People say life is all about three C’s - “Choice, Chance and Change”. These three C‘s were the reasons I am at Appiness today. It all started in the month of November 2015 - the month of the ‘Festival of Lights’. While everyone was excited about Diwali vacation, my classmates and I were worried about getting an internship for our final semester project. I was fed up of applying for internships and getting rejected (I didn’t know that I was getting ‘redirected’ to something better).
My Dad always says, “Sometimes what you are looking for comes when you are not looking at all” - that’s what happened with me too. I was informed about the internship opportunity at Appiness and was asked to attend the interview on 15th November, 2015 in Bangalore. Now comes the 1st C - ‘The Choice’, where I had to make a choice whether to attend the interview or not since it was in Bangalore and I was worried how my parents would react. “Do what your heart says because nobody knows your situation better than you”, my dad told me when I asked him whether I should go to Bangalore or not.Hence I decided to attend the interview and started preparing for it.
On 14th November, at 10:30 PM, a few of my friends and I boarded into a bus from Coimbatore to Bangalore to attend the interview. Initially I was nervous during the journey because I had many questions in my mind about the interview process and the city. I was also scared that I might miss the destination point. But thankfully I was awake when we reached Bangalore at 5:30 AM. We were picked up by our college alumni who are also a part of the Appiness family.
On the day of interview I had to face the 2nd C -‘The Chance’, where I had to take up the chance to prove myself during my interview. The interview process consisted of four rounds. A written test, an HR round and two technical rounds (telephonic interviews). I was really astonished about the level of confidence I had when I took up each round of the interview process. The interview was conducted in THIS office and since it was on a Sunday, we were not able to find much people around. We were told that the results of the interview will be informed through mail. Since our bus to Coimbatore was at 10:30PM, we spent the rest of the day by going to Forum Mall, had dinner and boarded our bus back to Coimbatore. I am really thankful to the alumni of PSG for helping us throughout the entire day, inspite of their busy schedule.
When we came back to college after our vacation, we shared our experience in Bangalore with our friends. On 17th November, I received a mail from the HR regarding the confirmation of my internship. I was hired as a Web Developer Intern. I was really happy and excited about the offer but there was still something running in my mind - “The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” It took me quite some time to convince my family to let me go since they were very worried about how I would manage to stay in a new city all by myself, but my passion and determination was so evident, they eventually had to bow down.
On 6th December, after returning from a holiday, my friends (who also got selected at Appiness) hurriedly packed our bags and boarded our bus to Bangalore with teary eyes, reminiscing the moments spent in college with our friends and family.
“A journey of thousand miles must begin with a single step” and so my journey too in Appiness started on 7th December, at 09:00 AM. In the first week, we were allocated into different teams based on our roles and learnt what Appiness does through induction programs organized by several teams at Appiness. Following this, all the interns had lunch with the CEO and co-founders which was a memorable one for all of us. As the days passed by, we started learning new technologies and were allocated into different projects. Initially it was tough but then my Team Lead encouraged and supported me through every hurdle I faced which made me unafraid to take up new challenges and enjoy them as well. This phase made me meet the 3rd C - ‘The Change’ which I think we need to face every day in our lives.
Apart from the daily work, I like how Appiness keeps all it’s employees engaged with constant team building and bonding activities. Birthday celebrations, christmas decoration, secret santa and Saturday dive-ins make me admire our work culture and environment.
On the whole, this was how my journey started with Appiness and I would like to conclude with a quote.
“You must make the choice to take a chance, if you want to change anything in life.”
