?/french-style? (take your pic.....) beards wearing T-shirts, 3/4th walked into the other cube and stopped by the desk of a guy who was busy watching some movie on his laptop.....usual regular boyish hoots and laughter broke out as they started bothering the "movie guy" for some reasons.....on the other side there were few ladies clustered around a desk seemed busy discussing their domestic chores, at times they all tried to speak together which made their speech extremely unclear and it seemed they hardly cared if anyone among them was listening.....it was like everyone trying to convince everyone else.....

while I was still surveying the ambience outside the room a sound drew my attention......"knock...knock...".......I was startled as I turned around and found the same big guy (pizza muncher!) standing by the door......he came in and said....."Hi......I am here to take your next round........".........bbuummeerrrr!!!....I was slight skeptical about this......as I did not know whether the last one was pass or fail....and for first time, I yearned for a "fail".....I had had enough and I wanted to leave.......I thought, why did I come to this stupid interview anyway....."ok.....whatever you say...".......I submitted for the next round......while that guy was not at all stupid with his question, I still did not seem to figure out as to what kept my interest away from answering the questions that day......he uprooted my concepts......digged into gory details....drilled down to fundamentals then back upright to implementations....busted my explanations a few times........but still I tried all I could to make difference......some initial dialogue between us happened something like this....

He: What is your daily work?
Me: I automate FTP/SFTP stufff through scripts.

He: Is that all you do?
Me: Yes. There is nothing more to it.

He: So, what's the challenge?
Me: I never said there is a challenge. If there was, I wouldn't be here in the first place.

He: I liked your answer.
Me: Glad, you did.

for every question he asked.....I would start down from basic assuming as if he was a fool....explaining things the best I can........with occasionally spewing technical jargons and verbal ornamentation to an acceptable degree of composition.....

For the rest of the day........I sat there.....facing rounds after rounds.....letting people tear and shred my concepts.....so happened with my brain too........by evening I was insensate, numb and nearly paralyzed to comprehend things......I believe if anyone would have asked me any further questions......they would be nearly talking to a corpse......when I was told that I was done for the day......I did even have advertency to feel good.......and so I gathered my conscience and found the way out.......somehow I drove back to home and leapt outright to the bed......but one thing that I really appreciate about interviews is that I have always had very positive and radical transformations to my concepts, ideas and way I interact in discussions......and this one had really helped me testify my energy level.....God or Bad........end of the day......everything turns into experience and what matters is......how well you can sustain a situation akin to that in future.......

Until next time.......