“I Missed My Flight to the Interview and Got Hired!”
This story starts back in autumn 2017 when I was working in the Philippines.
I made a big decision to look for a new job and move to a new continent hoping to face new challenges and adventures. And guess what, life took me by my own word there!
Welcome to my Travel Diaries where I share my interesting travel stories! I’ve been encountering some special connections and making some interesting experiences in my past international travels already.
For now get ready for one such funny, challenging, adventurous, emotional, and life learning travel story of mine. The story of how I met mySugr.
Europe, Here I Come!
I was applying to a few jobs in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands and ended up getting an offer for an in-person interview in Düsseldorf, Germany, in January 2018.
One and a half months of planning and processing my interview visa and I was sitting on the plane from Manila to Düsseldorf. It was my first ever European trip and of course, I was excited!
Luckily, everything went as planned and I found myself sitting in my hotel room after finishing my job interview. My return flight to Manila was scheduled for the next day.
That Was It?
So I found myself sitting there, thinking: What if I let the company in Austria — which, you guessed it already: it’s mySugr! — know that I am in Europe? I decided to write them an email in case they wanted to meet me in person.
Turns out, it was a smart move! The mySugr HR team answered me the next morning inviting me to come to their office in Vienna for a full-day interview.
Within one hour, the mySugr HR and office management team organized a whole new trip for me. In no time, I was going to fly from Düsseldorf to Vienna and then Vienna to Bangalore (my home city) instead of just going back to Manila as it was still planned only a few hours before.
Everything was set for me to fly to Vienna and I couldn’t wait to meet the awesome people at mySugr who made this spontaneous adventure happen!
So, let’s start the roller coaster ride. Please fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride.
To this day, I can’t tell why I didn’t leave my hotel room on time to go to the Düsseldorf airport to catch my flight. Long story short: I arrived at the airport and the staff told me that I was too late to check in my baggage but I could board the plane without my bag.
Leaving my baggage behind and getting on the plane was clearly not an option. So there I was, sitting at the Düsseldorf airport, watching my plane to Vienna leave without me. My initial flight to Manila had already departed at noon. Lesson learned, always avoid check-in bags unless it is super necessary. It was the blocker in my case!
So, What Now?
I decided to just book the next possible flight to Vienna on my own. 300 euros, alright. But for some reason, my international credit card didn’t seem to work. I opened my wallet to check how much cash I had: 87 euros. I felt the panic creeping up inside me and decided to take a break.
Pause. Calm down the disturbing thoughts.
I sat down for 5 minutes in silence and made my first decision: I will go to Vienna and attend the interview. I will make this happen, whatever it takes.
“I strongly believe that decisions aren’t good or bad the moment they are made. The supporting actions and processes make the decisions good ones or bad ones. It just takes a strong will to make a decision first and then you need to find the right actions/processes to make the decision a successful one. And you will.”
Having made my decision, I started looking into all the possible options. Could I try to fix the credit card issue? Should I look for train or bus options?
With time breathing down my neck, I eliminated the potential hassle of calling my Indian bank and waiting for them to fix my card from my list. Going by train would have taken me 24 hours so that also fell away as an option. This meant, I was only left with one option: taking the bus.
With a 14-hour bus ride from Düsseldorf to Vienna, I could still make it in time for my interview. My second decision was made.
Before I continue, I will give you some facts about the current situation I found myself in:
- I had one hour to figure out the way to the bus station before the bus would depart
- 87 euros in my wallet
- last meal was the hotel breakfast in the morning
- one bottle of water in my backpack (which I always carry with me)
- I didn’t tell anyone (incl. my wife) about my situation to avoid unnecessary panic
Mental Calculations
The cheapest option to go to the bus station would have been public transport. But the time pressure forced me to take a cab for 30 euros.
At least, this ensured that I reached the station in time so that I managed to get a seat for the bus ride to Vienna. Ticket price: 45 euros.
Let’s do the quick math: 87 euros — 30 euros for the cab — 45 Euros for the bus = 12 euros. So when I started my 14-hour bus journey to Vienna, all I had in my wallet was 12 euros.
Let’s Start the Ride!
I got on the bus and paused again for 5 minutes. Silence. How would I approach upcoming challenges?
I took a sip of water to compensate for my skipped lunch. The bottle of water I had in my backpack was my survival kit and turned into my personal hero for the ride.
I started to relax and get ready for the journey with positive hope. Thanks to the WiFi on the bus, I was able to inform mySugr via email about everything that had happened. I told them that I would make it to the office in time and we could stick to the interview plan.
After that, I called my wife to tell her what had happened to me. She couldn’t believe what I was telling her so I had to send her a selfie as proof.
Then, I dedicated myself to the other unsolved issue of my credit card. After hours of Skype calls with the Indian bank, they reassured me that the issues had been resolved and I would be able to use my card again. What a relief! But I couldn’t fully trust it until I had seen it work myself, remembering that I only had 12 euros left in my wallet.
Final Meters to the Goal
I spent the whole evening on the bus figuring out ways to get to the hotel in Vienna for under 12 euros. Which was probably impossible.
So I made my third decision that day: If my credit card still wouldn’t work and I couldn’t get a cab for 12 euros, I would just walk from the station to the hotel. It was a 7km walk. I prepared myself for the worst-case scenario, taking screenshots of the Google Maps route while I was still on the bus.
In the middle of the night, the bus stopped for a smoke break. At that point, I had gone more than 16 hours without food and was super hungry. There was a convenience store so I was hoping to get something to eat from the money I had left. Painfully, I had to realize that they didn’t sell anything I could eat. So I went back to the bus and continued my period of fasting.
At 4 AM in the morning, I got off the bus at the Erdberg bus station with a rumbling tummy. I actually made it to Vienna!
But still, I had to get to my hotel which was in another part of the city. Praying and keeping my fingers crossed, I went to the next ATM close to the bus station to see if my credit card was working again. And it was! I felt the weight lifting from my chest as I held the cash in my hands and knew that I could get a cab to the hotel.
By the time I got into my room, it was 5 AM which allowed me to get a good 2 hours of sleep until I had to get up for my interview. I was lucky that the hotel the mySugr team booked for me was situated right in front of the office so I spared myself an additional way in the morning.
I got up and went straight to the breakfast area. After 24 hours without food, I was finally able to eat something again. It was an amazing feeling and honestly, my respect and love towards food increased even more after this incident.
Meeting mySugr
I experienced such a warm welcome when I got to the beautiful mySugr office. It was still a small and cozy office back then — compared to the arguably best office space one can ever imagine right in the center of the city that we have now.
The day went by in no time and it felt like way more than a usual interview, with multiple tasks, lunch, and a game of table soccer. I was able to spot the real smile and genuine love on the monster tamers’ faces. At the end of the day, mySugr definitely left an impression on me and I was hoping that it was the same the other way around.
After my day at mySugr, I went for a long walk on Mariahilfer Straße. For a person coming from a place with 40°C, it was quite an experience to walk the Viennese streets in January at -2°C.
Longing to Go Back Again
My flight from Vienna to Bangalore the next morning went way more smooth (not that hard, right?), and back in India, I was already hoping to go back to the wonderful company I got to get to know.
In the following week, I heard back from both mySugr and the company in Düsseldorf. They both offered me the job! Even though it was certainly not an easy call to make, there were many good reasons to choose mySugr. One of them was the belief in destiny bringing me to mySugr. I strongly believe that if you get thrown into such an adventurous journey to make it to a job interview, there is some kind of force leading you there.
A Final Frontier
The next step was to get my visa. Usually, this should take at least 3 months. In the meantime, I had to finish my formalities in the Philippines to come back to India to serve the notice period with my previous company.
The visa process took longer than expected due to hundreds of reasons again. Advising a wrong document to submit by the agency, visa agency missing my document, the embassy clerk processing my file going on a 3-week vacation… so many coincidences. At some point I was just thinking: Why is all of this happening to me again? :D
So we had to keep moving my joining date from the expected 3 months to 6 months in the end.
On 13th July 2018, exactly 6 months after my interview, I got an email saying that my visa was approved and was ready to be collected. But wait for a second, the story is not over yet.
I will never forget the moment of opening the email full of excitement just to feel the ground fall beneath my feet one second later.
The email said:
I couldn’t trust my own eyes. It was yet another mistake by the agency stating my address as Manila, Philippines instead of Bangalore, India. Like I mentioned above, I had permanently relocated from the Philippines to India to serve the notice period.
I was in a situation where the visa was ready but there was no way to collect it. I immediately replied to the agency to inform them about this mistake and luckily, they fixed it. Within a week, my approved visa was redirected from the Philippines to India. Everything went smoothly after that and I was all set to move to Vienna.
The Journey Just Begins
Finally, the battle of joining mySugr was won on 26th Aug 2018 after 8 months of an emotional roller coaster ride.
But I got the best joining day one could expect: Joining the company on a 3-day company trip. I got a very warm welcome from everybody and I must mention that I got a very special one from my now dear friend Adi who was still a complete stranger to me back then. ;)
Ever since that day, I had no chance to regret or feel sad about what I had to go through to join mySugr. This great journey has definitely been worth all the effort and it still goes on!
Thank you for reading the long story. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing this. I promise to come back with another interesting travel story of mine under my travel diaries.
