The Interview.

In the silence of the waiting room, I could hear the thuds of my own heartbeat, the whirring sounds of the fan above my head and the grinding of the coffee machine in the cafeteria across the waiting hall. The weather was pleasant and so was the aroma of coffee, but what wasn’t was my head. A familiar feeling of worry and fluttering of butterflies in my stomach engulfed me. All that ran in my head was everything! Rightly said, silence is the most dangerous expression of fear!

9^th September, 2016 – I was attending an interview for Amazon, my first interview for a full time job. I along with two other friends, there we were sitting in the horizontally long waiting hall eagerly anticipating the sound of our names. The only time we were waiting to be called in public. Sharing an art of synchronized panic, the three of us were a bundle of nerves. Everything that usually distracted us like Game of thrones, Santosh Dhaba and cheese burst pizza, failed that day! All that we could think of was the interviewer we had to face.  36 people around us, all from our own college, and yet there was apprehension! A feeling of newness and a feeling of responsibility. Although, I have no idea what I felt responsible for.  For me, attending a job interview was something I didn’t expect to be doing so soon. No big deal for many, but for me it was a thing so huge that I felt compelled to write about it and save it in my memory for a long time. One of my firsts! J

After a strenuous wait for nearly 3 hours, we were called in for an online test that decided our presence in the next round. Opting for a position that requires good communication skills, our online test was purely English Grammar and I almost felt like I was in school again. Passage reconstruction and dictation, something I haven’t done in the past 4 years, got me excited like a little kid. Grammar has always been my strong point and I was sure to do well. And fortunately, I did do well. Although, during the test I felt time sometimes is both a boon and a bane. With the clock ticking away, I suffered from keyboard dyslexia for a few minutes. Mixing up letters and funnily searching for the delete tab caught me cursing myself. Definitely not very good sign in an interview. In this fit of rage, nothing could calm me and only I know how I finished that test. Walking out of the hall, my heart was thumping and I knew it was time to go home. I looked at my friend seated at the other corner of the hall and telepathy came into play, we realised both of us screwed up the same things and we both knew, we were done for the day! No talking happened and just silence and despair filled us up that moment. We weren’t ready to give up that easy anyway. And yay we didn’t have to. We both cleared the round and were asked to wait for the next. Oh the look on our faces, and the reverberating Hi5, no beating that!

Amidst this happiness, creeped in the terrible thought of waiting for a few more hours for the next round. As a trio, anxiousness dwells in our blood and in the air around us. Clearing our phone’s memory and swiping through the same old pictures was the only thing we could do in there. Squeezing in a few lame jokes and hustled giggling combined with dozens of bottles of water and frequent visits to the restroom we realized we could kill just an hour. Letting out sighs of frustration and glares of irritation, we prayed to be called and realized we were the last two people in the queue. And there was luck slipping away too! Patience is one quality I lack the most, and that day was a true test. My anger reached its saturation point and I was never more glad to have my friends beside me that day!

“Meghana Lanka”, I heard his voice. No more fear and no more anxiousness, just the thought of getting done with the whole thing and going home to a cosy bed. 15mnts in the interviewer’s room and I did my best, answered, explained and pretended to forget how tired and annoyed I was.

Amidst all this multi thinking, reality hit me and I figured I said something that contradicted my previous statement, and I knew the series of questions that would come up would drown me. And perfectly acting out the ideas in my head, they did, though I managed to answer them. I had this strong gut feeling that it didn’t go well, and this time I was right. Though it felt good to hear my name called twice in half an hour, it came along with the news that I couldn’t clear the interview. The sinking feeling lasted quite long. The only thing that was the saving grace was a little relief of attending an interview ((TRMS and Seller support) that wasn’t in my field of study, and maybe that helped me take it up in the right spirit. Honestly, I realized only if I were a little patient and focussed, I would have done way better and only if I wasn’t distracted during the interview, this write up would have had a happy line to end it.

Nevertheless, this was truly a learning experience and now I know the stuff I shouldn’t be doing in my next interview. All that I wish for is for my friends to be around the next time too, because if it wasn’t for them, who else could have handled the restlessness, the continuous chatter I do when I am tensed and the lame jokes that cracked me up at least for a little while. In fact, in the recent past, it was the longest time I hadn’t used my mobile (lack of signals) and if interviews can make me achieve this, I’d be there each day!