To face the real world, we have to come out from our houses. We have to see what’s going around us. Watching news channels, and learning about politics is not real world. To know what politics is, we have to join office. But to join the office we have to study or specialize in something. Then we have to give interviews. But now-a-days before going for an interview, companies do take tests like aptitude, technical, logical reasoning etc. Lucky are those who get clear in the first round and who get a job in their first interview itself.

I have done BE in IT (Bachelor of Engineering in Information Technology).  So, I have to go through this aptitude and logical test. Very few companies were there, where they used to give importance to only technical interviews and not these tests. I was bored of this aptitude test because Maths was very perplexing . And I never used to try  to solve those questions and hence I never went for the second round. I was eagerly waiting for such a company who directly takes technical interviews because I am good in my programming language. Finally, I got one and luckily I got a job in the first round itself. Days, months , years passed and then it was time to change the job due to obvious reasons.

Then came the real interviews and the real interviewer in my life.  Rather, I will say Interrogation. Because I was a little bit experienced. The interviewer started asking tricky questions. and if my answer was right, then he used to trick that question again and again, till I didn’t give up. Yes, I gave up many times. 

All companies follow their format. and to be honest every company has work, no one is free enough to learn new things or to do new experiments in their work. If the work is set, then nobody wants to touch or re-construct the code. Everyone is scared to do so. What if something goes wrong? What if the code gives an error? Every programmer’s nightmare is the same. The code works till Thursday and suddenly stops on Friday making weekend worse and again suddenly works on Monday. Still I don’t know the science or black magic behind this. But this is true. So, As I said, all companies follow their own coding format and hence we do RnD in those structures only. But the interviewer of the next company is never happy and hence he always ask out-of-office-syllabus questions. Even though his company follows the same code structure, still he wants us to learn more and explore more. Many Companies passed, asking out-of-office-syllabus questions making me learn again from scratch.  But as I gave more and more interviews, I became more excellent in taking interviews rather than giving interviews.

Many years passed now it was my turn to be an interviewer. So I also started asking out-of-office questions. But to be honest, I was more lenient because all I wanted was logic. For syntax we have our god and that is Google. So whenever I ask a question, I always see whether the candidate is aware of the syntax or not. and if yes, then I don’t go in detail, I directly tell them ,Its Ok . for that google is there to help us out. What I ask is for logic. and yes, if the candidate is experienced then I asked tricky questions. I Trick the question again and again. till the candidate doesn’t give up.

But now-a-days the candidates are so smart they directly “ask” us to change the question and make us ask  questions according to their experience. Such was one candidate, I came across. I started with a simple question just to understand whether he has basic knowledge or not. But he refused to answer and said, “these are not my-type of questions. I am an experienced person, I don’t code and I manage a team.” to which I said, “ok. Will ask those questions too but you have to answer a few so that I can tell my boss that you are good enough to go for the next round. He agreed and I promoted him to the next round. But he was not aware that my boss was none other than the CEO of the company. So my CEO started  giving him scenarios where his team failed or for some reason the candidate didn’t check, thinking this is a simple one and it turned out to be a horrible nightmare. He gave a rubbish answer and said he will never fail to check the result. Still My CEO asked the same scenario but the candidate somewhat refused to give an answer. The CEO blasted him and rejected him at once. Later, through my contacts I found out that the candidate was not respected by his juniors and everyone wanted him to leave the company.

Years passed, and for some obvious reason I had to take a break from my work. But now the break is so big that the first question the interviewer asks is  – “What have you done in these years?”  I used to give honest answers. But then I came across this rude interviewer who started giving me lectures that I wasted many years doing nothing. I told him my current schedule and told him that I don’t get time to do the rest of the stuff. If given work, obviously I have to perform but since I don’t have office work and hence my mind is diverted to some other work. But the same question was asked again and again by other interviewers too. Finally, I got pissed off and told one of my interviewers, “I have studied my work. Please ask those or ask me technical questions and please judge me on that. Rather than judging me for not doing any work in these years”. Obviously my interview was not so good, But I was surprised to see the way he rejected me. He didn’t reject me based on my knowledge, He rejected me saying that you don’t have a helping hand? How can you handle both office and personal life. To which my reply was, “Thanks for wasting my n your precious time. Thanks alot”and I hung up the call.

The work culture in India is so bad that companies prefer men rather than women. If the woman gets married then the growth of women in professional life gets halted and hence many women go into business. I have seen this and experienced this too. One of my colleagues literally told me that he doesn’t want any women in his team because we women take holidays for obvious reasons. Here, I didn’t choose to fight but I told him to express this same view to HR. He was literally given the last warning by HR. Women were hired in his team, but they all resigned because he did not behave properly with them. But this guy was here, and HR only resigned giving the explanation that no women will be willing to stay here.

So this is the stage of women. Where we have to adjust and also have to give an explanation of why we adjusted. Where we have to learn new things but also have to give an explanation of why we chose to learn those things only. Where we have to teach others but also have to give an explanation of why we don’t teach the other things. Explanation! Explanation! An Interrogation with an Explanation. 

So dear interviewer, If we have taken a break from work, and want to take-off our career then please don’t go into the details of what we did in those years. Please ask questions related to work and see to it you chose the right candidate by asking relevant questions. After all, It is your work, your company’s work that we have to do.  It is our lookout how we will handle personal and office life. It is our look out whether to keep the baby with us or to keep them in day care. If we don’t ask for extra benefits, then please don’t judge us on our career-break. 

And please Respect Her.