Dreams...Imagination... and Inspiration

Change Is Good :)
28th June 2009, 6.15 AM, We arrive at Hyderabad..
The place which I thought I was destined to go after our College placements.
I got down from train "Bangalore to Hyderabad, Kachiguda Express". Me and 3 other friends are lurking to find a coolie..Especially me.. with this king-size suitcase with all the college books in it.. I thought it would be useful to brush-up some concepts which will help me at Work, lol :D.

I was about to join Deloitte. A company, many MBA grads’ dream about.
Well I'm strictly technical person and not very interested in any management related work; at least at present. So why am I here...???Well many people do think that Deloitte is purely a management company with no scope of "technical/technology development"... Well they are seriously mistaken... to some extent... (more on this ,in my future posts :D).

We take cab from Kachiguda to Hi-tech City, a place where accommodation was provided by our company. This post is specially about the thoughts I recalled during this journey. Every thought was about college days; I was having a flashback :D

Every engineering student dreams of this day.. "The placement Day".. its synonymous to "The Judgment Day" with each student being Arnie...The thing to protect being our pride, self confidence and small amount of dignity that’s left after VTU Board Exams and "The Futuristic Android" being the companies who try to take all that’s left of our pride and self confidence...

It was July 17th 2008, A company which I thought I would apply for, visited our campus. My first written test. This happens sometime in the evening. I was all happy that the day had finally arrived. I arrive at test room and see huge number of 7th sem students, which probably I might not have seen on any other given day in college. Now I realize what the word competition actually meant, my self-confidence still strong :).Finally test starts, I bang my head for another hour and half and finally get out of the test room. On my way back to the placement cell I hear my friends telling "test was so easy" which sent shivers down my spine because it wasn't for me. Initially when I wrote the test; I thought even though I might not clear the Interview round; I might just pass the written test. Well.. when the test results were announced it happened so that all around me were getting selected, my friends, non-friends, everybody. I was confused, disappointed, all my self-confidence had just went down the drain.

I looked at other people who were not selected and got a slight comfort in knowing that some deserving people didn't get selected. "Deserving" being people who study a lot and pretend they don't and when exam results are announced they will be in top 20-30 atleast :) (FYI… I do not belong to that category; though a lot of people think I study a lot). Anyways.. That night was a disappointment not just to me but also to many of my college mates. I spent night thinking was I not good enough to compete? or am I totally incompetent.

This was later followed by series of companies, many interviews, and many more nights of such thinking. Sometimes I would have lost the interview at final stage; making the time after that even worse. Well during this time most of those "Deserving" people were placed and happy .. and their only motto was to come to college and watch other placements. I personally thought that either they came to college just to advertise that they are placed or they came to support their friends during other placements, with the latter being very rare.

I know many of us would have spent hours in front of mirror practicing how to talk during interview, atleast I did. More than revising core subjects (algos, DS, C, C++, OS, DBMS, Networks etc); I spent hours talking to air and walls. My ideology was; if you can talk, you can even convince the other person that you are an Alien heheee :). But I always make these stupid time table to study those core subjects but they never work out, and I end up watching movie or finishing another Call Of Duty game. But I do have to admit that by July end I was placed in TechMahindra , one of the telecom company in India. But this was just a backup for me because it was a non-dream company in our college, meaning they give you very less pay package, they can post you anywhere in India and most probably you will end up doing work you don't like. But atleast now I had one job.

TechMahindra Placements is another funny story, where I pretended that I didn't want to get selected(because of fear of getting rejected, friends giving stupid remarks and to avoid "Oh I'm Sorry man" kind of phrases). Well anyways written and interview were really really easy and yes I got selected. Truly speaking, for a 7th sem student being placed is happiest moment in life. It's like giving a kid truck full of candy bars and saying I have still got few more trucks ,on their way :).

I know many people who, after getting few rejects or because of less percentage marks might say they don't believe in placements, might go for higher studies etc etc. But truth is each one of them dreamt of getting "Placed" atleast once.

Its late August; one month since many dream companies started visiting our college and I still haven't been placed in one of those.( Dream companies are those who’s pay packages are good.) .Then one day I hear company called Manhattan Associates visiting our college with decent pay package. I decide to write this company for 3 reasons:
1. I am afraid that my skills are not good enough for “High paying” companies to select me.
2. I heard rumors that after this company's visit; very few companies were going to visit in September.
3. I HAD to get placed.
Anyways.. Same routine of written test, technical interview and HR interview goes and I get placed in this Supply chain Management Company. Frankly I didn't even know the meaning of that word till I started working in Deloitte :). So here I’m..7th sem student ..."placed"... happy... sailing on cloud 9 ...but not for long. Like many Bollywood movies my life is filled with drama, action, comedy , villains etc . By this time new word was introduced in my dictionary; "Recession".

Next one month I spend time looking at Manh stocks and impact of recession on Manh. Every day being worse than the one before, I spend time in fear, talking to myself, convincing myself "everything's going to be alright". By late October I had received a mail from Manh saying my offer has been deferred till further notice. I referred dictionary and found what deferred meant  lol... I was devastated.. It was like at one moment I was flying high on a ship made of gold and very next moment it’s hi-jacked by pirates and they just ordered me to "walk the plank".

"This part of my life is called: CHANGE"- After this incident, I knew I hardly have any chance of getting placed in good company (Because by late November placements kind of stagnates with very few companies visiting ) and I have just hit "The Abysmal”. I lost my Job, my personal life was swinging off the charts and all hope in my life found a new home -Dustbin, I had nothing else to lose. I still had that TechMahindra job but I stopped counting on it since they didn't look that steady during recession.

It’s December and companies have almost stopped coming to the college. Well it’s at this time that I realized that all these 7 semesters of books, study and crap lead me to nothing.. I wanted to do so much during my early engg life but never did, thinking it will either affect my studies or my personal life. My roommate saw me in this pathetic situation and somehow succeeded in bringing me out of it. He and his friends helped me to come out of this mess in no time. Well a lot of things happened during this time but bottom line is , it took me 3 yrs to find a good friend :).

I did things, I never even dreamt of and I liked it. I heard many of my class mates were surprised to see such a transformation in me ,in such a short time.. Frankly I didn't give a shit about it and I didn't care. All I wanted to do now was enjoy rest of my time in college. The next few months of my adventure was going to compensate all the time of my past 3 yrs :D .Because of these last 6-8 months, today I can proudly say “been there, don that” :) for most of the conversations :)

Later one night in mid December, I sat alone near college temple -place where I usually study at night. I was looking at temple, and I felt like I should talk.. There was nobody, but still, I wanted to talk. Anyways I spoke to myself amidst the rays of light emitted from street lights. I looked at temple, doors closed, the Shine of lamp inside the closed doors somehow managing to escape the walls and spread light around the temple. I didn't pray for a good job or some handsome salary. I wished to get a one last chance to prove myself again. I asked for the same and went back to hostel to enjoy what’s left of my college days.

The very next day I heard that Deloitte was visiting our college in few days with same pay package as that of Manh. I was eligible to write it. On THE day, I finished the written test, thought I wouldn’t make it, thanked god for one more chance and started packing my bags to visit my hometown. Just then I received a call from my friend saying "Man, you are shortlisted". Joy, Happiness, lost of emotions wanted to be at same place at same time :) I quickly got ready for Group Discussion round. To tell you the truth, even today I don't have a slightest clue how I got shortlisted, because my written test went really bad, atleast according to me..

Anyways at this position I knew there was none to stop me, I somehow knew I was going to make it through :D . I qualified for Final interview and completed it successfully. I was selected. By the end of 3rd week of December I was ...PLACED ... AGAIN...: D

I realized that my wish had come true, I realized that I had to enjoy as much as I can in this life. I realized that every time I had enjoyed, every time I stopped worrying about stupid things in my life, good things happened. By Jan 10 I had my offer letter in my hand.

During my final sem, I knew that there were many of my friends who were still worried about their placements. Some losing their good jobs, some getting alternative ones. One of my friend had to go through really tough time to find a job after college. When he heard this story he laughed and told me about how he had to dwell from one company to another just to find "One Decent Job". I realized that what I had been through is nothing compared to these people who even after losing their good jobs, had the courage to go on a quest to find new one.

According to me Job Placements are 99.99% pure luck and small 0.01% of your hard work. I have known people, whom I thought would never find job, get placed in companies I couldn't even dream of. But then, I guess they enjoy their lives much more than I do :)

...... I realized that our cab had just stopped and we had reached Hi-tech City, The Service apartment was called At-homes. We reached at around 7.30 AM, and finding this place wasn’t that difficult :D. I took my luggage out, signed on registration ledger of Hotel and went to my room. My mind ;still thinking about how final year of engg had changed my perception. I opened the door to find posh, cozy, apartment :D :D :D. I went inside my room, huuuuuuuuge bed welcoming me, Plasma TV, AC's, Bathtub and much much more. Actually I was to share that room with another person but he never joined Deloitte. So I had Whole of that room for me for entire 15 days :D..

Guess my enjoyment finally paid off … with Interest  :D

PS: Pardon me for any spelling/grammatical errors. I wrote this one in a hurry :|