Of first jobs and waiting and life.

Getting your first job is a bit like losing your virginity

Getting your first job is a bit like losing your virginity. There’s the anticipation. There’s the drama in getting to the point.  Probably planning a fair bit re. what you’ll wear. The fantasizing, often for years. What magic it will be and how you’ll be a changed person overnight😉! The sweating. And, well, sometimes even a bit of blood!

And the anticlimax when the rubber hits the ____ ! Like every over hyped event, reality cannot keep up with your imagination.

“Do you prefer something to something or over something?”

“Over something.”

“Would you bet your life on it?”

“I would not bet my life on anything, sir.”

I cannot remember if the ‘sir’ was politely derogatory without being offensive. Or just came naturally. My patriarchal and extremely hierarchical extended family dynamics had prepared me well for these kind of things.

I had spent from about 5 to 8 pm at their small pantry, with a host of others (the ‘others’ being college mates, but the finance-wale. The kind I didn’t deign worthy of my time, in college).

I was after all an ad-guru and marketing whiz combined. Leo Burnett and Unilever were going to fight over me in 2005, when I graduated. Maybe Tata Sons would want me in their strategy team. I was, after all, fully up-to-date with all the latest management books. You name it: Good to Great (Jim Collins), IBM turnaround story– Who says Elephants can’t dance? ; Gurcharan Das – India Unbound(The last was my bible). My part time job  at a book-shop also gave me unbridled access. Every week, I was also, with a religious zeal, ‘chaatoing’ the Businessworld magazine. I was in my second year of graduation for my Bachelor’s in Management Studies. I dreamt of brands and marketing and sales and was also in discussion with a friend about how we may think of entrepreneurship and competing with Mr. Ambani, somehow someday.

Image: Woman in a purple coat. Henri Matisse

“Take a look at this resume”, handing me my own.

“What do you make of it?”

What a great question to test my wits (would I be flustered?), my interpretation (balanced?), selling skills (I was after all reviewing my own resume).

“She seems smart. And has a well-balanced personality with accolades in both, academics and extra curriculars. And she seems to be a good writer.”

(I thought I aced this one.)

“How do you know it’s a ‘she’?”

(Good try, but too easy. You should have known better by now.)

“The name is feminine.”

(Ha!)

Ofcourse I had mentioned my writing and college magazine editor-ship in my resume 😊.

I was being interviewed for a job at a fast growing financial services firm. Having shown up because they were the first company on campus, I had no idea who they were and no intention of having anything to do with these numbers-types. :)

He had started with, “Sorry for making you wait this long.”

“The view was great”, I retorted.

It really was. 14^th floor, Express Towers, Nariman Point. Overlooking the Arabian Sea. I had spent those three hours reading through all the newspapers in that pantry-turned-waiting room and found myself updated enough to discuss financial services and markets too, I think.

I imagined what it would be like walking up and down that swanky office, my heels going click, click, click (I had only worn kurtas and kohapuris and carried a jhola to college, most days). This would also come true a few years later.

Certain waits are peaceful. Because they give you a single minded space. You don’t need to do, or be, or even think about, anything else other than the moment and task at hand. And what can be more beautiful than that? Even the wait outside a doctor’s waiting room when you’re there to get something minor looked at, has that quality. Ah! The peace, really the respite, of having to and being able to, think of just one thing.

That interview was magical for how it kept me in the single minded focus, almost ‘flow’ state for well over an hour. Close to two. There was talk of estimating the cost and buying of buffaloes and some analogies for testing my math and finance skills and also concepts related to information gathering and market dynamics and economics and present value of money. And whether keeping the buffaloes or selling them or something else (trading?) might be a better option!

I enjoyed the mental tennis. And the rallies. And not losing points. And seeing my opponent’s cool moves. Storing them in my head for future practice and certain use. But importantly, finding a worthy sparring partner. Forced to earn every point. And forcing the other side to.

I’m sure we shook hands at the end of it.

I came down and had a cigarette. 😉

PS: I accepted the offer that came after this interview and then wrote back to apologize because I had got through my MBA. We re-connected after my MBA and it made sense to join at that time. I have now been working at my current firm for over 17 years. That thing about life and what’s meant to be, etc.

PS: On preferring something ‘to’ or ‘over’ something - google today seems to say there isn’t really a right answer. Touche :)