In stress interviews they corner you just to check
your reaction and how you manage your answers; they don’t expect exactly the correct ones!
I followed the uniformed man to the A.C hall. There was
chillness in the air which welcomed me. However, I hardly felt it. Instead it was the suppressing silence which
increased my feeling of sudden loneliness and fear. In fact I had prepared well
for this interview including ‘stress’ type which is very common nowadays. Even
then, I could not avoid panicking...
“Please, here... inside, sir.” The uniformed person guided me.
From that point, almost I lost myself. I walked so half-consciously into the
room that I could not count the number of people in the panel.
“Good morning, Madam; good morning sirs.”
“Welcome, Mr.Amar singh. Be seated, please!” The man with a
bald head instructed me with a sharp look at me. He had my resume on his hand.
“Thank you.” I smiled ...rather tried to smile at them.
“How did you come here, from the railway station?”
“By taxi, sir” slowly I started recovering, though there were
droplets of sweat on my forehead.
“Take a cup of water,” The lady offered.
“Thanks, madam. I just had a cup of tea outside.”
“Okay...let us assume Mr.Singh that you arrived in the
station at 9.30AM. Imagine that you didn’t get a taxi. Then, how would you have
reached this office?” The bald headed man (I assumed that he must be the
chairman) again asked in a low but commanding voice.
“Sir, I might have got an auto rickshaw.”
“No, auto rickshaws are on strike today”
“Then, I’d go for a cycle rickshaw”
“Cycle rickshaws are also on strike”
I could understand that he was trying to corner me. “I’d ask
for a lift in a car or motor bike.”
“Nobody is available”
I gasped. I could hear the throbbing of heart .I was
failing. I had to overcome the hurdles he was throwing at me.
“I... I ...may walk.” Then, I blinked in confusion. “Shall I
have water?”
“Yes... please.” They
seriously watched me.
“Any other answer? Okay, I leave it to you. Madam, will you
continue?”
“Well Mr.Singh, we are on the first floor. I knew that you
are guided through steps. Could you tell me, how many steps are there?”
I felt a strong surge of irritation. I wanted to ask them
the use of knowing the number of steps for the job. But, I replied “The number
of steps are equal to the same number you had used to come up in the morning to
conduct the interview” I could not believe my own retort. All of them laughed.
“You are in a house surrounded by a jungle. You are about to
be attacked by a bunch of people...What will you do?” The third member asked.
“I’ll call for my guard.”
“Guard is absent on that day”
“I’ll use my gun to make them run away.”
“They know that your gun is empty.”
“I’ll send ‘SOS’ thru my cell phone”
“No signal. The message doesn’t go.”
“I’ll run to the backyard to take my jeep to leave that
place.” I was loosing my control and confidence.
“But, the jeep didn’t start. There is some mechanical
problem.”
‘Think...think... fastly. Man.
I came with a reply “I have to run through the forest.” Then
I remembered “I can run fast because I am a regular jogger and an athletic”
After fifteen minutes of further questions on various subjects,
the chair man told me
“Now you need not run. You can walk away. Interview is over”
“Thank you, sir” I came out of the air-conditioned room with a deep sigh of relief and sensed
the sudden gush of fresh and free air.
Vocabulary corner:
Fastly: There is no such
word. Look at the line above in
italics.
It must be
‘Think... fast.’
Fast is
used for adjective and adverb.
A fast car (adj)
They ran fast. It says how they ran. Fast. (adv)
Hardly: ‘Hardly’ is like
opposite to ‘Hard’. In this way, it is easy to remember the usage.
I
hardly prepared for interview. It means that I never prepared for
interview.
I worked hard to
grab the first place.
Here
it adds emphasis and force to the sentence
