Finally!, found time for myself to scribble down whatz happening at my end...
Last couple months have being quite an experience!! As soon as I landed here, I had a list of things I needed to settle down. Thanks to my wonderful friends, I didn't have to worry about anything - where to stay, what to eat, how to go here and there etc., all these basic stuff were taken care of. I'm so lucky!
First and foremost, I had to find a job. Its good to attend interviews after six years! But its totally different to attend interviews without a job in hand. The interviews here are very different than in Bangalore. First, it will be a phone screen, the hiring manager will call to check what you are doing and if you really suit the profile they are looking for. If you clear that, then, it will be an onsite interview. Usually, it will be 4 or 5 people talking to you 1-1 for 45/60 mins duration each! Its really drilling. Most of them ask you to write C programs on board and of course, none of the programs are straight forward. And some of the questions are like discussions, they just want to know how you approach the solution. Learnt a lot of new stuff while interacting with people here [including C and UNIX ;)] Finally, some of the interviews which I thought I did well, didn't go through and some of them which I thought I wasn't so impressive, did go through! :)
First and foremost, I had to find a job. Its good to attend interviews after six years! But its totally different to attend interviews without a job in hand. The interviews here are very different than in Bangalore. First, it will be a phone screen, the hiring manager will call to check what you are doing and if you really suit the profile they are looking for. If you clear that, then, it will be an onsite interview. Usually, it will be 4 or 5 people talking to you 1-1 for 45/60 mins duration each! Its really drilling. Most of them ask you to write C programs on board and of course, none of the programs are straight forward. And some of the questions are like discussions, they just want to know how you approach the solution. Learnt a lot of new stuff while interacting with people here [including C and UNIX ;)] Finally, some of the interviews which I thought I did well, didn't go through and some of them which I thought I wasn't so impressive, did go through! :)
Even though I had a full-time offer, I had to work for contract for few months becoz of some visa logistics.. the contract job I landed up was in SFO! I remember the first day I had to go to SFO for the interview, I was so excited and nervous. Just becoz I wasnt used to seeing many people at a same place :) and of course the stories I have heard about the city and the main thing was about using public transport. This was the first time I was going to use the public transport, I was bit skeptical. Things went on well and I got used to public transport and travel to SFO daily. As days went by, I started liking to work in the City. 2 months and I was completely comfortable with traveling to City for work. One day, I had to return the rental car, so drove to SFO airport, dropped the car, took the bart to office, coming back, bus to caltrain station, then train to mountain view and then light rail from mountain view to santa clara and then finally walk from light rail station to home!! This was the day, I had to use ALL modes of transport available to go to work and come back home and I was thinking, I could easily be on any travel channel doing the 'Ways to travel in bay area!' :)
Overall, its been a roller-coaster ride starting from scratch all over again! Well, now comes the question of why all this roller-coaster ride itself? Is it really worth to come all the way out on unknown land, leaving all the friends and family out there? and Is it ever possible to come back home after say 2-3 years and settle down? There are many aspects as one could think of: career opprotunities, having time for self and ofcourse 'making hay when sun shines'. Even though, I had all these on my list too, but what I like about this place is the quality of life and the system. The best thing I like about this place is ROADS and everyone following rules (well, almost!) Ask any Bangalorean, how important is it to have nice roads and public transport and most important the time spent on travel for day-to-day activities. Here, Travel made simple is all I can say! I used to reach home (around 70 kms) in 1.5 hrs even while using public transport! You can just take your car out on any time of the day(or night) and drive to wherever you want. There are thousands of wonderful places here to see (I agree that there are equal or more number of places to see back at homeland, but how accesible and practical are those? Can you imagine going to Shimla/Kulu and coming back over a long weekend?)
The system teaches you so many things, you are on your own and HAVE to do every little thing yourself starting from making a coffee to assembling your cot. To have a easy and smooth run in this country, just follow the system, how-much-ever dumb it is. To sum it up, this place is a Beauty without Life or Body without soul!
