Absent-Minded...Bored?

One thing which I have not been able to ascertain so far regarding myself is whether I am absent minded or just plain bored with certain aspects of life. The fact that I am not brainy enough to qualify for being absent minded just might tilt the scales in favor of being bored and not taking enough care to remember certain things. It often amazes me how I am able to remember the score of some cricket match held a couple of decades ago, but doesn't remember a request to switch off the washing machine by my wife within seconds of her asking.

As with moulding of most of my characterestics, books have played a big part in my memory too. From very early on, I was fascinated by absent-minded characters. I was entranced by people who could remember complex formulas but totally forget the fact that they haven't eaten for a day or two etc. I had a couple of eccentric relatives who too added to the romanticism of absent mindedness. There was this uncle of my dad's who had a great sense of humor and also provided a great amount of humor to others by his actions. Early on in his life, as a student, he had created history of sorts by writing a couple of pages long essay for a question in his science class as to how a lizard catches its prey. While everyone wrote about the tongue of the lizard being fixed to the front of the mouth and how it had a material that would trap the insect etc., this relative of mine went on to describe the emotions going through the lizard's mind as he prepared for the kill and the insect's mind about the potential attack. In an extremely gory and detailed manner, he went on to describe how the demonic lizard caught the unarmed and helpless insect and devoured it. If he had been in this age, he might even have thrown in a bit of al Qaida or Iraq or Taliban into it. This person was always great fun for us kids because he would narrate stories in great detail, mostly his own creations. What interested me more in those days, though, was the fact that he would forget mid-sentence what he was talking about till the kids all explained to him about the story till then before he would proceed. While the others found it slightly annoying, it caught my imagination that a person could forget what they were talking about. He also famously provided great entertainment once to his wife and kids by preparing to go to office in his shirts and underpants before their roaring laughter reminded him of the fact that he was slightly underdressed.

While in school or in college, I didn't have any teacher who had such characterestics which was rather disappointing for a person like me. For long, I was half-expecting to be taught by an extraordinarily brilliant teacher who forgot the basic things in life. I did have a physics teacher who could be termed quirky, but even he can't be classified as really being absent minded.

From long, I realized that in my case too, I found it really difficult to retain some stuff if it didn't really interest me. Mathematics was a subject that I didn't really care much about till I got a good teacher in school who showed me the fun with numbers. That change resulted in me scoring some really good marks in maths, surprising even myself in the bargain. That also led me to believe that I was really good at it and choose it in college where a bunch of disenchanted professors in Thrissur's St. Thomas College Mathematics Department saw to it that the love for maths was forever buried six feet under as far as I was concerned. Nowadays, I believe I should have gone for English, my first love, but then life doesn't have a rewind button.

Coming back to my absent mindedness, I think it is a combination of disinterest and forgetfulness in my case. While there are certain things which I wouldn't want to forget at any cost and still does, there are also certain other things where I conveniently hide behind the curtain of absent mindedness. The lines, though, are rather blurred between the two, even for me.

Interviews

I don't exactly hate interviews, but I must admit that I don't really like them very much. Even after having attended quite a few in my life, I still am not very comfortable with this whole concept of interviewing or, more importantly, being interviewed. It has been found that interviews are successful in finding its objective only by about 20% to 30%. That looks an awful success percentage for an activity that is determining the future of people in so many ways.

The first interview of mine that I can vaguely recall is the one which I attended in 1985. I was being shifted from one school to another, and the receiving school wanted to verify that they weren't being loaded with a dumb-headed guy who might affect their pass percentage 6 years later. Since I always look rather quiet, studious, and decent, I managed to get through the interview without saying anything of substance. From then on, I must say I have tried my level best to use those particular looks to the maximum in my future interviews, though I have met with only mixed success with it.

After finishing my college and with no specific plans in my mind with regards to the future, I got a chance to attend an interview. A cousin of mine, seeing the lack of direction in my life and wanting to do something about it, fixed it up for me. That interview was in Bangalore, an indication probably that I was going to shift to this city from my hometown in Kerala in future. I had no idea as to what to expect in an interview, but went with the courage that you generally see in people who are ignorant or stupid or both. To say that the interview was a rude wake-up call to my communication skills would be an understatement.

As in most of the interviews, the person started asking me to tell something about myself. Before he could finish the question, I plunged right into the description, starting off almost from the time I got off my mother's womb. After listening to about half an hour, by which time I was beginning to describe when I started walking in life, he cut me short by saying he would get back to me. Little was I to know at that stage in life that the phrase "to get back" is a sweet way of saying "get lost."

Slowly, I managed to improve my performance in interviews. I became an expert at describing myself in not more than 2 minutes. Whether it is because there is so little to say or whether I was a good editor of my description, I still don't know, but my success rate definitely improved. But with the communication levels and with it the success rate improving, a new problem cropped up. This was fear of failure. Now that I was beginning to be real good at this, I didn't want to lose out in any of the interviews. That, in turn, started affecting my communication. In short, I am almost back to square one.

The thing that I have against the concept of interview is that it doesn't give the right picture about a person. Just like a great advertisement doesn't ensure a great product, a great interviewee doesn't always turn out to be a great employee. If one is able to articulate well, say just the right things at the right time, with a bit of humor thrown in, and a generous dose of distorted truth, one can clear an interview. The problem lies in the fact that I might be good at my work but not good at presenting it or being very understated while presenting it. In such a scenario, I do not stand much of a chance at success. Also, we are getting to see increasing cases of employees being terminated after companies find out that most of the stuff the employee attested to at the time of interview turns of to be just a sackful of cowdung (trying to be politically correct).

Interview, as a method to determine a person's ability, is extremely inadequate. Having said that, there isn't a better method right now which can substitute interviews. We have had companies coming up with various testing like psychometric, analytic, logical, etc., but we can also see more people overcoming such hurdles only to turn out to be a loser. Agreed that these tests can narrow the odds, but one has to accept that it can't avoid the error. I only wish that when I clear my next interview hurdle, I don't turn out to be one of those errors.