The New York Interview

It was that phase when I was really tired of applying for jobs but was hoping for something positive to happen. When I was in New Jersey, I got an interview call from a dog walking start-up company based in New York. I felt happy that finally, I got the chance to go on-site for an interview in the city that never sleeps. It’s a dream for corporate busy bees to live in NYC. The night before the big day, I went to bed early after looking several times into the google maps for the office location. I did go to New York twice before but never had to care for routes in public transportation as I never went alone. This time, I have decided that I would start way too early so that I have enough time if I miss a train or a route.

The next morning, I got ready and reached train station by Uber around 9:00 am. Did I say my interview was at 2:00 pm? yes, it’s a lot of time. But, I didn’t want to take any chances as I knew how bad I was with the routes. I reached the New York Penn Station and was searching for the train or bus which I had to take to go to the office location that’s in Manhattan. I boarded the bus and got down at a stop that my maps showed as the destination.

I was making circles between some 34th and 36th streets in Manhattan trying to figure out the office building which was supposed to be on 35th street where I only saw a local pizza shop. I have contacted the company people for the address several times and they did reply me a good number of times. One thing I missed out in this whole journey was that the same address exists in Brooklyn as well as Manhattan.

It was almost 3:00 pm by the time I figured that out. When I was about to ask the recruiter to reschedule the interview, I got a final email from the recruiter which said they no longer wanted to consider me for that Software Developer position as I couldn’t even find a simple address in a new place. I was confused for a while and later on, I doubted my own abilities as an engineer for some time until the whole day scenario slowly started to sink into my brain. After all the wait for an interview call, this is how I screwed up. I walked for some more time on the streets and told myself that it’s completely alright. Not every day goes as expected.

Then suddenly I heard the rumbling noise of rats running in my stomach and the sight of a local pizza shop made me smile for the first time on that day. I walked in and had some really hot onion rings which worked amazingly on my tired body. I then remembered that previously I signed up for a networking event by Crowded which was happening the same night. Crowded is a startup company serving as a mediator between job seekers and talent hunters. I checked the time and decided to attend that event. When things don’t work out the way I expected them to be, I always figure out something else to compensate the loss.

I have reached the address where the networking event was taking place. There were a reasonable number of people at the event. There were around 30 recruiters from several companies in NYC. Everyone spoke really well and I had the chance to talk to some 4-5 recruiters and dropped my resume with them. They had free food, cheese pizza and beer of which I could enjoy none but I got myself an extra large black T-shirt as part of the free goodies which looked really cool. I had a moderately good ending for the day and returned home with mixed feelings. I sept like I was deprived of sleep for years, as I might have walked nearly 6 miles that day.