The Wait

The wait has been unbearable. Unbearably long and tedious. It is unbearable as it is seemingly endless. It is endless as it is filled with uncertainty that, more often than not, melts into utter frustration.

And what is this wait? The wait for the doj or the date of joining. To join Infosys, or infy as it is known. I was recruited by infy at a campus drive about a year back. July 3^rd 2006 to be exact. The day of my parents wedding anniversary and a good friends (Ranjana) birthday.

That was in the 6^th sem. Now it’s been a month since my university exams have gotten over. Me and my fellow infyians under the Kerala University have been sitting in our homes waiting for the doj since July. What made us think that we would get the doj in July? Well, all our seniors joined in July, the year before. So we started waiting….. we started up a Infosys Kerala 2007 community on orkut so as to keep track of all infyians across kerala. We regularly checked out the Infosys2007 community on orkut( which was for all infyians of the 2007 batch). Every daybreak there was false hope. A new rumor…that we would get the doj on so and so…. And every single time, our hopes would be shattered. We would watch as dates, that we had been assured would be ours were given to some batch or the other. We watched as slowly everyone, except keralites, got their calls to join at mysore, bhubaneshwar, pune, wherever.

People were frustrated and high strung. Serves them right. Who the hell asked them to start that stupid community in the first place?? Everyday someone or the other would come up with some new info about the doj that he/she had gotten from someone who’s friends fathers friend worked in the HRD/ Alternatively, there were people who were constantly calling up or mailing HRD to query them about the doj. Then there were new rumors about infy being in trouble because of the rupee going into a downward spiral (hint hint: meaning they wouldn’t be calling us), there were talks about chikanguniya and even about them being biased against keralites (to be fair, it did look lik they had given everyone else dates except us).

Initially I used to follow whatever happened on the community. Then I started getting royally ticked off at the way people started behaving on the basis of rumors and weird logic. The only reason we had gotten so frustrated was because of the community incessantly talking about the doj and endlessly discussing possibilities of the next date. And the next date would always turn out like all other dates. No doj for us. Just because our seniors joined in July last year doesn’t mean that we were going to be called on the exact same date and time. Also, this time the keralites seemed to have drawn the short straw. Last year some other batch was probably in our place, while our seniors joined early.Our batch would join somewhere towards the end. What was so difficult to understand about that? Ok it was tough being bored and having nothing to do. So we should have gotten a temporary job. And it was tough to think that we would get calls as late as November and December, hence wasting half a year of our life. And sure, lots of people probably had plans but couldn't do anything without knowing the doj, (including me and my mom who had to go to dubai) but we had no choice but to wait. It was tough luck. Not partisanship or whatever.What pissed me off was that community members thought nothing of relentlessly hounding the HRD. C’mon guys. Grow up!!! It wasn’t like they’d never call us!!! (Bias or not, rupee downfall or not). We all knew that infy had taken on a lot more people than last time, so they were finding it tough to schedule training sessions for all of us. No matter how much we pestered them they would call us only when they were good and ready. It was our fault for over anticipating. We kept guessing that we’d get a call in July, and later August. When we didn’t get those dates we all got hyper. It’s just been a month of waiting. In fact one of my friends even talked of leaking it to the media. I was like “WTF!!!! Is she insane?? Are they all insane?? What is it that they were going to leak to the media?? ‘Infy biased against keralites; keeps them waiting for a month; calls other batches before them.’?? ”

The only place where I find infy to be at flaw is that they should have send some sort of communication to us, seeing all the calls and mails they were getting from us mallus (and proving how jobless we were, not to mention stupid). They should have sent the mail the recently did, earlier. It certainly would have placated everyone. Here’s the mail I got on

Dear ........,

Congratulations on coming out a winner in the Infosys selection process.

Securing a position at Infosys is more competitive than gaining admission to Harvard. Last year the company had more than 1.3 million applicants for full-time positions and hired only 1 percent of them. Harvard College, by comparison, accepted 9 percent of applicants.) – Fortune magazine, March 2006 edition.

This comparison goes to show your tremendous achievement at such a young age. It is truly a reflection of your intellect and passion for excellence, to have made it through the Infosys selection process. And we are pleased that you chose Infosys to kick start your career. At Infosys, we strongly believe that people are our biggest assets and you are one amongst the best-in-class global talent which Infosys takes pride in.

As we eagerly await your entry to the Infosys family, we wish to share some important information to better equip you during the joining process. Your date of joining will be communicated to you via e-mail, sufficiently in advance so that you can make your travel arrangements. We expect to have you onboard during the months of September to November 2007. We are ramping up our IT and physical infrastructure in tune with our philosophy of providing world class facilities to our people. This process is taking a little longer than what we had anticipated. We are trying our best to even out these issues and confirm your date of joining at the earliest. We will keep this connect going and update you frequently with the latest information from our end.

Looking forward to seeing you at one of the Infosys campuses soon…

Thanks & Regards,

Somnath Baishya

Head - Global Entry Level Hiring & Campus Relations

While this mail certainly did placate everyone including myself, it also worried me. I had been waiting for a call from the Alliance Business School for a long time and had even given hope, when I finally got the call. The gd/pi session was scheduled for Nov23rd and classes would start in Jan2008. I had to fill in the form and send it back with a DD of 1000 bux before Sept20th. I couldn’t do so without knowing my doj. My dilemma was what if the doj was before the last date? Half of me was tired of the waiting and wanted the doj asap. But the other half wanted for me to attend the gd/pi session. What if I did get through? I did want to do an MBA and I wasn’t really into Software.

But then I started hearing stuff about ABA not being that great and the initial salary would actually be less than what I’d get if I joined infy now. So I have a bigger dilemma now; to be or not to be MBA. I was pretty sure that if I took up a job now I wouldn’t be able to take an MBA anytime soon. After marriage maybe. Also, MBA has a huge advantage anywhere, anytime. But was ABA worth the huge fees my folks would have to shell out? I’m in a quandary. But that’s another story.

And finally, it seems that people from Rajagiri College and CET have gotten dojs for sept10th, Mysore. Everyone is relieved that they’ve finally started ‘considering’ keralites and hopeful that the next date in September will come to us. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.