(m)e-learning

As I still try to cope up with the ‘peas and carrots’ syndrome, God intervenes and I find myself standing on a new turf trying not to look stupid. Recently, got an offer from an assessment company to work part time as panelist for their client. Their client happens to be, the IT giant, Infosys. (Btw, this is supposed to be confidential information, and because my blog is read by a large audience ranging between 2 to3, I am quite sure this will remain confidential.)

So, yet again, I am into a new kind of job all over again. (although, this is just a part time sorta thing.. once in 2 weeks or so) I interviewed nearly 40 candidates for the job of a s/w engineer…..can u beat that?.. me? Interviewing prospective s/w engineers?? The more nontechnical I think I am … the more I get into the ‘geek world’. However, it was a completely different experience. I was more nervous than the candidates… I am getting good at pretending so acted super cool. Two panelists interview each candidate (thankfully) so I had a co – panelist who was, as a matter of coincidence, my namesake. So the introductions went.. "Hi/Good morning… I am Pallavi, and this is my colleague, Pallavi.” Always got a smile from the candidates on that one ( I think most of them thought it was a joke!). Got to hear all kinds of south indian English accents there can be!! But it was interesting. Kids most of them, fresh out of engineering colleges from across the country (mostly south and mostly andhraites!) The most difficult part was to understand their English … heard sentence contructions in all the tenses except the correct tense…Examples:

Tell us something about yourself?

• Myself, xyz, I am doing my school from Guttakal district, After that I am doing college from Hyderabad. I am doing specialization……’
  (Doing??? What?? Havent you done that already?)
• I will be doing schooling from…., and engineering from …..
  (Will be doing..?? aren’t u born yet??)
  

Most of them like to talk in present continuous whether it was in past or will happen in future. Was quite exasperating that way. But then most of these were kids with 75% marks in ‘electronics and instrumentation’ field, Math whizzes, scholarship holders, gold medal winners.

Intelligent but hilarious at times. Confident inspite of poor communication skills.
Here is an example of a conversation for ‘Singh is King’ fans ( my favorite)
(On the application form there is column which says ‘Citizenship’.. this guy fills in ‘Patiala’!!, Another column ‘ Any recent major illness/ surgery :’ he fills in ‘Fever in November 2004’. (Seems like decided to completely ignore the words ‘recent’ and ‘major' !!)
We decide to give him a second chance for the citizenship part.

‘ So, Rakesh.. you are a citizen of…??’
‘Patiala’ ( with complete confidence and a wide grin!)
(We look at each other and think he is a open and shut case!!)
'Oh ok.. so what is Patiala famous for??'
‘ oh.. I will tell you.. as u know, there is a song by Jassi called ‘ kudi gujraat di’. There he tells us about patiala..( sings the line about ‘patiala’… which is apparently famous for silk ‘naalaas’)
( my co –paneslit is a kannadigan so cannot help and bursts out laughing!!)
No madam, this is very truth and Patiala is also famous for ‘jootis’ ...Punjabi jootis of excellent qualities.. and lots of foreigners come to buy jootis……blah blah..”
We decide to change the topic…
‘ Rakesh, tell us something about the sports you enjoy’
( starts with cricket and how he has been a captain of some team in his college… and goes on and on.. so my co – panelist..asks to talk about tennis’
‘I think that tennis sports is excellent future. I think sania mirza is a ‘boom’ to the nation.
“Oh you mean ‘boon’?”
No no, boom B -o -o –m’ (spells it out for us!!.. !)
( touché)
Incidentally, this guy has a great analytical abilities which he demonstrates by solving quite a difficult brain teaser in seconds!

Lesson learnt -Not only appearances, but accents and communication skills can also be very deceptive!!

Two days of interviewing and leaves me quite mentally exhausted. I decide to sit with ‘Shantaram’ and the soothing narration by its author. Ii am quite enjoying the book. The guy is writes amazingly beautifully. Here is one of the excerpts that left me quite touched..

“One of the reasons we crave love and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep in the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you”
Gregory David Roberts

Hard to imagine that coming from a guy who was once a hard core druggist and a criminal. Past...also very deceptive!!

Learnings and more learnings!