Conversations Before and During Interviews

The conversations I had before and during an interview.

Please excuse me, as I express to you, my woes. Looking for a job as a blind person is not easy, and society constantly disparaging me as a freeloader, who contributes nothing doesn’t help.

Despite my unsuccessful attempts at looking at employment, I have managed to have some interesting conversations. And today, I will share two of them with you. starting with…

A conversation before interview:

This one took place in late November of last year. The job offer came from the college itself. It was nothing fancy, since it was just about data entry. I am not interested in becoming a data entry operator. But I thought at that time since no one is willing to hire me at my current level, maybe they would change their mind if they see some work experience on my resume, even if it is not software development related, as it will show them that this guy has worked in the past, and he can work for us as well.

Well… how did the conversation go?

“Hello?” I picked up the phone.

“Hello. Are you Tanish?” came a female voice from the other side.

Ignoring the annoyance, I felt at them already knowing my name, I answered. “Yes…”

“This call is about a job offer at our company (insert a fancy company name here); it, it is a data entry job, work from home. Are you interested?” she asked.

Having the similar thoughts as I explained above in my head, I replied. “Yes, I am interested.”

“Okay, when can you come?” she asked me next.

“I think Monday would be the best.” I answered.

“Okay, so I will schedule you for November 28. Will that be fine?” she asked to confirm.

“Yes, that is fine.” I spoke. “But before we proceed further with this, in the interest of disclosure, I am informing you that I am a visually impaired person.”

“What?” She didn’t get that. looks like I have to simplify.

“I am blind. I cannot see.” I explained. “Would this be a trouble?”

“Yeah, that won’t be possible.” She said in a tone which clearly told me that she is regretting calling me.

I expected something similar, so I decided to ask her… Her reasoning. “Why? can you explain it to me?”

“Well, you see, we have to use technology—”

“I can use technology. I picked up your call on my own, you know; I didn’t ask someone else to do it for me.” I interrupted her, trying to make sure that my annoyance does not show up in my tone.

“Yes, you can pick up the calls, but we use Internet.” She sounded smug to me, though I do like to think my own bias is playing a role here.

“I do know how to use the internet. I have knowledge of web development, you know.” I said, hoping to get through to her.

“Yes, but we use email, and you have to see for typing.” Apparently, my attempt has failed.

“I said I knew about web development. Do you think I don’t know how to use email?” I asked, not wanting to explain about screen readers, since I have an idea that she will ignore it again, much like she has ignored everything so far.

“Okay, but our work is in Englis.” That h is not missing by mistake; those were her exact words.

At this point, I decided that I didn’t want to work for this company. “I do know English. I have two blogs where I write regularly.” I explained, trying to make sure that my tone does not sound too defeated.

“Okay, I will give you a call on 28 November, only then you should come for an interview. Otherwise, do not.” she disconnected the call.

I will readily admit that I made a lot of mistakes. But I would also argue that the shear disregard she had for me just sapped my will to play this game any further. As you can probably predict by now, the call never came. I had an argument later that same day about this same topic with my sister. She wanted me to disclose about my disability to every employer from the beginning, but I argued against it, since that disclosure, despite being done in good faith, has resulted in nothing but failure.

In the end, I can only hope that this would be just many of the bad experiences I had in my life, and I would be able to laugh about it in my old age, instead of becoming bitter.

Now, we move on to…

A conversation during an interview:

Now, I’ll skip the pre-interview conversation for this one. This opportunity came to me in the middle of January, and as a fresher, I was not expecting it at all. I received the call, informing me about how they had shortlisted me on January 13, and we agreed for the interview on January 16, since there was a weekend in the middle. I didn’t want this interview to be any later, so 16 was a perfect date for me. Also, I do provide the code examples, and this is exactly why this article is on this blog, instead of on my other blog.

As I sat in my room, hoping that the power won’t be cut, and that I won’t lose my wi-fi connection as a result, I connected with the interviewer. “Are you ready for this interview, Tanish?” he asked me.

“Yes I am.” I replied.

“Okay, so let me explain. This is the first round of interviews, and you can use any language you like during this round. In the second round, you must use Java, since we’re a Java shop.”

“Alright, I understand.” I spoke.

“Good. Also, relax, I will just try to understand your problem-solving skills. I just want to see how you work; think of it as a discussion over a coffee.” He explained.

“Okay, thanks again.” Though his attempt at making me relax did not help, I decided it was a nice gesture all the same.

“Okay, so the first problem is, if we have an array of numbers consisting of 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 5, 3, and 1, how would you retrieve a number?” He presented the problem.

“May I note the numbers down?” I asked, he agreed, and I noted the numbers on the notepad.

“Okay, I think I’ll use Python for solving this problem.” I said, and he didn’t have any problem with it.

I chose Python for a few reasons. First, I have recently completed some courses in Python, so my knowledge is fresh compared to other languages I know, or have dabbled in the past. Second, I feel it is easier to explain things in Python, compared to other languages. I could have used Rust, but I don’t want to try that until I am some experienced graybeard who dreams of code, and it compiles the next day. Despite this, you will observe how I screw things up as you read on further.

“So, I think one way of doing this would be to use a for loop. Iterate over the list, matching the elements, and when it is found, print that element. And if it is not found, then print something like “This element does not exist.”” I explained.

The code would look like this:

numbers = [2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 5, 3, 1]

num = int(input("Enter the element to be found:"))
for i in numbers:

    if i == num:
        print("The element is found:", num)

You will notice that there is no message if the element is not found. I skipped that here. Anyway, let’s see what’s the next question is going to be:

“Okay. and What is the big o of this?” he asked.

Ah, shoot. I never studied big O, because whatever programming I know is self-taught, and no matter from which angle I approach, the algorithms and data structures look impenetrable. So, I learned to use them, but telling their efficiency is beyond me. I decided that instead of bullshitting my way through this portion, telling the truth is the best policy.

“I don’t know about the big O…” I trailed off, embarrassed.

“Okay, no problem. The big O of this code would be O(n)” he explained.

Let’s take a pause, and pray: may everyone get such a nice interviewer.

“Thanks for that.” I said, because I kind of got the idea from his explanation of why it is O(n).

In reality, there are better ways to solve this problem, and you don’t even have to use a loop for those. Here they are:

numbers = [2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 5, 3, 1] print(numbers[2])

here, we just extracted the index through the index operator “[]”, and print it. an even better way is to use the index() method:

numbers = [2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 5, 3, 1] index_of_6 = numbers.index(6) print(numbers[index_of_6])

See? No loops necessary. Why did I not solve this problem using these tricks during the interview? You will have to read on to find out!

Interestingly, the index operator is faster in terms of big o, as the index() method is O(n), while the index operator is O(1). I know due to Chat GPT, so if I’m wrong, go and argue with it, not me. (I love that excuse. I know I shouldn’t, but still.)

“Okay. Let’s move on to the next problem. So, let’s say that instead of wanting to find an element, I wish to sum two particular elements. How can we do this?” he asked next.

“You mean you wish to sum two numbers from this list?” I asked to confirm the problem.

“Essentially, yes.” He confirmed it for me.

“I think, I’ll use a loop once again for this. First, do you have any numbers in mind?” I asked.

“Yes, I want those two numbers which do sum up to 14.” He spoke.

“Okay, so what I’ll do is pick one element, and then sum it up with every other element. If the sum is found, then I’ll print it; otherwise nothing will happen.” I spoke.

“Okay, that might work when you are trying to sum two elements which are next to each other. But what if they have different elements between them?” he asked.

“For that the if condition will come in useful. if a pair does not result in the sum we want, then we will skip, and go to the next element.” I spoke.

“This sounds like you will be using a nested loop. is there a way to make this code more efficient?” he asked.

“Nothing off the top of my head.” I admit honestly.

“Hm. Let me give you a hint. maybe use a data structure to save the values?” he said helpfully.

Once again, may everyone get such a nice interviewer. “Okay, maybe I can use a dictionary for this, but again, I can’t come up with a concrete solution.” I spoke.

“Alright, take some time if you want.” he offered.

I remained quiet for a minute or so, trying to think of a solution. But I decided that it was not coming to me. “Okay, I still don’t have an answer. maybe If I could dig my notes, I could come up with something, but currently, off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything.” I confessed.

Before you bash me in the comments for literally asking to cheat by looking in my notes, carefully read what I said. I never asked for reading up my notes, and thinking of a solution, or searching on the Google for a solution. I admitted that I could come up with a solution, should I do that, but currently, nothing is coming to mind. I never asked for permission to cheat.

“Okay, so I have looked at your Git Hub profile, you’ve edited Rust by Practice, you have gotten some glowing reviews for that, so I have all the data on you that I need.” He explained. “So, we can conclude this interview.”

“Okay, thanks for giving me a chance.” I said, “I haven’t reached an interview stage before.”

“Not a problem Tanish.” And the call got disconnected.

Why couldn’t you answer such simple questions, Tanish?

Look, I don’t want to give any excuses for my incompetency. Yes, I was incompetent during that entire interview, plain, and simple. Now that we have established that, here are a few reasons:

First, as I have stated, I have not gotten many chances to give an interview. The first conversation may give you a clue; most of the time, I am denied an interview on the grounds of my disability. lacking that experience came to bite me here. Second, I did not grind my way through Leet Code and other similar sites. Not for trying mind you. But they demand a high knowledge of algorithms, which I lack due to my background. After a while, it got discouraging, so I stopped using those sites entirely for my own sanity.

Third, I feel that my own methods of studying are faulty. Most of the time, I remember the basics of a programming language, and when I encounter a specific problem related to a specific type of data structure, such as a string or a list. then I dig through the standard library for finding the functions and methods which can help me. As a result, I don’t remember a lot of the tricks and functions off the top of my head. I won’t go to the other extreme, where I would try to remember thousands of methods and hundreds of classes, because I suffered that under my Java mentor in 2020 already, and I have learned that it does not work for me, but I think I can do better.

I don’t know whether I will have a second interview or not. Chances are that I won’t be selected. But given the exclusion I have faced so far; I am glad that at least they gave me a chance. Already this one interview has helped me in improving myself, and outlining my flaws. I am certain that I will do better when an opportunity presents itself next time.

Until then, I must grind harder, and raise my level. And most important of all, not despair.