It's in the stars...and stripes III - The new recruit?

27 April 2005

This time around, I didn’t wear my kinda ‘lucky’ uniform for the interview.* Instead, I had on a dull grey blouse under a no-frills black pantsuit. Bland and so ho-hum, the combo was just perfect! I only needed to summon that deadpan, dead serious face skilled number crunchers liked to put on when coming face to face with their similarly unreadable clients. But no, I won’t go that far. That was not me, anyway. I intended to remain cool and cheery even under extreme pressure from the looming roasting and grilling I was about to go through.

In the guise of going out for another client assignment, I disappeared from my work area a good two hours from the 3:30 pm interview. I went to Raquel’s area on another floor and dumped my laptop in her locker. I would just come back for it later.

By this time, I was trying to feign an appearance of calm and confidence. If Raquel only knew that my knees were practically shaking….

PwC office was just across the street. Having ample time, I managed to walk leisurely.

Angela was there, in the flesh, to welcome me. She was very warm and congenial. I liked her in an instant.

After some time, the moment arrived. Angela introduced me to Haresh from PwC-San Jose and Pete from PwC-Washington.

The interview with Haresh had gone well, I think, precisely because he didn’t ask a lot of questions. He was more like a father reciting a list of to-do’s for her daughter who was about to be sent off to a university in a faraway state. I was just nodding the whole time. :)

Pete was a different story altogether. First off, he had this eerie resemblance to David Caruso of CSI – Miami! And his eyes were rather piercing, like, “you cannot hide anything from me”. Get the picture? On top of that, he ushered me to sit beside him! It was such an unusual arrangement.

Initially, the atmosphere was rather formal but as the discussion wore on, with myself meeting his gaze the whole time, I just found myself getting comfortable with him. He was pleasantly surprised on some nitty-gritties I squeezed in my CV. I was silently thankful that he noticed them. J After that, everything was a breeze. I was not even asked a single technical question! No SOX, or US GAAP vs IAS vs IFRS, etc. Thank heavens for that. I was visibly relieved and I thought he saw it. But I didn’t give a damn. I think this, too, went well. He said they’d definitely get in touch in two weeks. He even gave me his business card. :)

I didn’t get burned, just lightly ‘grilled’ and ‘roasted’. Just the way I like it. :)

I didn’t come back to the office, instead, I went straight to Pacific Coffee for a shot of cappuccino. I needed time alone to absorb what I initially thought was a thoroughly delightful incident.

Then suddenly, in the middle of the hustle and bustle of what I could see were similarly situated yuppies musing about the good life this city supposedly owed them, I found myself asking if going to the US was what I really, really wanted.

It was so not in my plans, wasn’t it?

The thought was potentially treacherous…

But the interview… the interview went great, didn’t it?


* I have this office uniform from my previous employer which I wore a couple of times in a couple of final interviews for two different companies on two separate occasions. In both instances, I got hired.