"Tell me something about yourself?"

(I found this somewhere deep inside my D:\ I don't remember writing this although I must have; sometime in the cold months of November-December 2010. I think it's blog-worthy, now that so many months have passed :))

(I think this is interview-prepping rather than musing. It appears to me to have elements of both.)

Hello Sir,

First thing that comes to my mind when you ask me about myself is that I am 21 years old. That’s it. Nothing else. I have been around for 21 years.

Why am I sitting here for this job interview? The true reason is that I want a job! I need a job. I am not suited up for nothing. I need this job. Why do I need this job? Why do I want to work for Flipkart or i3 or ZS or Verity or Deloitte or GPSK or GAA. And it is true that I want to work for these companies. Some of these at least. One reason that I can think of, for wanting to work in these is that if I do not get these jobs I’ll be in some trouble and I want to avoid getting into trouble. By trouble I mean that I wouldn’t know what to tell people when they ask me what I would be doing after IIT. I would have to make disgusting and boring efforts to get a job off-campus. And it would be hard to get a half-decent job off-campus considering my resume. I would have to make disgusting and boring efforts to find options in other areas like higher studies and go through muck like GATE.

That sounds like a fair reason to me. It is not really a solid reason. Sounds very negative. It doesn’t sound like I really actively want this job.

No no no wait. Actually I can see a reason. I do not want a worse job therefore I want these. That means these jobs are good jobs! Wonderful. Yes I want one of these good jobs. These jobs really are decent. Plus, there will be benefits of having a decent job. I will be ‘someone’. Other people will give me stuff like respect and wave at me with a smile when they pass me by. I think I will be able to relax and again start enjoying myself and do some stuff that I have been wanting to do for a while. I will have some money in my hands when I pass out. Money in hands doesn’t sound like a fun thing unless it is a lot of money. But I will be an earning person. That amounts to something.

But hey wait. I haven’t touched upon the nature of the job. Why do I want to DO this job? Why would I want to wake up everyday and go to work and spend the major portion of my day there? Why would I want to be excited about work. What would make me want to meet the people at work everyday, to sit in front of the computer everyday, and devote thought and action to work related things. Maybe because these people and what they do would be interesting.

Maybe these jobs will make me a man-of-action which I think I am not. My world is thought-centered and I really don’t do much at all. I just say and think and sleep and eat. I hang around, smoke, sit at my laptop and listen to songs. I talk and I talk and I talk. I don’t know shit about technology. To be honest, I think I have found my weakness. I do not love technology. It is a weakness because it could have been my biggest strength but it is not. Therefore it is as good as a weakness. I constantly feel the desire to do something else. Why should it be like that?

I want a job because I want to do an MBA too. Yes another good reason to get a job. I eventually want to do an MBA and become something. Yes, there is some sort of desire to become something. I do dream of IIMA. Why so? I do have great hope from IIM. Just like I had great hope from IIT. And IIT has lived up to my hopes in many ways. But I feel that maybe I couldn’t make much of it. Maybe I’ll be more prepared when I go to IIM. But I feel now is really not the right time to go to IIM. Abhi toh IIT khatam hua hai. Abhi aur cheezen dekhni hai. And that I hope to get from your company, Sir! I want to come to your company because I am optimistic about finding something good.

I am fairly intelligent and smart. I think I can work well.