Sunday, December 7, 2008

Appearances are deceptive!

Wednesday, Dec 3rd 2008 5:30 PM

I was in a milk white Pontiac V8 on the way to New Jersey, for an interview. The stallion was too good with a lot of 'oomph' in it; but I was in no mood to use it! After all, I didn't want to end up getting a ticket for 400$ at this pay-less (disambiguation: pay as in salary ;)) hour and consequentially increase my insurance premium. Like a hero in the mid 80s-90s movies, who lives a real slutty life in the first half, deciding to play the game right after the interval; I told myself "Had this been sometime last year, I would've reached NJ in 3 hrs". On top of it, I really forgot that the entire DC metro area buzzes with cars around this time and the drive to I95 was really testing my patience. On top of this, one of the toll plazas had no assistant in a full service lane and I was forced to violate toll because I had no nickels with me!! Not sure if I'd be fined for that... GOK! After spending over 5 hrs and 20$ for toll, I reached the hotel at NJ about 11:30 PM; and the only good thing about the whole trip was that I found a couple of good repeat rap tracks by T.I(Videos below)and these songs just rocked specially because of the Woofers in the car.


(Loved the lady voice in the song and the chorus)


(Liked the Samuel L Jackson part... I'd would've repeated the Wazzup MF portion of this at least 20 times :D)

If you are confused at this point about the title and its relevance to this post, you got it right... I'm not into the topic yet though I know that Srini could find out some relevance given the content so far! JFF ;) :)

Thursday, December 4 2008 12:10 PM

I was driving through the deserted area to find the place I was supposed to go to and finally ended up finding a real huge building hidden into the woods as depicted in some horror movies. I usually hate wearing typical formals like blue and blue or cream and brown; but since the instructions clearly said Business Formals and that I didn't want my dress to add to the resume misfit I had; I was in a light blue shirt and a dark blue pant, wondering why on earth would people want the candidates to be dressed in monotonous colors. But the moment I entered the lobby of the research lab, I saw about twenty people seated all across the visitors area; and I was the only one without a blazer and I would bet my fortune on my assumption that I was the youngest person there! Chinese and Indians dominated the place reminding me that I was in US and everyone had a huge executive bag with them from which they were picking up some papers every now and then, cross verifying it as if they were some SOP or recommendation letters! I had a bag with me too, but it had a couple of packs of cereal bars since the email said 'Feel free to bring your food and beverages'. "Perhaps there was some other point about certificates too" I thought to myself, realizing that it was too late to even worry about anything.

After 15-20 mins of wait, the test paper was given and we were supposed to complete the test by an hour and fifteen minutes. I wasn't prepared at all and it wasn't hard to find it out when attending the test. Java was the only comfort zone for me and the rest were like completely alien nations though I wouldn't call them the toughest of questions! In the end, we all were seated back in the visitor's area and I was almost sure that I'd be out! To my surprise, I was still in though more than 50% of the candidates were out after the test. There were quite a few chosen for the first round of interview and yet again, I was surrounded middle aged folks wearing shining blazers and brimming with confidence, thinning my hopes every time I saw them. After the first round of interview, almost all the 'probables' I had in my mind were out of the picture. "We aren't that bad" I thought to myself and I eventually ended up being one of the last 4. The results weren't clearly announced that day and right now it's a completely unclear picture; but at least I have hopes left on contrary to my first couple of hours at the interview venue. :)

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