What do you wanna be? A question I have been asked so often that I no longer know how to answer it.
It’s hard to figure out what you want to be when you have friends like Buddy – who had no patience for the deep thinkers and philosophers of the world. He found solace by spending four years of our youth loitering around and drinking without aim or aspiration. “Fuck it, let’s have a pint!” he would say when sad or “Fuck, that’s great, let’s have a pint” when he was happy. And occasionally, “Fuck, I am so bored, let’s have a pint?” Buddy was never bored, or at least I was never bored in his company.
During the four years of college, I had developed skills that were of no use to the outside world. I mastered two world-class techniques. One: To sit and hear someone lecture and not let their words touch your brain. And two: hibernate with eyes wide open without getting noticed. Buddy and I survived the most boring office hours of our summer internship on these fine practices.
A few months before the job placements, everyone got busy putting together elaborate CVs – achievements, grades, certificates, and whatnot. Buddy and I stared at the blank Word document and wondered if our ability to drink an exceptional amount of alcohol would qualify as a skill. “Fuckin’ hell, did we do nothing in these years? Should we just add the finance course that we did last semester, the one that we signed up for due to the hot lady professor!”
“We both scored a D in that course.” I corrected Buddy.
“Fuck it, let’s have a pint!” Buddy growled.
A few weeks later, during a placement training seminar, the class topper showed up with a three-page CV. Watching Buddy watch him flaunt his CV, I was sure Buddy needed a pint. The placement trainer looked at the three-page CV and advised shrinking it down to one page. “No HR will give more than 10 seconds on your CV. The shorter the better!” Buddy, sitting next to me, pulled out his CV from the folder and said – “That’s fuckin’ great advice. I now have only half a page left to fill.” And we laughed our guts out.
We somehow managed to put together a CV, including the hot-professor course, but the page still looked painfully empty. I came up with a brilliant idea of increasing the line spacing to stretch the text across one full page.
Placements started and some of those top-tier, hot shot companies (mostly consulting and finance) decided to run written exams before even glancing at CVs. They didn’t have 10 seconds to give a fuck about our CVs and, I think, it was a smart thing to do. They were exposed to the soap-opera brains of students like Buddy and me, who would’ve claimed to discover a meteor on our CVs if someone threw a stone at us.
Buddy and I decided to apply in any and all of the written exams conducted by the cronies. Why, if you ask? With the needle-in-a-haystack talent we had, no company in their right mind would shortlist us based on our CV. And frankly, because the cronies distributed free pizzas if you wrote the exam.
One company shortlisted twenty of us for the interview round. Buddy didn’t make it. I have no idea how I got shortlisted myself given I copied from the guy who had flunked three courses last semester or maybe they jumbled up the roll numbers. The night before the interview, I tried but couldn’t understand a thing about the company business. Their fancy website had pictures and videos of suited douchebags boasting about their products and solutions that had to do something with “Increasing the efficiency of our partners that were in the business-to-business invoice-discounting lending business” which I’d memorized by writing fifty times before the interview. Their vision was to fuck the world and make a shitload of money.
I managed to borrow a white shirt that didn’t fit me and purchased a cheap jacket that I could barely afford from the fuck-all stipend that Buddy and I received from the cheap fucks at the intern-shit who exploited our razor-sharp hibernating skills for pennies.
I waited in the lobby for my turn for the interview along with other aspiring What-do-you-wanna-be explorers. Everyone was either reading, mumbling to themselves, or going through their CV. I sat there looking for Buddy with no expectations. Buddy came running and, unable to contain his excitement, said – “Mate, I have got you covered. A friend, what’s his name, I forget, a good friend, what a friend! just told me all about the case study they are asking in the interview.”
“So, what’s the case study about?” I asked curiously.
“Well, that’s what I don’t understand fully. These fuckers are asking candidates to calculate the number of tennis balls that can fit in an airplane.” He replied nervously. “Why would anyone store tennis balls inside a fucking airplane? The cronies have gone nuts. But you should figure this out man!”
“How the fuck?” I snapped back. “Are you sure, they are asking the same case study to everyone?”
“Think about it. These fuckers won’t give 10 seconds of a fuck to review your CV, why would they waste their time to prep a unique case study for each of you? And if a sucker like you slipped through their funnel, they are not as smart themselves, are they?” Buddy had a point. I was amazed at Buddy’s brain working at full speed when he was sober. Except, he had no clue how to solve the case study. Neither did I.
“I know this guy, what a guy, a genius guy, who loves beer as much as I do. I am sure he has the answer.” Buddy took out his phone and dialed. The guys answered “Hey Buddy, how you doing? You know, I was thinking of calling you myself. I found a place where they serve Irish beer at the tap. Freshly brewed as cow’s milk. How about we pay it a visit tomorrow?”
“Oh, great. Let’s have a pint there!” Buddy agreed. “Is the place next to the City Mall? Man, the traffic is going to be fucking crazy but I …”
“Buddy – what are you doing?” I interrupted their conversation as I had an interviewer that could call me anytime.
“Listen man, my mate needs your magic. He has less than a minute and needs help with a case study of fitting tennis balls into a fucking airplane.”
The guy picked up the case study instantly, “Oh ya, the famous tennis ball problem. Yeah, it’s simple. Divide the airplane into various zones based on the geometrical proportions and calculate volume of individual sections and sum them up. You can calculate the volume of a tennis ball, can’t you? Account for the gaps that would remain between the balls – assume 80% and now divide the total useful volume of the plane by the volume of a ball. And you get number of balls that can fit.” He solved it like 2+2.
I looked at Buddy; he smiled like he was the genius taking full credit. I knew I would have to pay for their Irish beer now.
He continued. “Look, no one gives a fuck about the actual number. They don’t care about the answer. All they evaluate is if you have a process of deriving the answer. Good luck.”
My name was called. The interviewer sat right opposite to me and asked me – “Tell me about yourself” and it took me down memory lane with me hiding all my fears and insecurities behind the familiar wall of humor and alcohol. I didn’t quite know how to answer the question, but I blabbered what I’d practiced, like a trained politician. Same story – hardworking guy, wants to achieve big in life, good with numbers, poor guy, blah blah … and I bored myself to death by just talking about myself. The interviewer, impressed with my achievements (probably thinking what a poor guy!) moved to the case study which Buddy had brought to me. I took over ten minutes pretending to frame and solve the problem just as Buddy’s friend had explained. Thanks to the guy, what a guy, a genius guy, the guy who loves beer! I left a good impression.
Out of nowhere a woman wearing red lipstick and a fancy business suit confidently walked into the room. She probably was in the interview panel next door. “The case study has been leaked, one of the other panelists witnessed a guy he interviewed blabber all about it to a tall funny looking guy.” Oh, my tall funny looking home boy, Buddy. I laughed so hard inside that I couldn’t control my face and a smile popped up unwillingly! The lady looked at me with interest and amazement and said – “That smile suits you, Mister. And you look confident. Looks like you did well in the case study as I can read on this sheet. Ah, and your CV looks very polished I must say – one crisp page just as we like it. Very professional! Oh, you seem to have a peculiar interest in finance, I see.” My stars were aligned. All I needed to do was control my laughter.
She started saying all sorts of good things about her firm, almost as if she was trying to woo me into her organization. She kept blabbering about the work culture and organizational hierarchy at the firm – my hibernating skill kicked in like muscle memory, and I could imagine Buddy going – “Fuck, that’s great, let’s have a pint!”. I woke up from the dream when she said “We like your analytical skills and mostly your composure and ability to handle stress. We would like to consider you for a role directly reporting to the group CEO. You will need to be his right-hand man.” She ended. I nodded along like a monkey toy with full enthusiasm. And just when I shook their hands to leave, she asked me one last question: “What do you wanna be ten years from now?”