9th Aug: My sad & happy Day...

The below post (a real life incident from my life) is my entry for Close Up “Fire-Freeze” Contest.
If you have lived any such moment where you felt contrasting emotions piercing you, you may participate. Remember to post your story-in brief-as a comment below this post. Thanks.

I belong to a big, famous and common league: I am a software developer from India. When you become that, you feel good and especially more when you are a class bunker during your engineering days and addicted to novels, movies and PC games. Gradually, as I settled in my job, a want of better package made me a frequent job hopper. I was sitting at my 3th organization in 4 years. Things were worse for I had already been selected for an Investment bank (a dream) and was waiting for the offer letter. That would make it 4 in 4 years. I hope you don’t ask me WHY when I will tell you that I did that within a week of my joining the new org. It was a dream to work for an Investment bank, for me and opportunities don’t come twice, do they? So as I pondered more over my future, relaxing during my office hours, I thought getting an MBA done from some elite school would now make more sense for I am just about to move into something cool. How long can an offer letter take to reach me? Notice periods after you resign at your workplace are always rosy. All set, GMAT was the word.

Internet got me all that I needed. Forums and blogs gave me a good head start. Within 2 days, I had all the stuff I would need and it stood at 4+ GB mark. I always start good. While a daily 2 hour preparation is usually suggested, I started at 5. Two weeks down, I was getting tired. The zeal was decreasing. One month down, I was almost done with my course. I was looking forward to another two weeks to be done with my revision and searching for a good online test series seemed perfect for the time. Being a born procrastinator, it also seemed logical to seal the deal and I booked my GMAT dates. But somewhere in the city, an accident happens, my colleague gets injured and out of work for no idea how long according to the doctors and the next day at work, my project gets shuffled and I along with another new joiner (Mr. X), is expected to work with someone (Mr. Y ) sitting at the onshore. My housewife days (I used to come home by 5PM in the evenings) were over. The famous onsite-offshore model started for me. It was now 10 or 11 in the night when I used to reach home. It took two days for me to settle in the sudden changes at work and after thinking it through; things still looked easy for the GMAT to happen as planned. Test series would be for the weekends with 1 hour revisions during the week. I was targeting for a 730+.

Four tests down, I was at a 640, a well 90 points below of my target score. Numerous head and fist bangs over the desk, countless cigarettes and discussions with closed ones, subject experts and brainstorming couldn’t help me out. Logic suggested a change of date. And, my soon-to-arrive offer letter was already 2 Months delayed. I kept on submitting my proofs and the HR always came back asking for something different. Sometimes it was the tenant agreement or sometimes it was the format of my scanned copy. Background verification became a passport application. And my 10-11PM log off time from work got extended to 2-3 AM in the mornings as I got stuck up with Mr. X & Y, mostly to explain them no more than the basics for fresh graduates out of college. Everything was testing everything in me.

A score of 630 in the 5th test on a weekday morning finally got the better off me. The test had to be rescheduled. It needs to be done tonight. 90 points increase in performance isn’t a joke. I reached home at 2 AM in the morning. With eyes red, I see the offer letter sitting in my inbox. Happy, I rush to make the other end fine. I log into the GMAC website and hit the reschedule button. It charges me $250, the equivalent of a new exam as opposed to the $50 it is supposed to, for rescheduling an exam appointment. I cancel out and retry the steps. Well, it stays the same way. Nuts, I check out the FAQ’s. My original exam day is on 9th Aug and today is 3rd Aug. You have to reschedule your exam at least 7 days before or else, you get charged the same as of a new exam. I never thought of ending my life more seriously. I am appearing the exam as scheduled initially. You think I am done? Nope. The real fun was yet to come.

I had resigned at work but no one seemed to care about it. Everything stayed the same. There was no change in my working hours. I was still educating an 8 year old IT brain at onshore and a 6 year old IT brain at offshore about how data structures work and why I coded what. I actually had to work 12+ hours even during my notice period. Who does that? Why me? I didn’t want to take the exam but $250 is no joke. So, with duality all inside me, my preparation came to a standstill and now I was looking for luck on the day.

It was supposed to be 9th Aug. And it should be a Tuesday for I remember that while booking it, I thought that I would get the weekend and then on Monday, at office I would fake a bad health and leave early and the next morning, on Tuesday, I would ace the exam. So, on Sunday evening, I went out with my friend to check out the Pearson center in my city. On Monday, I went to office and at 4 PM, I successfully faked my bad health to my manager and headed home. It felt heaven to come back so early. But I was sad. The final day lied hours ahead of me. The day which was supposed to be my day depended now totally on luck. People do end up getting a 50 point increase. Everything depends on the last few questions and how you start. That’s what I was reading in the forums to keep my fire burning. Anyways, I would have the real time experience of having gone through the GMAT when I would appear it again in a few months, to correct my score. The final score matters. A good sleep is most suggested. I picked up my handset to call up my girl friend and saw it was 9th Aug. Weird. It was 10’o clock in the night. I checked my system calendar. It was 9th Aug. I can’t explain what followed next…..

9th Aug, 2010 was a Monday. I was happy that I escaped the exam unknowingly. I was sad that I finally did indeed make my $250 go into the drain. I was happy that I never got to see that score I hated. I was sad for I knew many around me thought I did all this intentionally. I was happy that I didn’t have to face what it feels like wanting to give 100% and not being able to, when it matters. I was sad that I, being the candidate, didn’t care to check the date and the day.
Life is weird. There are very few things which happen and with time, become increasingly hard to comprehend as to why they happened. Otherwise, time usually has the answer to almost everything else….I still don’t know whether I should be happy or sad about what had happened.