My L interview had gone horrible. No, wait, calling it horrible would mean being impossibly optimistic. To get to hear that how do you plan on clearing other interviews with such bad performance? from an institute like L, which you should be easily cracking, can act as a real bugbear.
The next interview was for Bangalore. The institute well known for taking ghots like me, had already rejected me once. I was still shocked from the reality of it happening and the L experience acted as a go wild pass for all my hauntings. The fear of failure which had seized me just after my CAT results was back and I was feeling totally pathetic.
Thanks to much needed motivation from my Didi & Jijaji and an awesome day out with one of my best pals, I finally got over the fear and decided to make a strategy for my next battle. Clearly, there was lots to be done and time was very less; I had just one week to prepare.
The week went good. I took a day off and crammed everything about everything that was there to know! Preparing general awareness took so much of time that I didn't have much time to prepare my academics. So I decided to just read all the course handouts, thinking, atleast, I will be able to answer what all topics you studied in this course? :P
Finally, the B-Day had come:
Institute: Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore
Date: 3rd March 2012
Venue: IIM - Bangalore
The process first included writing a short essay about the topic "The new mantra of people power in India can have dangerous consequences instead of cleaning the government of its inefficiencies and corruption." We were given 10 minutes to think and another 20 to write.
Reading the topic, I felt lucky to have read all the scams and felt confident for the first time. I took about 12 minutes to think and organize my thoughts. Once that was done, I finished writing in another 8 minutes and revised it 3-4 times after that. I talked about Anna Hazare and how his stand is justified when not only our ministers, but our bureaucrats and judiciary also are involved in high profile scams. In the end, I added a diplomatic note in my typical style saying that one should be careful while using people power as it can turn into a mob rule and make a fool out of world's largest democracy. :D
I know, I felt good too!
Next hurdle was the interview.
There were 3 panelists.
p1: Old guy, most active.
p2: Alumnus, medium active. More of a listening guy.
p3: Middle aged, seemed not interested in the entire proceeding.
p3: Your name Tanishq, did the company exist before you were born or they copied it from you?
me: Sir, I was born before and the company was formed after it, so in a way yes, they copied it from me. (not sure if saying this was appropriate, so added) kind of.
p1: what does Tanishq mean?
me: (One might think that I must have gotten used to this question by now) It is used for jewels, but specially for diamonds which achieve their true value after they are cut. (I agree)
p1: Cut diamonds? Can you explain the cutting process?
me: Sir, the diamond that is retrieved from the ore is practically valueless, it needs to be cut by jewelers and then it becomes valuable.
p1: Seemed genuinely confused about the word cut.
p2: So you mean to say polished diamonds?
me: Yes sir, polished diamonds.
p1: ok ok.
p3: So who polished you Microsoft or Amazon?
me: (totally comfortable by now, plus talking about work-ex is one of my strong points, so was feeling good at the moment) Sir, kind of both. Because these are the places where I got to practically apply what all I learnt during my college. (This answer might not make sense to many people, but this was in sync with my SOP, which said that I finished my graduation a semester earlier and did all those projects to practically apply what all I had learnt till then. ;D )
p2: Something along the lines of and so you want to come to us for further polishing (don't remember the exact question, and my response)
me: After I said something, I told them that I learnt about how to implement aspect (again a word from my SOP) from these organizations, now I want to learn about other aspects of these business organizations (probably was cut short).
p1: So you studied at BITS-Pilani..Did you get admission through BITSAT or you are a board topper?
me: Sir, I wrote BITSAT.
p1: And you studied Computer Science there?
me: Yes sir.
p1: I have heard Computer Science is a difficult branch to get there?
me: (A little surprised at the turn of events, was not too sure of what to say, wanted to play diplomatic, but it was getting more and more difficult to do so)Yes sir, it is the number one branch at BITS. (For the record, the changing trend with the juniors batches did strike me, but I didn't say it for two reasons: 1. I wasn't sure if EEE cut-offs had crossed CS'. 2. I would be called a stupid for throwing an axe on my own feet! )
p1: And so you have a final cgpa of 9.49?
me: Yes sir.
p3: From BITS, every person is like above 90%.
me: (Got a little confused by the sudden shift from 10 scale cgpa to percent. Also, BITS has percentage cut off for 12th, so) I asked sir, are we talking about cgpa?
p1: Yes.
me: (not sure, what to say) Ok sir.
p1,p2,p3 continue: 2-3 days ago, I met someone from BITS, who had like 9.94 and he told me that this is a record.
me: No sir, I have a person in my batch in electronics who is 10.00. Like after passing out 10.00. (I avoided telling that there are two such people, did not want to shatter their illusion that getting high cgpa at BITS is a tough task.)
p2: 10 on 10?
me: Yes sir.
p1: But that is very rare, maybe once in 3 years.
me: (Like they took the words out of my mouth) Exactly yes sir.
p3: But you know, I have seen many people from BITS with cgpa above 9. Does everybody get above 9 in BITS?
me: No sir, it is not like that. It is not even possible as we have relative grading..(cut short)..
P1: And many of those 9 pointers fail over here.
me: (Unsure of what to say) I have no idea about that, sir.
P1: It's not that I am suggesting that you will do the same.
P2: So what was your rank in college in your branch?
me: Sir, I was in the top 5.
p2: Consistently?
me: Yes sir. (should have explained more that I was in top 3 before and slipped to top 5 after my 3-2. Seems like a lot of talk was going on about failing (which I think was related to my relatively bad grades in 3-2) I should have explained something about that.)
P1: Ok tell me how many companies are there in India?
me: Sir, I don't know the exact number, but I can make a guess. (The thread about what all assumptions I will be making was already spawned.)
P1: Laughing.. no need.. no need. (Thread terminated successfully.) So, I thought you were the instant answers guy. You worked for the Instant Answers team of Bing. I thought that instead of finding on a search engine, we will directly ask the Instant Answer guy?
Does it not work this way?
me: (wondering should I call this out as good one) No sir. ***Explained about what Instant Answers are and how they show the data***
P1: There was a question about where does the data some from.
me: Explained with the example of my work.
P1: So when I search on Bing, can I say this particular work was done by Tanishq? Can you show us?
me: Yes sir, I made 5 Instant Answers, out of which 2 are live now. They are live on US market, as Bing is not launched in India yet.
And also, I will have to tweak the URL, because you need to have conduit toolbar installed to see the IA, but you need not install it, as I will tweak the url.
There was some question, which made me explain them that say you have toolbar installed and you search for YouTube videos, now Bing shows you an app that you can download and install on your browser so that you don't have to use a search engine to look for what you are searching and can do that directly from the app.
P2: So why did you move from Microsoft? And initially, you worked at Amazon, then you moved to Microsoft and then you moved back to Amazon?
me: Sir, initially, when I joined Microsoft, it was a great learning experience and I got to learn about how search engines work and all. But after some time, my work was repetitive and there was nothing new to learn, and also at Microsoft we have a rule that you can't switch teams before you have spent at least 1.5 years in a team, so I moved on. And since I knew that Amazon has a very dynamic culture and I will get great things to learn there, so I joined Amazon.
P2: So you switch jobs, if you get bored of your work?
me: Sir, it's not that. It's just that there was nothing challenging left in my work to do. It was all the repetitive tasks. So that's why I moved.
P3: So what measures did you take at Microsoft before leaving?
me: Sir, I talked to my manager. He understood my problem but he couldn't do anything about it, the work was coming this way from higher levels. So there was nothing that he also could do about it.
P2: So was it your manager that suggested you to join Amazon?
me: No sir, that was my personal decision.
P1: So you studied a course called Operations Research?
me: (thinking what's with these guys and OR)Yes sir.
P1: Do you remember some of it?
me: Yes sir.
P1: Some of it or all of it?
me: (I had realised at that time that saying all of it is a better option, but since I had not revised the course, I decided that I should not take the risk and choose the safer option) (a little afraid) Some of it sir.
P1: Ok. Can you give me an example of where you would use linear programming?
me: (thinking for a moment) Sir on a high level...
P1: Don't tell me high level or low level, give me an example.
me: (thinking again for a moment, not of an example, but of what to sell, biscuits were on the top. But NO, how could I sell biscuits again. I look around the table, there were cup, plates and something to eat. Nopes, nothing of use! I need something good. Bing> !! )
Sir, say I am selling umbrellas (proud of myself for coming up with this excellent product). I have a static cost x, cost price per piece y and selling price per piece z. I want to have a profit of p%. To find out how many units I need to make, I will need to use linear programming.
It took a minute to explain variables to p1. (I was initially a little confused myself and thus was confusing p1 as well. He was generally confused, so in all there was lots of confusion which took about a minute to clear.)
P1: So there will be some conditions on your variables, right? What are these called?
me: Constraints sir. (I was myself shocked when this came out right. An example of linear programming was still Ok. I remembered it from graphical approach to solving this, but to be able to guess constraints _/\_ )
P1: Yes constraints... So now you are trying to maximize your profit which is a linear function of price and profit.
me: Yes sir.
P1: What if now your price is a function of demand? Demand increases, your price increases and demand decreases, price decreases. And price as a function of demand is a complex function. It is not linear. Will your case still follow linear programming? (there were some more things about explaining that price as per demand is a complex function, say demand goes up, your price will go up, but you need to have price a little low as well so that people buy your product.)
me: (assuming we are still plotting between number of units and profit, but not explicitly stating it) Yes sir, it will be.
P1: Ok. So you did a course on probability and statistics?
me: (already fed up of academics)Yes sir.
P1: Can you think of some probability distributions?
me: (I was reading about tp(90) and tp(99), the other day, so normal distribution was fresh on the mind) Sir normal distribution.
P1: Can you think of any more?
me: ummmm....ummm... (Now this was getting scary, not being able to tell any probability distribution. That is BAD!)
P1: Binomial.
me: Yes sir. (thinking more)
P1: Ok don't worry about it (thankfully). Can you give me example of normal distribution?
me: Yes sir, (tp stands for time percentiles) percentiles.
P1: Percentiles? What Percentiles?
me: Sir for example, CAT percentiles, they follow normal distribution.
P1: Ok. So what about raw scores?
me: thinking..
P1: you know the difference between raw scores and percentile?
me: Yes sir (feeling a little condescended by this question) Sir raw scores can be normal.
P1: Can be or will be?
me: (had finished the calculations in my mind by now)Will be.
P1: What about waiting in a queue?
Failing of a machine?
Coin toss?
me: (WoooW, slow down sir) Sir, as for waiting in a queue, that is not normal, coin toss is binomial and failing of a machine is not normal again. (remembered something about reliability some other distribution.)
P1: ok.
P1-3 look at each other for a moment, seems like no one has anything to ask.
P2: So you have mentioned about Abuse Prevention Systems. Can you explain what this is?
me: (Gosh, I had prepared this so well) Yes sir. So sir Amazon is a very customer centric company. We provide many policies for customers so that they don't have a bad experience while using Amazon. One such policy is that you can cancel your order up to a point after it is placed and you won't be charged for it. Other such policy is payment through convenient stores in which your item comes to this store, you visit it, pay there and collect your item. This option is prominent in Japan region for which I worked.
But some sellers misuse this policy. Now Amazon allows 3rd party sellers to sell on amazon too. Say I am a seller A who sells X which is also sold by B. What I will do is, I will go to Amazon site and place an order for entire inventory of B. Thus when a customer is searching for X on Amazon, he sees that only A Is selling this product and A gets good traffic on his site. And he cancels the order of B just before it was about to be shipped or if through convenience store, he won't go and collect the product which means, his order was cancelled.
Now sir, this was from the seller side, what happens on Amazon side is that we place the order for B's inventory and get it in our warehouses (fulfillment centers) and sometimes Amazon has to bear the cost of shipping the product and then shipping it back. Amazon was stocking inventory as a result, that is why it is called inventory hold abuse. (See, what I meant. :D )
P1: So how did you prevent it?
me: Sir, it is actually impossible to prevent it from occurring the first time. We used to take actions post happening, that is, after the abuse was done, we used to prevent the abuse from happening again by stopping these sellers. *** Some more details about this***.
Topic changes...
p1: So when you send an email, do you do some kind of spell check on it?
me: (not sure in what sense is he asking this) Yes sir.
P1: What do you do?
me: Sir, I always read it again.
p1: Ohh.. you do?
me: Yes sir, and still after sending if I see any mistake, I always send an apology mail correcting my error.
p1: A little ambiguous about his question, self-realising it and correcting it. So I am sure you must be working with lot of people from America. Have you seen any errors in emails sent by those guys? (He was ambiguous about asking for only Americans or my colleagues from India.)
me: Yes sir, I have seen one or two times when there were errors in an email.
p1: So these emails, were they sent by your Indian colleagues or anyone from America?
me: Sir, I remember one or two incidents where there were spelling errors in emails sent by my Indian colleagues but I don't remember any incident where there was a mistake in any email sent by US people.
p1: Ok. So why do you think this is so? We Indians, are like this way and Americans never make a mistake?
me: (feeling very much inclined to say that we Indians lack professional work attitude, but thought for a moment) Sir, I am not saying anything in particular about anyone (remember me about trying to be diplomatic, this is the epitome of that!), but I think this is because sometimes we are in a hurry and we just want the work to get done and thus we send the email without checking it again.
p1: Ok. (maybe there were concerns on my face as to why he is asking this, so he clarifies.) It's not that you have made any mistake in your form or anything. I just want to know your attitude towards work.
me: Ok sir.
p1: So tell me, how would you feel if someone sent you an email and it has an error in it. Say, take an example, he mis-spelt your name from Q to K. How will you feel?
me: sir, I will feel bad about it (This came straight from the heart, there was no brain processing done on this answer). Because if I am in an email conversation with him, I will be following proper email etiquettes and will give him due respect. But if the other person is not even caring this much as to spell my name correctly, I will feel bad about it.
p1: ok.
p1-2 all look at each other's faces.
p1-3: ok, thank you.
me: Thank you sir, thank you sir.
I get up and try to put the chair in properly.
p3: Leave the chair as is.
me: ok sir. (and final) Thank you sir. (I come out of the room.)
Pheww! Long interview and I am so glad about it. It must have been my lucky day, there were so many questions on academics and I was able to handle them decently well. Despite a debacle in my last interview over academics, I chose not to revise them, but thankfully, it all went good.
Verdict: Yes, the battle of Bangalore was decisively won in the second try! \m/ \m/
Venue: IIM - Bangalore
The process first included writing a short essay about the topic "The new mantra of people power in India can have dangerous consequences instead of cleaning the government of its inefficiencies and corruption." We were given 10 minutes to think and another 20 to write.
Reading the topic, I felt lucky to have read all the scams and felt confident for the first time. I took about 12 minutes to think and organize my thoughts. Once that was done, I finished writing in another 8 minutes and revised it 3-4 times after that. I talked about Anna Hazare and how his stand is justified when not only our ministers, but our bureaucrats and judiciary also are involved in high profile scams. In the end, I added a diplomatic note in my typical style saying that one should be careful while using people power as it can turn into a mob rule and make a fool out of world's largest democracy. :D
I know, I felt good too!
Next hurdle was the interview.
There were 3 panelists.
p1: Old guy, most active.
p2: Alumnus, medium active. More of a listening guy.
p3: Middle aged, seemed not interested in the entire proceeding.
p3: Your name Tanishq, did the company exist before you were born or they copied it from you?
me: Sir, I was born before and the company was formed after it, so in a way yes, they copied it from me. (not sure if saying this was appropriate, so added) kind of.
p1: what does Tanishq mean?
me: (One might think that I must have gotten used to this question by now) It is used for jewels, but specially for diamonds which achieve their true value after they are cut. (I agree)
p1: Cut diamonds? Can you explain the cutting process?
me: Sir, the diamond that is retrieved from the ore is practically valueless, it needs to be cut by jewelers and then it becomes valuable.
p1: Seemed genuinely confused about the word cut.
p2: So you mean to say polished diamonds?
me: Yes sir, polished diamonds.
p1: ok ok.
p3: So who polished you Microsoft or Amazon?
me: (totally comfortable by now, plus talking about work-ex is one of my strong points, so was feeling good at the moment) Sir, kind of both. Because these are the places where I got to practically apply what all I learnt during my college. (This answer might not make sense to many people, but this was in sync with my SOP, which said that I finished my graduation a semester earlier and did all those projects to practically apply what all I had learnt till then. ;D )
p2: Something along the lines of and so you want to come to us for further polishing (don't remember the exact question, and my response)
me: After I said something, I told them that I learnt about how to implement aspect (again a word from my SOP) from these organizations, now I want to learn about other aspects of these business organizations (probably was cut short).
p1: So you studied at BITS-Pilani..Did you get admission through BITSAT or you are a board topper?
me: Sir, I wrote BITSAT.
p1: And you studied Computer Science there?
me: Yes sir.
p1: I have heard Computer Science is a difficult branch to get there?
me: (A little surprised at the turn of events, was not too sure of what to say, wanted to play diplomatic, but it was getting more and more difficult to do so)Yes sir, it is the number one branch at BITS. (For the record, the changing trend with the juniors batches did strike me, but I didn't say it for two reasons: 1. I wasn't sure if EEE cut-offs had crossed CS'. 2. I would be called a stupid for throwing an axe on my own feet! )
p1: And so you have a final cgpa of 9.49?
me: Yes sir.
p3: From BITS, every person is like above 90%.
me: (Got a little confused by the sudden shift from 10 scale cgpa to percent. Also, BITS has percentage cut off for 12th, so) I asked sir, are we talking about cgpa?
p1: Yes.
me: (not sure, what to say) Ok sir.
p1,p2,p3 continue: 2-3 days ago, I met someone from BITS, who had like 9.94 and he told me that this is a record.
me: No sir, I have a person in my batch in electronics who is 10.00. Like after passing out 10.00. (I avoided telling that there are two such people, did not want to shatter their illusion that getting high cgpa at BITS is a tough task.)
p2: 10 on 10?
me: Yes sir.
p1: But that is very rare, maybe once in 3 years.
me: (Like they took the words out of my mouth) Exactly yes sir.
p3: But you know, I have seen many people from BITS with cgpa above 9. Does everybody get above 9 in BITS?
me: No sir, it is not like that. It is not even possible as we have relative grading..(cut short)..
P1: And many of those 9 pointers fail over here.
me: (Unsure of what to say) I have no idea about that, sir.
P1: It's not that I am suggesting that you will do the same.
P2: So what was your rank in college in your branch?
me: Sir, I was in the top 5.
p2: Consistently?
me: Yes sir. (should have explained more that I was in top 3 before and slipped to top 5 after my 3-2. Seems like a lot of talk was going on about failing (which I think was related to my relatively bad grades in 3-2) I should have explained something about that.)
P1: Ok tell me how many companies are there in India?
me: Sir, I don't know the exact number, but I can make a guess. (The thread about what all assumptions I will be making was already spawned.)
P1: Laughing.. no need.. no need. (Thread terminated successfully.) So, I thought you were the instant answers guy. You worked for the Instant Answers team of Bing. I thought that instead of finding on a search engine, we will directly ask the Instant Answer guy?
Does it not work this way?
me: (wondering should I call this out as good one) No sir. ***Explained about what Instant Answers are and how they show the data***
P1: There was a question about where does the data some from.
me: Explained with the example of my work.
P1: So when I search on Bing, can I say this particular work was done by Tanishq? Can you show us?
me: Yes sir, I made 5 Instant Answers, out of which 2 are live now. They are live on US market, as Bing is not launched in India yet.
And also, I will have to tweak the URL, because you need to have conduit toolbar installed to see the IA, but you need not install it, as I will tweak the url.
There was some question, which made me explain them that say you have toolbar installed and you search for YouTube videos, now Bing shows you an app that you can download and install on your browser so that you don't have to use a search engine to look for what you are searching and can do that directly from the app.
P2: So why did you move from Microsoft? And initially, you worked at Amazon, then you moved to Microsoft and then you moved back to Amazon?
me: Sir, initially, when I joined Microsoft, it was a great learning experience and I got to learn about how search engines work and all. But after some time, my work was repetitive and there was nothing new to learn, and also at Microsoft we have a rule that you can't switch teams before you have spent at least 1.5 years in a team, so I moved on. And since I knew that Amazon has a very dynamic culture and I will get great things to learn there, so I joined Amazon.
P2: So you switch jobs, if you get bored of your work?
me: Sir, it's not that. It's just that there was nothing challenging left in my work to do. It was all the repetitive tasks. So that's why I moved.
P3: So what measures did you take at Microsoft before leaving?
me: Sir, I talked to my manager. He understood my problem but he couldn't do anything about it, the work was coming this way from higher levels. So there was nothing that he also could do about it.
P2: So was it your manager that suggested you to join Amazon?
me: No sir, that was my personal decision.
P1: So you studied a course called Operations Research?
me: (thinking what's with these guys and OR)Yes sir.
P1: Do you remember some of it?
me: Yes sir.
P1: Some of it or all of it?
me: (I had realised at that time that saying all of it is a better option, but since I had not revised the course, I decided that I should not take the risk and choose the safer option) (a little afraid) Some of it sir.
P1: Ok. Can you give me an example of where you would use linear programming?
me: (thinking for a moment) Sir on a high level...
P1: Don't tell me high level or low level, give me an example.
me: (thinking again for a moment, not of an example, but of what to sell, biscuits were on the top. But NO, how could I sell biscuits again. I look around the table, there were cup, plates and something to eat. Nopes, nothing of use! I need something good. Bing
Sir, say I am selling umbrellas (proud of myself for coming up with this excellent product). I have a static cost x, cost price per piece y and selling price per piece z. I want to have a profit of p%. To find out how many units I need to make, I will need to use linear programming.
It took a minute to explain variables to p1. (I was initially a little confused myself and thus was confusing p1 as well. He was generally confused, so in all there was lots of confusion which took about a minute to clear.)
P1: So there will be some conditions on your variables, right? What are these called?
me: Constraints sir. (I was myself shocked when this came out right. An example of linear programming was still Ok. I remembered it from graphical approach to solving this, but to be able to guess constraints _/\_ )
P1: Yes constraints... So now you are trying to maximize your profit which is a linear function of price and profit.
me: Yes sir.
P1: What if now your price is a function of demand? Demand increases, your price increases and demand decreases, price decreases. And price as a function of demand is a complex function. It is not linear. Will your case still follow linear programming? (there were some more things about explaining that price as per demand is a complex function, say demand goes up, your price will go up, but you need to have price a little low as well so that people buy your product.)
me: (assuming we are still plotting between number of units and profit, but not explicitly stating it) Yes sir, it will be.
P1: Ok. So you did a course on probability and statistics?
me: (already fed up of academics)Yes sir.
P1: Can you think of some probability distributions?
me: (I was reading about tp(90) and tp(99), the other day, so normal distribution was fresh on the mind) Sir normal distribution.
P1: Can you think of any more?
me: ummmm....ummm... (Now this was getting scary, not being able to tell any probability distribution. That is BAD!)
P1: Binomial.
me: Yes sir. (thinking more)
P1: Ok don't worry about it (thankfully). Can you give me example of normal distribution?
me: Yes sir, (tp stands for time percentiles) percentiles.
P1: Percentiles? What Percentiles?
me: Sir for example, CAT percentiles, they follow normal distribution.
P1: Ok. So what about raw scores?
me: thinking..
P1: you know the difference between raw scores and percentile?
me: Yes sir (feeling a little condescended by this question) Sir raw scores can be normal.
P1: Can be or will be?
me: (had finished the calculations in my mind by now)Will be.
P1: What about waiting in a queue?
Failing of a machine?
Coin toss?
me: (WoooW, slow down sir) Sir, as for waiting in a queue, that is not normal, coin toss is binomial and failing of a machine is not normal again. (remembered something about reliability some other distribution.)
P1: ok.
P1-3 look at each other for a moment, seems like no one has anything to ask.
P2: So you have mentioned about Abuse Prevention Systems. Can you explain what this is?
me: (Gosh, I had prepared this so well) Yes sir. So sir Amazon is a very customer centric company. We provide many policies for customers so that they don't have a bad experience while using Amazon. One such policy is that you can cancel your order up to a point after it is placed and you won't be charged for it. Other such policy is payment through convenient stores in which your item comes to this store, you visit it, pay there and collect your item. This option is prominent in Japan region for which I worked.
But some sellers misuse this policy. Now Amazon allows 3rd party sellers to sell on amazon too. Say I am a seller A who sells X which is also sold by B. What I will do is, I will go to Amazon site and place an order for entire inventory of B. Thus when a customer is searching for X on Amazon, he sees that only A Is selling this product and A gets good traffic on his site. And he cancels the order of B just before it was about to be shipped or if through convenience store, he won't go and collect the product which means, his order was cancelled.
Now sir, this was from the seller side, what happens on Amazon side is that we place the order for B's inventory and get it in our warehouses (fulfillment centers) and sometimes Amazon has to bear the cost of shipping the product and then shipping it back. Amazon was stocking inventory as a result, that is why it is called inventory hold abuse. (See, what I meant. :D )
P1: So how did you prevent it?
me: Sir, it is actually impossible to prevent it from occurring the first time. We used to take actions post happening, that is, after the abuse was done, we used to prevent the abuse from happening again by stopping these sellers. *** Some more details about this***.
Topic changes...
p1: So when you send an email, do you do some kind of spell check on it?
me: (not sure in what sense is he asking this) Yes sir.
P1: What do you do?
me: Sir, I always read it again.
p1: Ohh.. you do?
me: Yes sir, and still after sending if I see any mistake, I always send an apology mail correcting my error.
p1: A little ambiguous about his question, self-realising it and correcting it. So I am sure you must be working with lot of people from America. Have you seen any errors in emails sent by those guys? (He was ambiguous about asking for only Americans or my colleagues from India.)
me: Yes sir, I have seen one or two times when there were errors in an email.
p1: So these emails, were they sent by your Indian colleagues or anyone from America?
me: Sir, I remember one or two incidents where there were spelling errors in emails sent by my Indian colleagues but I don't remember any incident where there was a mistake in any email sent by US people.
p1: Ok. So why do you think this is so? We Indians, are like this way and Americans never make a mistake?
me: (feeling very much inclined to say that we Indians lack professional work attitude, but thought for a moment) Sir, I am not saying anything in particular about anyone (remember me about trying to be diplomatic, this is the epitome of that!), but I think this is because sometimes we are in a hurry and we just want the work to get done and thus we send the email without checking it again.
p1: Ok. (maybe there were concerns on my face as to why he is asking this, so he clarifies.) It's not that you have made any mistake in your form or anything. I just want to know your attitude towards work.
me: Ok sir.
p1: So tell me, how would you feel if someone sent you an email and it has an error in it. Say, take an example, he mis-spelt your name from Q to K. How will you feel?
me: sir, I will feel bad about it (This came straight from the heart, there was no brain processing done on this answer). Because if I am in an email conversation with him, I will be following proper email etiquettes and will give him due respect. But if the other person is not even caring this much as to spell my name correctly, I will feel bad about it.
p1: ok.
p1-2 all look at each other's faces.
p1-3: ok, thank you.
me: Thank you sir, thank you sir.
I get up and try to put the chair in properly.
p3: Leave the chair as is.
me: ok sir. (and final) Thank you sir. (I come out of the room.)
Pheww! Long interview and I am so glad about it. It must have been my lucky day, there were so many questions on academics and I was able to handle them decently well. Despite a debacle in my last interview over academics, I chose not to revise them, but thankfully, it all went good.
Verdict: Yes, the battle of Bangalore was decisively won in the second try! \m/ \m/
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