Tricky Interview Questions - What are your personal achievements or accomplishments?

“Answer this for me, if you can” said Mr Sumesh. (The manager interviewing me from a very well-known company)

“What are your personal achievements in life?”

Wow! – I thought.

Totally spaced out moment. 

What am I good at? (See this was one of those wrong interpretations of the question, that led to the following answer) - "I’m good at acting" - I babbled, but he was quick to correct me, that it was just a strength and not an achievement.

Think think think! (Stupid head wants to get blank now, the perfect meditation mind is always available while you’re at an interview. So much for “inner peace”!)

What on earth have I achieved personally in life?

Anything to do with saving a dog or charity?

Nah . . . that can’t be it.

So then nothing at all. Oh my god!

What have I done?

From the corner of my thinking eyes, I can see the managers smiling Face! (Creepy!!!)

And then it just happened…out of nowhere. . . I had just framed a sentence in my head. (Yeah baby, 

I’m rocking side by side, just like Joey’s style: D)

Not even sure if I could win this man’s attention with the exceptional answer that I was about to deliver.

And slowly, in fact a little dramatically, I began -

“The fact that I completed my engineering (which trust me, it was not an easy task for me) and to have then pursued MBA, completed that as well with some really good scores, I think, that has been the proudest moment of my life, an achievement indeed” – and just like that, I had discovered what my personal achievement was. (Ka-ching!)

Voila!

He had a smile on his face . . . I had done it, he saw me through the answer, I knew he believed what I said and was happy that he had got an answer.(Of course there was a little more to this answer, which I'd rather skip out from here, but mission accomplished)

Not sure if it won any brownie points . . . oh who am I kidding?

It actually did win me enough brownies to get me to the next round of interviews.

Ting!!! (3) - That’s the happy gong tune in my head ;)

And everything else was history. The important thing was, I had never realized what I had achieved in my life so far. I’m still clueless if academics can be counted under personal achievements. But let’s face it, not all are born geniuses, and I for sure had a lot of helping hands and then some, to achieve what I have achieved.

No idea if you would count this as a personal achievement, but like my friend Sindhu who chants this mantra all the time – “To each their own” ;) I would like to rest my case with it, as well.(At least until I figure out something else.)

If you’ve got something to add, feel free to leave a comment. I’ll be happy to hear from you.

Back from the dead - A desi twist ;)

"Nope, can’t do. Your stay here has been more than required. You have to return to your place." What on heaven was this guy talking about?

I had just gotten back with mom and now the guy wants me to get off his land or cloud or whatever this was. And just like that, I was back in my living room. Only, to find that my family no more lived there and a scream from the new occupants that I could hear until the stairway of the apartment. Thank god for the hood on my jacket.

I now walked on the streets where I had spent a few years of my last breathing days on earth. Now where on earth were my family? If only, the guy had enough sense to fill in my pockets with some cash and a mobile phone to contact all of them before dropping me from heaven.

A thirty minute walk landed me in front of my granny’s house. Was she shocked? Yep, that was definitely her dentures that fell crashing on the floor. Wait, there was more! They screamed, fainted, touched and groped me literally, even slapped me, just to be sure and in no time, I had an audience in front of their front door.

Word spread like forest fire and in no time, even before, I could contact my dad, sister and brother in law, I was answering the weirdest set of questions in front of a lot of cameras and channel mic’s.

It took a few doctors, experts in the field of the after death, page 3 celebs and religious missionaries to rip my brain into pieces and get their bit of fame via the various channels that ran my story nonstop from morning to night and a few newspapers until the end of the week, before I could lay eyes on my family.

Lol!

They hugged me and kissed me and before anyone realised, whisked me off from there to my home sweet home J

They knew better than asking me questions of any sorts. I guess the channels had covered up all the angles and I had fried my brains until it was charred. A sumptuous meal, and occasional hugs and most importantly a few daily chores, was all that was required to make me feel alive and to be back from the dead!