With the most conventional way of announcing things these days, I let everyone know about my first real job1. It’s been about 3 months I’ve been with the company, and we’ve almost come to the end of a major project. I thought it deserved a retrospective write-up about my experience.
Straight out, let’s be honest - I never expected to get a real job before I was 20. I’m not a very optimistic person either, so I had been bracing myself for a rough ride trying to find a place to work after college. Fortunately, working as a freelancer with other skilled and knowledgeable people rubbed off. That, and the fact that Racked Hosting has broad minded executives. Any other company wouldn’t have considered a second year college student even as a potential employee (unless he/she was a prodigy), but these guys did. I’m thankful.
The interview
As it turns out, my employment was due to a chain of events started off by people I’ve never even met. I’m not going to take any names here, but they know who they are. Someone I was following on Twitter knew someone else on Twitter who knew my boss, so when she found out that I was a designer in Manipal University, she told him. A week or so later, I landed an interview.
At first, I didn’t think I was going to be interviewed for a job. I was contacted for a re-design of the company web site. I don’t know if it was me not understanding things, or just not expecting someone to consider me for employment, but I went to meet Swaroop to discuss their requirements and ideas for the design. A company web site is an important thing, and carrying out conversations through e-mail is a little too slow for comfort.
So after a long (I believe it was 2 and a half hours by the time we were done) talk, it was decided that I would join in as a trainee. I wasn’t sure of what to expect since I’ve never really been ‘trained’ for anything before. Whatever I know, I’ve learnt from experience, or I’ve taught myself. But it’s always intimidating when you meet a director of a company because he knows so much more than you. I went with it with an open mind, and three months later, here I am.
The work
Officially, I’m a graphics designer. I work in RH Presence, our web design and development department. Because I also qualify as a coder, I will be put into web development projects as and when possible. I guess I made a good choice going down both roads - designer and developer - simultaneously. Swaroop told me on a few occasions that he had trouble giving me an official title because I qualify for multiple things. I think we’ve managed to find one thing I’m good at, and are sticking with it for the moment.
Our work environment is almost perfect to be in. We’re currently in the process of setting up a branch office in Manipal – one that Swaroop and I designed ourselves. So until it is ready (we don’t have a concrete date yet), we have been meeting and working from our local Café Coffee Day. Coffee and food combined with half-decent music, along with regular talks about servers, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, and just generally everything technology, we’ve managed to find a nice and comfortable working atmosphere. I couldn’t have really asked for a different one.
We are a non-Windows organisation. Which means that designers work on Apple hardware and software (along with Adobe stuff), and coders work on Linux machines. We don’t like Windows at-effin’-all. The first thing I noticed when I went for my interview was that Swaroop used a Macbook. It was almost a relief to see someone I was going to work with/under also share my taste. Being designers, we share an equal hate for IE2. All these common points make work fun.
The future
No-one can predict the future, but if I was to say anything about it, it looks pretty sunny. Like-minded executives, room to grow, learn and most importantly, a place where one’s word counts for something regardless of their rank.
Seeing the people who run the company, I think it is in good hands, and they’ll take it down the correct roads as and when required. That’s always an important thing when one is trying to judge their future with new people. I think we’ll do just fine.
