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Who is leading your group?

You might have heard of lost chances and grabbing things with both hands, going for it, etc... but here is something that happened in real life. This incident occured when I had gone along with friends for recruitment to Bangalore. I know that going from Surat to Bangalore 'just to get placed' is definitely going to raise eyebrows of some readers here, but rest assured when you have not been able to trick some comapnies into recruiting you, you are quite desperate to pull it off on the next one in the line. That is a different story... some other time, maybe.

Well, on the day itself, after reaching the UVCE campus, I got separated from my group. Maybe I was just plain concentrating, drinking water or something, but during the PPT, in the large hall, I found myself sitting in a very different bench from my buddies from the college. It was ok, kind-of, but then missing your milieu at such a time was a bit disconcerting.

Once the PPT got over, I saw the HR people asking something to the folks there... specifically the NIT Surat guys, and my heart went aflutter... was it something important that I missed?? With a thumping heart and a mind conjuring up a thousand images, I madly raced to the spot. By that time, the HR lady was gone. I grabbed the person (my friend of course) who the HR lady seemed to be speaking to, and this is what we spoke:

Me : Hey! What was she telling?
My Friend: There you are! Yeah, she was confirming our numbers, etc.
Me : And any particular tips, etc? Anything she said... ??
My Friend: Well, nothing much. Just that she asked "Who is leading your group?", and nobody seemed too inclined, and so we quoted your name. She said she will be talking to you if anything needed to be told, conveyed, etc. [And now with a sheepish grin on his face, he added] Guess you enjoy this kind of work... so there you are

I was stumped... !! I mean, I had heard of such a thing as missing the catch because you slipped... but this was simply letting the ball slip through your palms because you are afraid it'll hurt!! I told him, silently, then, "Dude, you missed your chance of getting recruited and sealed my chances". Come on, man... no amount of rambling about how responsibly you organised your annual fest or how you co-ordinated your project team in the college could have equalled your assuming the responsibility then and there. It must have shown through... because at the end of the day, I was recruited and he wasn't. I knew then and there that I was going to be recruited.

Invariably, the thing came up during the HR interview... and nobody likes to miss a chance to praise himself. I immediately launched into the usual blah-blah-blah of webmaster and sys-admin and 'responsibilities' like that. When I was strolling about in the corridoors later that evening, one of the HR people came and told me, "Mr Sudipta, right? We have some good news for you". What I had suspected this long was now confirmed... 3 hours before the actual results were declared. Sorry, my friend, you had done something which you should not have. Right now, even though you are placed, can you answer the question, "Who is leading your group?"

Comments

  1. Congrats dude!!! Looks like your trip did pay off;-)
    By the way great TOEFL score... congrats again

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  2. But your friend should be thankful to you too! He will never repeat this mistake in his entire life again.Sadly we are living in a strange world.But people like you also exist. :-)

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  3. Sorry for not entering my name. The above comment was written by me.

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  4. What's with the leading? Why would anybody ask that question?

    Good for you though! Congrats!

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  5. Well right you said. Even though, it is a tech job -if you are a leader, it works. I am sure there must be something else also! Congrats, though belated!

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  6. yeyeyeye....i've made it
    phew!!! "my freedom" does work
    nyways nice post dude..i see that placements continue to dominate all blogs in da neighbourhood ..
    i truly empathize wid ur friend cos i resemble him a lot, i get flustered by r6esponsibility..the sheer pressure to perform sometimes gets to me

    nyways good toefl score man!!mine's on oct 24..

    keep up the good work[;)]

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  7. FOR EVERYONE, this incident had happened a year back (actually, more than a year). Just remembered it because of the placement talk all around.

    Gaurav, Thanks, man... the trip did pay off.

    Alka, I am hoping that was a compliment. Yes, I do not think that my friend will want to repeat that again.

    Gratisgab, the leading part was probably about a point of contact for our gang or something... or maybe it was a test :) Who knows? Thanks for the good wishes, though.

    Manish, yeah, even I am hoping for that something else :)

    Sriram, thanks and all the best for your TOEFL. But I did feel bad for him then, as I do now. Thanks, anyway!

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  8. want to hear that...sometime later thing.. quite soon actually...will spare me of some of the writing that i'd have to do!!

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  9. Mr. Quirk, is that a bad case of copy-paste??

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  10. ctrl c ctrl v...isn't that what you become proficient in after 4 years of comp engg at nit,surat!

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  11. Can i ask the question again? Who's leading? :-p

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  12. Mr.Quirk,Yeah, I can understand...

    J, welcome back! Haan puchho na :P

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  13. have posted pics of shanivari on my blog...

    ReplyDelete

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