I know swimming. But I am not a great swimmer. So even after nearly 10 years I sometimes go through a "near drown experience". Not coming up for air at the right time , going through the slide in the water park and going splash under water, suddenly getting a sneeze in chlorinated water - the scenarios are oh so many to go through NDE. Its a funny feeling to be honest. I am scared. Oh my the sensation of having your airways blocked with water, the feeling of going down - it's terrifying. I feel as if you are going to die. A very unpleasant death. A death people around the pool will laugh about. But I have belief too. 'Come on, I know swimming. I am not going to drown in a pool of 8 feet water!!' And I kick. I flail my arms. I try to bring the head up. I try to remember the stroke I know best and do it. I know I can do it. I surface. I gag and reach the other side. I are embarrassed but hey I survived.
It was nearly the same feeling when K lost his job. It was a petrifying. What if we went under. What if he didn't get a job. What if he got depressed? Were we ready to cope? He had tried to move out of the organisation before but it hadn't worked. He had tried to change to the technical track before but had not felt comfortable. What if history repeated? But then hope kicked in. Come on he had over a decade's experience and nearly 7 years in the U.K. He had the brain. If he gave his heart and soul and studied, he would crack it. As they say" if you really wish for something the whole universe conspires to get it for you". We were about to give the conspiracy a chance.
K started studying. Baby steps first. It was frustrating. Technology changes way fast. He felt challenged. There is little that burning the mid night oil cannot achieve. Slowly things started making sense and the big bad world of client side coding made sense. He was up till 3 in the morning debugging his projects. As his confidence grew, he put his resume up in the job portals. He started getting calls. Some were rigorous. Some old school interviewers literally took a class on software development. Some were frivolous. He had a 1.5 hour telephonic just to get the following feedback: "we found him not serious about relocating to Exeter. For him any job will do at the moment and this is not a display of adequate seriousness for the job". Someone who does not have a job would have really done with any job. We did not get why the interviewer was so high strung about the place. Anyway all we could do was move on.
A month and a half on - the hours of study made it possible to attach technical skills to the resume. The frequency of telephonic interviews increased. He was a busy man with nearly 3 interviews every day. The conversion rate to face to face increased. He had an entire week lined up with interviews. He had to literally travel the length and breadth of the country. One day he had a 7 hour travel one way to attend an interview. He came back around 2200. Only to start the next day at 0600 on a four hour long journey.
Every interview gave us hope. It wouldn't be long till all fell into place. Each interview made us stronger for we definitely learnt something. But every single interview turned out be a failure.
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