Mr. Over smart Interviewer

To begin with, I am a “student”. Only difference between a normal student and me is that, I am a lot wasted. I have lectures and projects but in spite of all that I have a lot of free time. I wanted to take up a job or some activity to keep myself busy and spend my time constructively. And since I reside in Andheri (east), one hell of a place. Actual “HELL”.

Hell, where you don’t have enough place to walk.

Hell, where there is no rickshaw rides (you’ll be a lucky ONE in hundreds to get a rick and that luck is not with you EVERYDAY)

Hell, where I guess there are NO ACTIVITIES too.

So, keeping all of this in mind I thought I should take up a job. More like a part time job. But again there was a hurdle. Who gives a part time job to a fresher? And I was in no mood to meet people for getting rejected over something so trivial like this. So I thought I should probably wait for some more time and then take up a job. Suddenly one morning I had a mail, a job opening at this start up company. And a real cool one I thought. The person was ready to be flexible. Was even okay with me working from home, since his office was also from home. And apparently he wasn’t interested in seeing my face but my quality and timely work. I had no second thought and I was all geared up for my interview. And then I get the venue for my interview, his House. This is when I got to know that his office is his house. (Tough task in Mumbai you see). And my dad was not at all happy with me meeting a man alone at his house. I completely understood his parental concerns and I assured him that everything is in black and white and that this guy is up to nothing mischievous.

I land at his house, exactly at the time he asked me to drop in. His assistant opens the door and he made me sit. The guy took around 30 mins to come out. God knows what he was involved with. Anyway, so there i was , reading a debut novel by some Indian girl and i manged to finish it too. It was just about 16 pages, quite a cliché read but nonetheless it helped me pass my time.

Finally, the man enters. Freshly bathed, sits across me. The first thing he asked me was, “can I smoke?”, and I dint quite know what to say so i said okay go ahead and smoke thinking he will just smoke one cigarette and I also appreciated that he had the basic manners to ask me. And there my “interview” started. I handed over my CV for him to look at and even before reading, the FIRST thing he says is, you don’t really fit the post you have applied for. And there I was, sitting confused whether to be sad or abuse him for all the troubles I underwent to reach at his place, which was new for me and not at all close to where I live. However, he had a lot to talk, show, discuss. I thought in my mind that it is okay since I wasn’t really in need of a job.

By this time his smoke was over and he lit one more, which kind of added to my pissed off mind. The next thing was this strange test he wanted to do on me. He kept around 7-8 magazines in front of me and asked me to pick a magazine, which I‘d read in my free time. I picked one and then he asked me to order all of them in my order of preference. I did that too. It was quite interesting, though he dint tell me what he thought of my selections.

Anyways so after that we were talking again and he gave me an idea about what he was into. All that he told me was a little too much to be real for me but again I thought maybe I am very lucky to meet a genius who could actually have this all for REAL! He went on and on and on. And suddenly he asked me about my dad’s reaction to the venue of this interview, i.e. his house. And I told him how my daddy was hesitant to send me alone. ONE, because this guy has no website that shows what he is into (but I told my dad that it’s a start up and they can’t really have websites) and TWO, because the office is at his house which according to my dad, who is a government officer, is problematic thing with societies in Mumbai. Smoke number two was also over, followed by the third smoke. (Added a little more to my anger and also an acute headache which had occurred due to his small room full of smoke)

Looks like this honesty dint go down well with him and there the actual “interview” started or will it be better if I say, he started taking my case. On hearing my dad’s reaction he told me that if I dint agree to show up at his house for the interview I wasn’t in his words, “my type of a girl”, a highly offensive thing to say to a girl. I don’t know what he”meant” by this but I chose to assume he meant I wasn’t open-minded enough. Then he asked me about my salary expectation. I quoted a figure (based on my ground research that I did, by speaking with a few friends and my professors at college). And he raised his eyebrows and came down to more than half of what I asked for with a long explanation. This was the point in my interview, where I decided to not work with him.

The funniest thing was when he spoke about O&M. He told me how O&M has interns slogging their asses off for FREE. He completely tried raping O&M’s reputation so that he could convince me to take up his offer. But I said something he dint expect, mainly because I was blown away with the fact he’s trying to compare his non existing firm with an insanely well established O&M, which is a brand for itself. I said, “if I was given an opportunity to work with O&M as an intern for few months and for absolutely no return, I wouldn’t mind doing at all because O&M is a huge show on my CV” and I think I said this a bit too confidently, a confidence which perhaps looked like overconfidence to him. And he there he picked on me once again. He told me flat on my face that O&M won’t take me in. I really don’t know why he said that and I really dint care much to ask him about it. Smoke number three is now over followed by the fourth one and my throbbing head.

Maybe by now he realized I am not convinced and he should try something else. So he asked me to check his work. I sat browsing through his work and the most irritating thing here was he kept cross checking if I understood his concepts. Some of them were vague and some of them were not even concept enough. Then he showed me a presentation about his firm and he read out each and every slide to me and after every slide he had a question for me, cross checking if I was paying attention or understanding all that. Luckily for me his presentation dint have too many slides. But at the end of all this he shocked me when he said, “looks like I will have to teach you how to appreciate other people’s creativity” and This was sadly not the end of showing off his work, he opened another folder full of “campaigns” and to avoid his cross checking and shit advices on leaning appreciating other people’s creativity and all that jazz, I began faking compliments on things I found boring than a black and white news paper.

After all this he asked me about what I like to read and I named few of my chic authors, none of which he was aware of and I don’t blame him for that. He would be gay if he had read any of those books. But what I dint like was, his judgment about my choice of the topics that I read. Which made me tell him that I read other things too and I named him few authors every tom, dick and harry knows. SHOULD KNOW.

Chetan Bhagat, another point to pick. “Oh god please, Chetan bhagat is such a useless author. I am writing 3 books simultaneously and you should read them. I will be better than him. My work will show you”, hahahahahah how badly I wanted to laugh my ass off but I dint want him to end up being embarrassed. He appeared like a donkey in my head and all my anger had vanished. This interview was turning out to be a comedy show. Then I asked him about his book. When will it be out and if he has found a publisher for his book. And I found a new height of shamelessness in him, when he told me he will publish his own book. But then I said to myself that it is okay, he’s just a poor victim of overrated self efficaciousness. Here, Chetan Bhagat is over just like his smoke number four. And god was kind because he did NOT light his fifth smoke! But still I had an aching head and his brags were only adding to my frustration!

Robin Sharma was another name that I had mentioned which led Mr. Interviewer to grill me again. “Philosophy haan? I also read philosophy. A lot of it”, he said and took me to this book shelf, in one corner of that room. It had about 70 books and a section of it was, well Philosophy. About 10-12 book and he asked me to pick which I’d already read. Luckily there were 2 books I’d read out of those 10-12 books! And come-on it’s a very good thing. There are millions of books on philosophy and he has jus a handful of them out of which I had read 2 books. But he wasn’t happy because I didn’t pick Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore. And he started talking of how naive I was. This made me see his irrationality. I’d pulled out a book which now had to placed back on the shelf and I did it very carefully so I don’t cause the fall of all those books in his sacred library. But Mr. Drama king had to make a scene about this too, why will he leave any opportunity to show me down. He asked me to be careful, which I was. But he again took the book out and placed it again. I was standing just behind him and like a small child I had my head nodding with my eyes narrowed and tongue out, teasing his back. That’s how badly I was being harrowed at his house-cum-office-cum-brag destination.

The interview was almost coming to an end and he asked me, “so you are joining me form Monday, right?”, but excuse me, I dint fit the bill of the post I applied for. I asked for something he wasn’t paying me and then after all the long hours of criticizing me he asked me to join him but for how much and as WHAT? I asked him sweetly what I am going to join as. And he says, “Since I am starting up and you are also starting your career with me(YEAH RIGHT, with you not even in my nightmare) so I want you to learn by contributing in everything.” Hahahahaha my mind again thought and laughed. Who does he think he is fooling? I should slog, do everything and hear all his shit. YEAH sure! But I had to know how much will he offer me and as expected he said a shit amount, “My maid earns more than that” was the FIRST thought that popped in my head and I said I will let him know in a day’s time.

After a long duration of bring tortured, traumatized, taunted, criticized and pulled down. I felt drained and depressed of even having met him. I wanted to run home and make myself happy! Just when I was about to get up and say a PERMANENT BYE to him (because I was and still AM sure I will never meet him ever in my life, haha), he dropped a bomb bigger than the ones which had been dropped Hiroshima-Nagasaki. He asked me for a coffee. WHAT? A “coffee”, after that kind of humiliation! He had to be kidding but he wasn’t. And I declined it by saying I had to meet some friends and I was already running late.

THANK GOD IT WAS ALL OVER!!! And I got out of there without a heart or head failure! I returned home and mailed him the next day, declining the job offer. I dint quite think it was important for me to give him a reason. He replied to my mail and had the guts to ask me if it is only the money OR something else. I chose to ignore him and his mail. COMPLETELY.

AFTEREFFECTS: On my way back home and for two- three more days after the unlucky day. I thought and re-thought if at all I was so bad and insignificant. It was his hollow confidence and the harsh words that he slammed on my face which got me thinking about myself and I whole heartedly thank him for that. He led me to a great introspection. My conclusion about myself was clearer than ever. But a thing I understood was I should not get bogged down by such people because they are in plenty and I have learnt another lesson about this Mister Smart interviewer, His strategy with me was to make me feel insignificant, useless and totally unskilled, then oblige me by hiring me for dirt cheap.

A very smart strategy for taking innocent, naive people for a ride. But I am proud for being a little smarter than the man himself to clearly understand what he was up to.