Friends

by 1 comment on "Staying in touch"

rsz_handsWhen I was on Facebook, I was getting to know what was happening in the lives of a lot of friends and acquaintances. I wouldn’t say I was in touch with all of them as they were just sharing updates with me and posting comments only because I was on Facebook. It wasn’t like most of them really cared about staying in touch with me and I would have been hell-banned like I am now as I am out of Facebook.

A lot of my friends whom I try to be in touch with, still share their updates only on Facebook and often I end up having to ask them offline to share stuff with me like the pictures of their wedding, trip photos and etc. But this doesn’t bother me at all as I still know how to get hold of them.

These days I am asked often, “Are you on WhatsApp? Why not? It’s cool and the happening thing right now. You’re missing out on a lot of fun. So and so is on WhatsApp and we all had a fun group chat”. Really? Do I really have to bother myself into signing up for yet another messaging/communication platform just to stay in touch with most people who don’t care? Do you people keep talking with everyone on your contact list on the next happening messenger app? I guess not. With Facebook now acquiring WhatsApp, I wouldn’t think of going anywhere near it. I am content to be using just my Gmail account to communicate via chat and email with people and it suits me just fine. I am sure that if you really care about me, you won’t mind taking that extra bit of effort to get in touch with me and I will be glad about that.

These days, the rate at which the “happening things” happen is getting ridiculous to say the least. I don’t want to bother about getting myself into each of those glorified silos that lock-in and keep out people not inside it. A popular saying on the internet goes “When something is given to you for free, you are the product being sold” but nowadays it has become “Even when you pay and buy something, you are the product being sold”. Why should I sell myself just to keep getting spam from people whom I don’t care about? Those whom I care about and vice-versa, I am already in touch. Wanna get in touch with me, contact me wherever I am on the internet – my blog, Gmail, Twitter, Identi.ca, Diaspora and so on. Even a quick Google search on my name will be of help in finding ways to contact me.

Looking forward to getting in touch with a lot more people who care. 🙂

Update (17 Nov 2014) – I have succumbed to the pressure from friends and relatives and agreed to try out WhatsApp for a few months since it is the only way to reach most of them easily.

by 0 comments on "Things falling into place and a sigh of relief"

It’s been 6 months since I got recruited for a job, but a dear friend was so low on confidence and struggling with herself mentally, trying to get recruited. Since the initial companies visiting her college were high-profile and were interested in recruiting the creamiest of the creamy, she didn’t make it in any recruitment. She started losing hope and confidence and it was having a strong negative impact on her and her performance as the number of companies she attended kept on increasing. Adding to her misery was the fact that she didn’t clear the initial written round in any of the recruitment drives she attended. I know about her inside out and did keep insisting that it was only a matter of time till she will break through the barriers and get recruited, considering the talent she has, though she has done far too little justice to it.

At last the first breakthrough came when a IT giant came to her college for recruiting students for internships, she cleared 2 rounds of written tests – one on quantitative aptitude and another on technical areas, though she did with some malpractices she managed to get away with. That gave her a lot of confidence and made her feel a bit better though she was still scared and sulking about her job prospects.

During the time of my birthday a leading IT services company visited her college for mass recruitment and she easily made it. It was a cakewalk for her and we both were really really relieved!

So much the pressure of getting a job in the time of recession and post-recession that even skilled and talented students are pushed to the limits and how many still make it from the brink depends on a lot of other uncontrollable factors. All the best to all my peer students to complete their course and get a good job.