The Dreaded Walk In Interview

Woke up early today to try my luck for a chance in working with the prestigious Singapore Airlines as a cabin crew.

If not for the fact that my current job sucks big time and with the kind encouragement from a friend (the sister of my good friend... she is working as an air stewardess in SIA) I would never have attempted this interview.

I know that I don't have the looks needed but well-meaning friends seemed to overlook the fact that I look more like Mark Lee then Christopher Lee. I personally think that my friends might have been blinded by my GREAT personality =.= (My neighbor was more truthful. When I messaged her to tell her I am going for an air steward interview, she immediately told me that I cannot make it. Whatever else her shortcomings might be, you can always count on the very 可爱的猪头 Xuan for the truth =.= )

Despite having outbreaks of acne and deep dark eye circles from my stressful 6 days week of working (the late nights spent on non-stop Dota action are not helping also...) I decided to go for IT.

Upon reaching the very nice Sheraton Tower Hotel at around 10 am, I proceeded up to the 2nd floor where lines upon lines of mostly beautiful people are queuing up. I immediately felt out of place (I have never felt comfortable wearing a shirt and a stupid tie. A tie is one of the most impractical and stupid thing ever invented!).

Feeling very awkward, I smsed a few of my friends to try to alleviate my nervousness. Their replies were mostly encouraging, except for my very nice neighbor who keeps giving double-edged encouragement. Thanks ah, very nice neighbor! Next time you forget bring money for cab fare ah... I will laugh at you from upstairs :P

To continue with the story, it is a long wait before I can pass my registration papers to the counter staff and while waiting, I talked with the guy standing in front of me who turned out to be the younger brother of one of my colleagues =.=

So as we continued waiting and making small talks and ogling the many pretty girls around, someone came and collected our registration papers before ushering us into a big room where corporate videos were being screened. We were brought into the room in groups of 10 and those in the same group have to sit in the same row.

We waited in boredom as the videos keep repeating themselves (why can't they put some nice movie out for us to watch while we are waiting? I wanna watch Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull!). Finally, after more than 1 hour of waiting, we were brought into the interview room for the first round of interviews.

There were 2 Malay girls (who looked like they were stewardess in the SIA) interviewing us and we were given a relatively simple task of introducing ourselves. The first 2 to speak gave fairly standard introductions and the whole thing went on smoothly but it's my colleague's brother who nailed the thing.

He (my colleague's brother) stood up and greeted both the interviewers and the rest of us and then proceeded to talk about himself, his passion, where he had traveled, how he got his bronze tan and etc...

All in all, it was a damn brilliant speech with good body posture, hand gestures and stuff. It didn't help that my turn was directly after his.

Still feeling stunned from his great speech, my mind was blank as I stood up and said, " Um...Hi, Good morning to you. My name is (insert my name). I am 24 this year and I am working in (insert workplace). Well, I like travelling and that's why I am trying for SIA. That's all, thank you."

I cursed myself as I sat down. Usually I could talk a lot of crap. I have no problems doing presentations in front of a crowd and usually my presentations are well received by the audience. I don't know whether its a lack of sleep, my self consciousness (from the fact that I know I don't look good) or its just that I am not suited for this job that causes me to flunk this simple introduction. However, what I do know is that I am hungry and without having to go for the 2nd round of the interviews, I can actually go for my breakfast and lunch now.

When the results came out, only 2 out of the 10 of us made it passed the first round. Naturally, I was not among the 2 but my colleague's brother was. After we congratulated those 2 whom have passed, I left the hotel and headed for home a bit dejected. That's one job struck off from my list of dream jobs (I will talk about my list some other day...)

Nevertheless, I've still got more than a year left in my current bond and this means I've still got plenty of time to look for that elusive dream job. Yeah, I planned to change job the moment I've landed any job in my dream jobs list and God (I know, I know, I am an atheist who should be promoting free thought, but if there really is a God up there... Any God will do...) please let me strike Toto so that I can pay off the 10k++ left in my bond and still have money left over to fool around.

Haiz... Life sux...