Fear

They say the best antidote to fear is to try to confront it.

Pre day 0: Few applications and loads of pre placement talks.

Day 0 : The resume rejections have started to come.

Day 1 : Welcome to the two day slot o. I just have 2 processes.I1 and I2. . I somehow clear the group discussion of I1 .Also both of them had an online psycographic assessment , usually my waterloo. I have a 5 minute interview with I1 . I later learn , i did not make it to the second round PI. It was to be my dream job. Somehow.

I allow the rejection to get inside me, and go with that frame of mind in the I2 gd. Needless to say i screw it. Between these two , one process was before lunch and the other after lunch.
Since my day is over, I come back to my room and try to sleep. i don't get any sleep.

I try to go to bed early as i have nothing better to do. Sleep eludes me. Before this day i had heard you kinda don't get sleep when you are tensed.But never took that thought seriously.
I don't know when i actually went to sleep. But i do remember it wasn't before 2, when the first time i tried to hit the sack was around 10. In between Surya comes to encourage me and talk with me, but i squarely refuse. Something which i usually do not do.

Day 2 : second day of the slot 0. I do have 2 more gd's lined up. I do speak in both and fail in both. Also I3 has opened my kind of profile and i am thrust into the PI. I try to be myself , again in an PI. A cardinal sin. As i come out i realize again the blunders. Screwed.

At about 11 in the morning my day's over. I try to sleep pre and post lunch but with no success.
The results for slot 0 are being announced upstairs, but i give it a miss. I was there the last year when the slot zero results were being declared.

At about 4 in the evening surya calls me. Slot 1 has begun and i need to rush upstairs.From here my memory is blurred. There were about 10 students from our batch and about 30 companies. A few still insist on gd's. The saner directly take interviews. I rush from one to other till 12:30 in the midnight. I have missed my snacks and my dinner.At about 1 i am told i need to take another online psycho, which i complete by about 2 AM. I talk with a few friends who have come to encourage me and pull up my sagging spirits.

I hit the sack by 2 :30 and the same story repeats. Chase sleep and it always eludes you. I need to be ready by 7 AM for the first process tomorrow.

Day 3 :I am upstairs by 7. The same flurry of processes continue. I go without breakfast or lunch . My last process ends by about 3:30 PM. Before going in the PI, my friend tries to woo me not to go inside since they are not offering the profile of my preference. I still fight with him and go inside, As i had done with any process which came my way in the last 24 hrs.

There is this moment in The million dollar Baby , wher Clint Eastwood is shown coming to the church every sunday for the past 20-30 years or something. In the due course the father or the head of the church says ,"Only that kind of person can do that , who doesn't forgive himself".

I couldn't say so much to that friend so i just ducked his question of Why?.

The process ended about that time and a junior took me for lunch meant for corporates. I was cagey, not really sure if i could swallow anything hard after a long time. I gingerly took the juice and then some food and then some more. Meanwhile he made some comment that a HR was saying i was way too candid. This was because when she had asked why did you apply to our company. I replied," Ma'm i have applied to all the companies in this slot.And there is no specific reason as to why i applied to you."

As is usual i had decided N was the company for me, but they did not give me an offer.

I can go on about what all i did in the interviews. But one particular interview stands out which the G HR took in the balcony and which was supremely informal. More than trying to judge me based on my past events or my current ability to bullshit i had a decent conversation with her. The one question which did come out of the blue being which is the most important among why , where, what when and How.

I replied with why and she countered by how. Whatever.Otherwise it was a sweet conversation.
In all seriousness i would like to thank Dennis Leary for his song Asshole.

I still go back to N's interview time and again and try to think where i screwed it up. Only to find a hundred instances every time.