Is the failure that bad that it tarnishes one’s image in the society forever? It’s distressing to hear the news of the suicide of students due to failure in exams, depression of youngsters due to failure in relationships, suicide by farmers due to failure in paying the debts, depressed people due to lack of meritocracy around. Does this all mean that we are not at all taught to take the failures?
I want to share the story of my failure with you all openly, maybe this will save someone from self-destruction.
I was a bright student in my school and college. Acculturation of my family was such that, we celebrated our school results more than any festival. I always stood first in my class. Got a job in the campus. Always did very good in my job and received appreciation for the work done.
With such background, when I decided to find a job in Bangalore to widen and enrich my experience, I got interview calls from various companies. I appeared for the interview for IBM and Accenture. I was not very aware of the name Accenture that time, so I almost made up my mind to join IBM and was waiting for the result of the interview. My family, my friends were sure that I would be able to join the company of my choice as there is no chance of me not getting selected.
I got the result, IBM had rejected me saying I have no process knowledge which is required for my job profile. This was unexpected. My technical interview had gone really good and I was sure to get in. All my planning of transformation in my career, shifting to Bangalore from Nashik collapsed. More than financial it was an emotional setback for me. This was not the end of my failure, there was more waiting for me. Accenture conveyed me the result. But they said, we would not consider your three years work experience as it is with very small and unknown company. You will have to join as a fresher. I understood the consequences then and there. It meant, people having the lesser experience than me will have the upper designation and can be my boss. I felt dejected and sad. My family and friends encouraged me and advised me per their own knowledge and opinions. I had to decide.
I decided to pick up the position at Accenture and prove to them that my work experience reflects in my work and is worth considering. I joined Accenture, as anticipated, a few of my team members with a lot lesser experience than me were possessing the superior designation, earning more salary, taking lesser workload, less participation in meetings as compared to me. That was humiliating, at times I wanted to pull up my stakes, but I kept my equanimity. I wanted to walk the walk and eventually that happened. I received the award for outstanding performance, got promoted and all went well. I was happy that I could sail through the situation and could get deserved and desired.