That transformative moment in an intern’s life
Kal always spoke about the impactful experiences interns have had at Pixel Dreams. Be it sending an intern to visit a prison for an interview or assigning an intern to do a presentation in front of a room full of people for the first time, they were stories I would hold onto every time he would choose to share a new one. Lessons that would echo in my head for hours, leaving me excited for what my internship would bring.
I never knew when my Mount Everest would come or how I would conquer it. I tried to prepare myself as best as I could for when the opportunity arose. I thought I was ready. I thought I knew what was coming.
Boy, was I wrong.
I remember it like it was yesterday… It was a warm summer’s day in July. I was just minding my own business, getting familiar with the company at PD HQ. We would all chat here and there, poke some fun at one another and generally having a regular day. It was slowly becoming apparent that this company’s drive and capacity to change my lowly student life did not end after the hiring phase. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to come so quick after. I didn’t expect that seemingly normal day to be The Day.
Looking back, I don’t know how I could have expected this at all… Don’t get me wrong, I knew Kal had his ear to the ground for an experience best suited to me and where I was in life — to give me an experience that would have a positive, lasting impact but this just came out of nowhere.
See, I was doing some client work when all of a sudden, the world stopped. No, the world changed. It was at that moment that I experienced what will forever be marked as the most transformative moment of my life.
Kal Sayid noogied me.
Forever altering the way I would do things
Yes, you read that right. Did I take you back to your younger days, trying to fight off the local neighborhood bully? Good, because it was nothing like that. This noogie was the Holy Grail of all noogies. I’m not sure if it was the way he almost broke my neck or pulled the roots of my carefully coiffed hair from my scalp but that noogie opened up a whole new world.
In retrospect, I’m not sure what would have become of me had I not been sitting on that couch, with that head of hair, on that fateful day. Would I have continued down a destructive path of vanity and narcissism? Did Kal save me hours of fussing and obsessing over getting my hair perfectly styled before leaving for something as mundane as taking out the garbage? We will never know.
I’m grateful that Pixel Dreams has given me the tools to never explore that egotistical part of me. Thanks to Kal and the Pixel Dreams team, not only did I get a second chance at life, but it happened before I went down a dark hole of self-idolatry. They gave me the opportunity to discover my love and appreciation of noogies. They showed me that it’s okay to push past my frizzy and messy hair to live my life fully. For that, I am stronger because, as Mahatma Gandhi once said, “strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from an indomitable will”.
Originally published at pixeldreams.com on January 17, 2015.
