A Tragedy of Errors Part 2

Learning from mistakes is the hallmark of a successful man. I cannot call myself successful yet but I have the drive to be one some day. After my extraordinarily bad interview at the library I got another interview call and this time as you might have guessed I became the personification of thoroughness.

This interview was for an engineering job that required some expertise in Engineering drawing. And if you think I am good at drawing you cannot be more wrong. Come on! If I was that good at drawing I would have become a Doctor and be happy to draw the human brain. Well, I attempted to draw the human brain in my tenth grade and I could see the brains of my Science teacher through her dilated pupils when she looked at what I drew.

Whatever, I was happy that I got the call and this time I was at the building twenty minutes early. I was no more the cool and composed guy. This time I was Mr. Impeccable.

Me: I have an appointment for an interview. This time I did not dare to tell the receptionist the name of my interviewer. Like I said I learn from my mistakes.

Two minutes later I was sitting with this guy who wore a polo shirt and jeans making us look like the MAC and PC guys facing each other. So much for my excessive care in dressing formally!

Interviewer: Do you play any games?

Me: Calculating the implicit meaning of the question. Yes, so this guy wants to know about how I do in a team. All my life chess is the only thing I played. But that is not team work. So let me say football. But what if he asks me something about the game. I’ll be clueless and he’ll call my bluff. Alright he does not seem like a cricket guy so that is it. Of Course, I play cricket all the time.

Interviewer: Wow! Do you know Pradeep?

Me: Check! I need to buy some time here. Sorry?

Interviewer: Pradeep kumar.

Me: I think so, he is this new guy in the Indian cricket team, isn’t he?

Interviewer: OH MY GOD! He is the engineer I hired last month. I did not know he plays international cricket. He told me he plays cricket with friends in the University on the weekends and that is why I asked you.

Me: Checkmate! Oh! That was very modest of him.

Interviewer: I can’t believe this. Would you like to meet him?

Me: Presenting, cover up of the millennium! Actually, Pradeep is a very common name back in India. So they may be different guys.

Interviewer: Oh! That is what I thought. Because, this guy doesn’t look as agile as an international athlete. Anyway, I don’t want to waste your time anymore, (Here is how I interpreted this: I can see you are lying idiot. I don’t want to waste my time anymore on you.) just draw me this structure using AutoCAD on this system right here and you are ready to go.( Let me see how you can manage this time you moron. )

Me: Sure. (Except I have never looked at mouse like this before and you imagine I can draw a structure with this on the computer.)

Well the mouse was circular and it looked extremely weird. Twenty minutes later.....

Me: So……… I am done with the structure and I saved it on the desktop. Is that it? (Or are you going to call 911 and report fraud?)

Interviewer: That is it. I’ll take a look at it and give you a call sometime this Friday.

Well, at least 30 Fridays have passed by since this happened and I am yet to hear from him. It is not the job I am concerned about. If I could send the brains of my Science teacher reeling in my tenth grade, I did not want to imagine what my interviewer did to his building after looking at what I drew.

Sadly, last week, I read in the paper that the particular building I was interviewed at was being remodeled. I just like to believe that I am not responsible.

A Tragedy of Errors - Part 1

Dressing up in formals is not something you would enjoy if you are not used to it and that is one of the primary reasons I wanted to get selected for this job. It was the fear of having to dress formally for another interview sometime later that motivated me to get through this interview more than anything else.

Going by history, it was extremely difficult to get an interview call for this job, but once you get the call it means you will get the job. It was a library job, so the questions were kind of predictable and one does not have to be an expert in anything to get the job.

I have always been a very cool and composed guy, even under extreme pressure. This was my forte at least until this interview happened. I was so relaxed about this whole interview that I showed up 5 minutes late. If you really cared about getting a job and for some reason are late for the interview, you at least apologize and come up with a good reason or a punch line like Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happiness“.

But me being Mr. Cool, I did not think it was that big a deal. So I go up to this lady sitting in the front desk and talk to her coolly “I have an appointment with Ms. Mickey”.

The Lady: “Oh! I thought you won’t show up and by the way, I am not Mickey, I am Mckenny”.

Me: Already wondering what shirt to wear for my next interview, nice to meet you Ms. Mckenny.

Ms. Mckenny: Please take a seat.

And we got started. She started explaining what was expected from me. This went on for about a minute and then she was talking about how fascinating the library was. And I could no longer hold my disease like phenomenon which I call the ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Every student in my opinion has this problem. It is a result of being institutionalized by the class room lectures. I cannot listen to any body for more than two minutes continuously. Well, like I said the class rooms trained me that way.

So now my goal was to remember to nod my head in approval every 15 seconds. Unfortunately for me the combination of this rocking motion of the head and her voice which resembled the PDF book reader was too tempting to resist a yawn. She stopped mid sentence and looked at me astonished and it was only then I realized I had been yawning.

The best way to save my day was to intelligently complete the sentence she had stopped. But remember ADD, it did not let me do that. I was not following what she was saying and I just sat there looking at her as if yawning was just normal and I waited for her to continue. But, by now she had lost her patience, so much for the talk about how patient she was expecting me to be when dealing with customers, just a while before.

To say the least, I was impressed by the way she composed herself quickly. She just told me that the interview was over very politely. And I left with a grin on my face as if I had become the chief librarian, but inside I knew I had lost and that is why I did not care to ask her when I would know the result of the interview. And thus, I achieved the honor of becoming the first guy to fail the library interview.