Phone calls, poker faces and casino royale
It was one cold Thursday night in the electronic capital of the country. I was packing my bags to catch a train to Chennai. I was mentally preparing myself for the tiresome three-hour travel to reach SBC station from my apartment, but the bright side of this sad story is that if I reach the station by evading these hardships, I can reach Chennai in another four to five hours. People wondering about the three-hour travel, please visit Bangalore.
*Phone rings*
Mr.N: Hello is this Rajarajan Velumani?
Me: Yes. May I know who is this
Mr.N: I am N. I am calling you on behalf of ZoomRx healthcare solutions Pvt Ltd. You had applied for the post of Business associate
Me : *Trying to recollect which one this is, out of all the companies I had applied for in the past month *
I had applied to all the potential companies in Chennai. Bangalore was taking me to the cleaners, it was destroying my beautiful relationship with good and tasty food. If I don’t move out of this city soon there was every possibility of me losing the love of my life, i.e “GOOD FOOD”. It was either good food or Bangalore weather, obviously who needs this all-time romantic weather so I chose the love of my life, my world, my everything — FOOD. I also get the added advantage of moving to the city which moulded me with its heat, kept me entertained with its nominal cinema ticket rates.
Me: Yes tell me
Mr.N: You will be having your first round of telephonic interview tomorrow. May I know whether 10:00 AM IST is a suitable time?
Me: Yes. It is perfect for me *Without even thinking about anything*
Mr.N: Mr.Y will call you tomorrow. Thank you
Me: Thank you!
That ONE PHONE CALL!!!!!!
During my 3 hour journey to the station I was only going through the company’s website (www.zoomrx.com) in and out and then during the train journey was adding “Rajarajan Velumani viewed your profile” notification to all the ZoomRx employees who had a LinkedIn profile.
Hours passed by and at exactly 10:00 AM IST the next day I got a call from an unknown number and it happened to be some number from US of A *Truecaller gave me this info*
Me: Hello
Mr.Y: Hello Rajarajan this is K. *I was trying to remember his photo from the website and also realized that he is the Co-Founder of this company*
Whoa the co-founder of the company is interviewing the candidate and that too, for the first round
Me: Hello K.
We exchanged regular pleasantries and he explained about the awesome work they are doing.
After a few regular questions, he dropped the “Fat Boy” question
Mr.K: Do you follow Tennis?
Me : *With a big grin* Yes I do *All those Vamos Rafa war cries during the grand slams and fights in social media is finally paying off*
This question increased my interest in this job to a whole new level, an interview question about Tennis and not Cricket. :D :D
Then he followed the fat boy with a few atom bombs too. Those atom bombs were the conversations we had in Tamil ;) — After dealing with a lot of Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! raincoat families in my first workplace it felt so good. Suddenly Gaptun, Pasunesan and TR flashed in front of my eyes and I was already looking forward to the coming days at ZoomRx. * Nambikai, adhane elaam :P *
After one hour and fifteen minutes, Mr.K signed off and said Mr.V will send out data on which I should work on and which would be a test of my excel skills. The last two minutes of this long call where K gave feedback about me left me with nothing but a POKER FACE!!!!. I thought I screwed up my chances of getting selected :/ :/
*I thought I would be getting an offer that I couldn’t refuse but instead got a severed horse head in my bed*
*** Yes that’s a Godfather movie reference. Well played that Sherlock Holmes in you**
Mr.V called and sent out the data via mail. I opened the mail and the data was the “Little Man”.
It was about Sachin’s ODI records *The dream data to work on for any 90s kid*
— Cricket is our religion, Sachin is our GOD but when the temple is closed for the day even GOD sits behind THE WALL —
After discussing the data and the answers, V continued his talk….
Mr.V: Would you be able to visit us in the office today?
Me: Sorry V, I don’t have any formal attire with me.
Even though it was a phone call I could clearly see V’s face meeting his palm repeatedly.
He would have definitely regretted making the call for sure
*Should discuss this with him on Monday*
After Mr.V it was Mr.S who was listening to all the cucumber I was trying to sell him as a reason for leaving my earlier employer. He was listening to everything very calmly and arranging his gaming chips with the hope that I am not calling a bluff on my cards. I believed he had a higher house of cards when compared to my set of cards called reasons.
Finally, we revealed our cards, I was not calling a bluff and as expected S had a higher house.
In a span of three days, I shifted from “doing math” to “doing something cool and special.”
ZoomRx, a startup that still follows the startup culture even after so many years. A duplex house as an office, jeans, superhero t-shirts, bean bags, open works spaces, marathons, and a lot more unconventional stuff.
During the month of August-2015, it was a FULL HOUSE at our old office and we decided to move into a new office space in a posh area.
*We hang out next to the father of Indian cricketer N.Srinivasan aka Srini mama*
After a game of cards 6 months back. it was a full house and in the end, Mr.ZoomRx won the CASINO ROYALE!!!!
*See I clearly mentioned the name of the movie, don’t ask for further clues about the reference*
The name is Rx ZoomRX
Right from the first phone call until the hangout call I had yesterday it has been one hell of a ride.
Today(22nd December) as the sun completes a full revolution around the Earth for the seventh time since I joined here and LinkedIn is asking all my connections to wish for my work anniversary ;) \m/
To seven years full of emails, g chats, status messages and some kick-ass presentations. *GRIN*
P.S If you want to receive that one phone call from us and be part of our team you can apply here *Referral bonus is there you see*
P.P.S A lot has changed since the day I received the phone call, but the excitement of receiving that phone call, going through the process and finally ending up with the offer still remains one of the amaze max of the aaromale moments of my life.
