The end of a Saga

The dust has settled. The swords are back in their sheaths. The wounds have healed. People do not interrupt each other with an "I would like to make a pertinent interruption here.." anymore. They listen to and trust each other. To cut a long story short, CRP 2005 , the placement saga has ended. By the way, I managed to sneak into Hewlett-Packard when they were not looking.

Before the people here who know me start cribbing about the lack of good HR practices in HP, let me make it very clear that I have had my share of high points during the placement process:

The P&G interview : The process was a pain to any person who could not spin a yarn or make an incident as small as helping out for an event in the backstage (I mean cheering up people, getting soft drinks for the judges etc,which is not even work) seem as large as "Co-organized the College fest". With heart wrenching and soul searching questions like :

Tell me about an incident where you resolved an ethical conflict ? (Huh !!??)
Can u recall an incident where, what you did shaped the direction of a project ? (contrary to general expectations,I learnt that a straight "no" would not qualify to be an excellent answer)
Can you tell us about an incident where persistence paid off ? (12 GDs, 15 interviews in 5 days flat - all of this for one job .....Need I say more?)

The Glaxo Smithkline GD: A little background would not be totally irrelevant here. I am basically a nice guy (Atleast I profess to be one), so ten students (akin to hungry lions who have not seen the interview stage for some time) being thrown into one cage for only eight minutes with one small piece of meat in the middle of the cage, does not qualify to be the most comfortable of situations for me. So, it was like being caught in a crossfire where my neck reminded me of what audiences in the side of the Roland Garros courts during a Chang-Courier match must have been through. Yeah, I did contribute in my own way. I added to the mayhem.

There were many more like this. "Instances" where I would be kicked out of GDs, Interviews and would come very close to making the final "cut" but somehow it would elude me. So, when at 2:35 AM , 7th January, I chose HP over three other offers, it was a big moment for me. It was a moment of triumph of ignorance over knowledge, the triumph of laziness over drudgery and the triumph of what not over what not as one of our Professors would like to say. Above all, it was fun ......