Self Pity or Pride ?

I enjoy interviewing…they always teach me something new about the complicated Homo sapiens.

Here I am interviewing Ani for a position in my team. After all the regular questioning, I noticed his GATE percentile.  GATE is an all India exam which provides you a gateway to premier colleges for post graduation in engineering. And when I double checked his resume, I did not find a post graduation. Naturally, I wanted to know why? Getting a score and a good one as it was is not a small feat! And, why did he not take it up? This question came up almost at the flag end of the interview, by when I had already signed up on taking him in.

What followed opened my eyes to a new dimension! Ani comes from a background where his finances did not support his study expenses. In fact he had to discontinue a year now and then giving in to his financial stature. He owes a lot to the people of his town who considering his marks paid for his fees! He never let them down by grabbing the opportunity and excelling in his education.  So, after giving GATE although he did score, he realized the fees were something he could not bear and hence opted for a salaried job instead.

So far, this could appear like a story one could have heard. Given the demographics, social stature and financial disparity the Unity in Diversity country hosts, backgrounds like this are quite possible.

But, what made me sit back and think is the way Ani handled his background. Given a situation to cash on, I have met many a people who use self pity and draw my attention. I have met many who use you for their advantage just by casting themselves as victims of circumstances. Before you realize what they have set you up for, you are way into their story! And here was a guy who never for once talked about his testing times. Here was a guy who never felt embarrassment in sharing his roots! Here was a guy who took pride in where he came from and what did with it. To me, I knew at that moment, I met the right person. It does not matter what or how our circumstances have been….what matters is whether you want to draw self pity or pride….what matters is how do you use them to bounce back stronger!!!

Perception

My son has been drawing pictures ever since he could hold a pencil. Like every mother's pride I carried mine too about them. Now every kid fills your walls, doors, every space he can reach before getting onto paper. In short he exhausts every bit of space he could get his hands on! And like any working mom, since I spend a good number of productive hours at work, I put up some of his pictures at my workplace. It's some sort of connection with him while I am at work!

On an honest path, not all pictures are masterpieces or anything close to wonderful albeit so from my view.
I normally conduct final round of interview for potential team members at my workplace. I normally find people gazing, sometimes commenting at these pictures of my son.

One day, much later after inception, Vittal caught me by surprise and helped me understand the power of Perception.

During our informal chit chatting over lunch, Vittal brought up the topic of pictures. He said one of the reasons he was keen on joining this organization was the drawings. Now if you are puzzled on the connection, so was I. What does my son's drawing have to do with Vittal joining? Before I could question, Vittal continued ... He said the drawings were a mark of honesty! What? What has honesty to do with my son's drawings and what has it to do with reasons....? I still wondered. Before I could scream my bafflement out, Vittal told me his rationale. He thought those were actually drawn by me!!!!! And, considering the rudimentary nature of the drawings, Vittal apparently thought me to be a very honest person -- a person who does not mind sharing her shortcomings!!! He thought working with a person like me would have a meaning. He thought this is an environment he should be part of! Needless to say, I was dumbstruck!!! Something which seemed nothing remotely connected made in a lot of sense to someone.

Isn't this the power of Perception????