eSign Document for HR Later

airSlate SignNow offers a user-friendly platform designed for HR later, enabling seamless document signing, storage, and management. Key features include customizable templates, bulk sending options, and secure storage for important HR documents.

By using airSlate SignNow, HR later can streamline processes such as onboarding and employee document handling. The platform reduces paperwork errors and enhances compliance through automated reminders and tracking, ultimately saving time for HR professionals.

Yes, airSlate SignNow includes a mobile app designed for HR later, allowing users to send and eSign documents on the go. This flexibility empowers HR teams to manage documents efficiently, regardless of their location.

airSlate SignNow offers competitive pricing tiers tailored for HR later users, making it an affordable solution for businesses of all sizes. Users can choose from monthly or annual plans, each equipped with comprehensive features specifically designed to meet HR needs.

airSlate SignNow seamlessly integrates with various HR software, enhancing the capabilities for HR later. This allows users to connect their existing applications, such as payroll and employee management systems, streamlining the document workflow.

airSlate SignNow prioritizes security by offering advanced encryption and compliance with industry standards for HR later. This ensures that sensitive employee documents are protected against unauthorized access and bsignNowes.

Absolutely! airSlate SignNow allows users to easily create and customize documents tailored for HR later. You can add custom fields, logos, and instructions to ensure that all documents meet your specific HR requirements.

They used false “help wanted” ads to fire their own employees that were looking for a new job.I worked for a lead generation service which sold qualified lists of homeowners (and their telephone numbers) to financial advisers. Then, they sold those same financial advisers a telemarketing service that would call those homeowners and arrange appointments with them. There is so much that is “shady” about this company that it is impossible to bring up one questionable act without first explaining several previous questionable or downright illegal acts. (UPDATE: if you want more details about how bad it was to work for this place, check out John Hursey's answer to What is the most ridiculous reason for which you have been fired?)After a particularly horrifying series of events right around the holiday season, I decided to begin looking for a new job. I got on craigslist, and I found several positions in customer service and data entry that were available right in my city. I sent them a quick email with my resume attached, and waited for a response.The next day I was called into the President’s office. He invited me to sit down. His mother (the vice president of the company) was standing behind him. He asked me if I was happy working for him.Luckily for me, I knew this was a trap of some kind and answered honestly. I told him that I was interested in having more free time with a more flexible schedule and that it would be impossible to do so with my current job, so I was in the process of looking for something else. I also told him that I had informed my direct supervisor of my intentions last week, and that I would give the company adequate warning—at least two weeks notice—before I quit.He and his mother looked at each other. Well, he said, it turns out that one of the companies I had applied to was the very same company I worked for now. I thought that was odd, because I don’t have any intellectual disabilities or mental impairments that would indicate I would apply to the same company that I currently worked for. Nevertheless, I told him that I suppose this was good news, since perhaps I could simply transfer to whatever this open position was and still maintain my employment with his company while working the schedule that was most convenient for myself.Not so fast. It turned out there wasn’t any positions available in those departments. Their strategy was to entice applicants with positions in data entry and customer service and then during the interview inform them that those positions had been filled; those applicants were then offered much less pay and schedule flexibility as a salesman. In addition, current employees that applied for these jobs were summarily fired for being “disloyal.”A month later I was terminated, for reasons I still do not fully understand. I applied for unemployment, and when I explained the series of events leading to my termination the lady at the unemployment office literally scoffed at me and told me that my story was unbelievable. She even called me personally at home to tell me that the company was contesting my unemployment filing and that she expected me to lose the arbitration process.The day of the hearing I got a phone call from the same lady, in tears. She apologized profusely for how she had treated me. She had just completed a five-minute interaction with the president and his mother, confirming not only my story but also her worst fears about humanity in general.

At the time I was working at a large-ish (by local standards) company, that used MS Windows for its IT needs. All the information (such as the necessary documentation) was on shared network drives, and there were many of those, and the right share was not always easy to find. One day, as I was browsing through the list of shares in search for a particular document, I stumbled across an unprotected share that, upon a brief inspection, belonged to the HR, and clearly contained information regarding the upcoming round of layoffs - lists of people being terminated, their severance packages, all highly sensitive data, just lying there, for all to see. Now the company was in troubles (only later did we learn, that while our own measly stock options were securely underwater - Mariana Trench style - the CEO and CFO were busy backdating their own stock options, instead of running the company, and ended up running it into the ground) and it was undergoing round after round of terminations, rumors about which were always denied until the last moment (so that it came to a point where as soon as the rumors started, we’d be just waiting for the refutation as a sign of confirmation). So clearly, this was highly sensitive. I alerted HR at once via e-mail, and suggested technical help (at the time I was something of a self-styled security expert in a company that had none). Surely enough, they called me in for a meeting the next day. I showed up all full of self-importance, just waiting to educate these folks about proper security measures. Imagine my dismay at realising I'm not being consulted, but rather interrogated: they didn’t care a fig about my expertise, all they wanted from me was to know just what exactly did I see, and whether I’ve shown it to anybody else!

I went through the U.K. marriage (“fiancee”) visa process last fall and just completed my further leave to remain application.Here’s what we submitted for each part.Fiance(e) visaCritically, you need to show that your British partner has annual income of at least £18,600/year or has eligible savings. There are several ways to do this; the most straightforward is if your partner has been employed by the same company for at least 6 months and can supply 6 months’ worth of payslips, a letter from their employer and bank statements with deposits matching what’s on their payslips. You can also meet the requirement through savings or self-employment or some combination of savings and employment; the visa application guidelines will give options for how to meet the income/savings requirement. If you do not meet this threshold and/or if you don’t submit proper documentation, your application will be refused.If you’re submitting a letter from your partner’s employer, it should include contact information for the company, your partner’s job title, how long they’ve been with the company and their salary. In our application, we submitted a letter from my then-fiance’s company, had his HR sign his past 6 payslips to verify their authenticity and then submitted 6 months of bank statements, where the deposits into his bank account matched his payslips.The second critical component after proving your partner’s income is proving that you’re in a legitimate relationship. We submitted flight, hotel, train and holiday bookings, photos of the two of us together, excerpts from email and WhatsApp exchanges that were dated and time-stamped to show an unbroken line of communication (my rule of thumb was one WhatsApp and/or email excerpt per month we’d been together but that might be excessive). If you’re getting married and have made bookings or inquiries in the U.K. for your wedding — registrar’s office, venues, that sort of thing — you can include documentation for that as well.Your fiance should have accommodation that’s suitable/available for you to live in when you move. You’ll need to answer questions about this in the main application and it’s a good idea to submit proof of address with your supporting documents. We submitted my then-fiance’s tenancy agreement but council taxes, mortgage statements, utility bills, etc. can also work.If you’re applying from a country where you’re not a citizen or don’t have permanent residency status, it’s a good idea to submit evidence that you’re there legally. I applied from Belgium, where I wasn’t a citizen but instead held a residency permit, and I submitted a copy of my Belgian residency and work permits and documentation from my work (payslips and my contract, as well as a copy of my lease). My payslips couldn’t count toward the visa’s income requirement, but it showed I was in Belgium doing what I said I was doing and was following immigration law there.Depending on your country of origin you may need to take an English proficiency test and/or have a tuberculosis test. The U.K. Visas and immigration site will have guidance on whether you need to do either of these.You’ll need to submit the main application and then the appendix specifically for the fiance visa. The main application will have very specific, very detailed questions about your fiance (sponsor in immigration lingo), your travel history and your immigration history. If you’ve traveled extensively, take care that the dates you give match what’s in your passport. You’ll also be expected to be up front about any prior visa refusals, not just from the U.K. For example, if you’ve been refused a Schengen visa or a U.S. visa, they’ll want to know about it.Note that it’s quite expensive to apply for the fiance visa from outside the U.K., and there’s no way to apply for this one from within the U.K. I believe it’s about £1,500 and the full payment is expected at the time of application. Any expedited or special services you tack on through third-party vendors will be extra. You’ll also need to submit biometric information — fingerprints, a new ID photo and a signature.Once you have the fiance visa, you’re able to travel to the U.K. to get married and must apply for further leave to remain — the FLR (M) category — before your initial fiance visa has expired. You can apply for the extension at any time after you’re married. Bear in mind that you will not be able to get married immediately after traveling to the U.K.; I had to spend seven “clear” days in the U.K. before we could give notice, and we had to have our notice published publicly for 28 days before we could get married. Be sure to account for this time so you don’t end up in a time crunch applying for your extension.Spouse visaAll that paperwork you submitted to prove your partner met the income threshold? You get to do that all over again, and you need to provide the same information: 6 months of verified payslips with matching bank statements, plus the employment letter with all the aforementioned information.They want to make sure you actually got married. You should absolutely include your marriage certificate. We also included some photos of our wedding day and scans of cards we received.They also want to make sure you’re now living together. You don’t need to have a mountain of paperwork (that’s more for the 2.5- and 5-year mark, where they expect you to have strong documentation of cohabitation and shared financial obligations) but you would ideally have a tenancy agreement, perhaps council tax or utility bills or something official that shows you reside at the same address. It must have come in the post; you can’t just print stuff off online. In our case we had two council tax bills, our new tenancy agreement and an account setup confirmation from the water utility.You’ll now need to pay the NHS surcharge for the duration of your residency permit. It’s £400 a year now, so a 2.5-year permit will cost £1,000. This will need to paid in full at the time of the application.You’ll also need to pay roughly £1,000 for the application fee (this is on top of what you paid earlier for the fiance visa). You can choose to pay more for expedited service.There’s an online application you’ll need to complete again, as well as declarations for you and your partner to complete and sign affirming that your marriage is genuine and giving the Home Office permission to run checks.You’ll also need to do biometrics again, so fingerprints, ID photo and signature. You can choose to do this at a satellite site close to you operated by a UKVI contractor. It’s fairly straightforward. They will also assist you with scanning and uploading your supporting documentation.In general my three pieces of advice are:Have plenty of savings. You can’t work in the U.K. on a fiance visa; you can only work once your spouse visa has gone through. Ideally — bearing in mind that you’re in a time crunch, as you need to apply for your extension before your fiance visa expires, regardless of at what point in your visa’s validity you get married — you’ll have money for your fiance visa, your eventual NHS surcharge and the spouse visa extension already saved up when you make your initial application. This is really the only way to 100% guarantee you don’t run out of money or have a shortfall. I had all of my visa-related fees in hand before I applied; I didn’t rely on future earnings, nor did I expect my fiance to pay the fee as his earnings needed to support both of us while I was out of work.Do not cut corners or underestimate how stringent the income requirement is. This is probably the top reason for a rejection — someone’s missing a bank statement, they don’t include payslips, the deposits don’t match the payslips, the income is too low, etc. This absolutely will fuck you up if you don’t have the right documentation.Triple-check everything and keep everything because you’ll probably need it later. Check your passport stamps to make sure your entry dates match up. Make sure you’re not missing anything. Make sure you sign anything that needs to be signed. This is not something to do quickly or half-assed. Give yourself enough time, have someone else look over it if possible to check after you with fresh eyes. Work on it, give it a day and look it over again — I bet you find a mistake you made. As soon as you’re set up with your fiance, start saving up council tax bills, doctor’s letters, utility bills, anything from your landlord, etc. Start preparing for your extension immediately and it will be easier to do when the time comes than if you’re lax with paperwork and have to go back and find year-old water bills later on.Good luck.

Originally answered - Shilpi Roy's answer to Should I choose signNow or Goldman Sachs (India)?The answer is gonna be really long. Grab some snacks as it could take a while.I was the happiest person the day I was selected as a FTE (tech analyst position) at GS - a reputed fin-tech company which mostly hires tier-1 students, a dream for many. I heard from many people that GS offers package as high as 32lpa which was quite a big deal for me - or for anyone who might have been at my place.Then came the HR’s call. She offered me semester long internship in GS! I was glad that I don’t have to spend my last semester in college and will also earn some money. With the stipend as high as 75k and stay at Hilton hotel during intern, anybody is likely to go crazy and say “YES”.And so I did.The beginning (GS-Bengaluru office)Soon came 7th January. Day started off with amazing orientation and office visit. Then came the lunch buddy - GS assigns a buddy from your department to have lunch with you the day you join, let’s say he was Raghav (name changed).Raghav seemed to be a really smart guy. I asked him a few questions about GS being a fin-tech, is it easy to switch and other questions. He seemed to be out of place, not interested. A guy came who was an intern in a team in which Raghav used to work. He kept talking and giggling with him, completely ignoring my presence. Cool, maybe Raghav is a bad guy - who cares?Met with my manager and two other interns who were in the same department - GIR. He seemed like a chilled-out and thoughtful person. Let’s call him Rudra.Our whole department used to sit in a middle sized cabin which accommodated around 32–35 employees of GIR. My happiness knew no bounds! Great team, small cabin and friendly manager - what else could I ask for?Then came the next day. We were introduced to our team and had a lunch together. Oh no! Lunch here was not free - no big deal. Only 80rs/- per plate is affordable when you earn 75k per month, I thought.After having lunch, we began installing softwares required. Wait, you can’t install some softwares without manager’s permission. Fine! I messaged my manager and he granted the permission. He came later in the evening and gave 3 of us an interesting machine learning problem to solve - in a week, till we get our projects.He had three projects in mind, and he left it for us to decide which one we want to take. I took the one which I thought was more impactful and cool, also because we had a member of our team working for the project. My task was to integrate the backend stuff he wrote with the UI I was going to create. Also to help him with some of those backend stuffs later on.“You can take help from Varun, in case you need” said Rudra.So it began!1st MonthI started learning React.js for the UI I was going to implement from various websites. There were tons of tutorial there. After understanding some theory, I clicked on ‘try it on codepen’ - online editor.“You are restricted from using an external website - no permissions”What? I can’t even use some online editor. Okay that’s fine - we have pretty sensitive data in GS. Since it’s a finance based company, we have client data with us and user may copy and paste it online - someone might steal the data! All this made sense. ‘It’s fine, I’ll bring my own laptop tommorow’, I thought before leaving.I could see two teammates standing behind me from my peripheral vision. One who was writing the backend stuff for the project I was working upon, let’s call him Varun.Varun was a silent and sober guy - a hardworking one who speaks only when required. Another guy standing beside him was Raghav.“Hey!” I said in a low tone.“Did I do some crime? Why are these two here?” I wondered.“You brought your personal laptop, is everything fine here?” they asked.I told them about the restrictions. Raghav took my work PC and sent Rudra, my manager a request to approve codepen.I waited. One hour. Two hours. Codepen still not working. Fine for me since I have my own laptop. No worries.After 2 weeks Varun called me and started assigning tasks to do for the UI. I was full of enthusiasm and paid full attention to what he wanted. I started looking out for the cool libraries out there and found - material-ui.‘Perfect!’ I exclaimed.Started with the tasks, and was able to achieve the target next evening. It looked damn good! Varun will be happy. And so, I showed it to him.“Okay, font-size is a bit huge. And please change the app’s name - ELEGANT USER’S APP” (name changed). And so I did.“E-L-E-G-E-N-T U-S-E-R—S A-P-P”What a funny name, I thought. (The real one was funnier than the changed one)So days went, 1..2…3 and I completed 5–6 tasks. The basic UI (20%) was done. Then came Varun -“Shilpi, you did this using which library?”“Material-ui! It’s really good and..”“Okay, but make sure you can use it. Only specific libraries can be used at GS. Search xyz site and ensure if we can use it. If yes, proceed. Else use GS UI library”What did he just say. I worked on the UI for 2 weeks, and he is telling me now that I may not be able to use the material-ui library! No way..With my heart beating fast, I typed..X..Y….Z …..gs..comCtrl+F“M-A——T-E—-R—I—A”Boom! It’s there. I was delighted :)The next day I was late. I saw a message pop up. It was from Raghav.“Hey” it said.“Hey” I replied.“Please try to attend the daily standup. If you don’t, mail Rudra about your update :)” He replied.There hasn’t been a single day I was late. But okay, FINE.Then came the 5th day - friday. I got a message from Varun.‘Hi Shilpi, can you make another UI using GS-UI?’Oh No!. Again?.‘Just for the feel…we’ll show it to Rudra next week, he’ll choose which one we can use’*Slow Claps*Well played Varun. Why did he approve the material-ui one if he wanted it in GS-UI - I wondered.It’s fine, I can do it. I encouraged myself and went to the internal site - gs-ui-library. (name changed)Okay, fine. This looks good. Okay. Cool. Documentation.. documentation….uhmm.I searched for the whole day, no documentation. Just few codes and examples to understand how to display some component.Way uglier than material-ui - I thought. And a minute later, an evil idea came to my mind..“What if I make the UI using gs-ui-library so ugly that Rudra and Varun both reject! That would be great!”The next week on friday, I was done with gs-ui-library. My code was asked to be removed from codesandbox by Varun - it’s illegal to put GS’s internal code there. I could hear Rudra laughing about how he is afraid of the interns bringing personal laptops here, and what will happen if someone names a variable as “GIR” and put it on github.I showed Rudra the material-ui one. He was impressed.“This looks good! But don’t keep the name as ‘ ELEGANT USERS APP’, instead keep it as ‘THE USERS SEARCH APP’ ” (name changed)“But Rudra, Varun has asked me to..”“I will ask him. We will decide and tell you”Fine. Keep the name as ‘The bla-bla app’. I don’t care.Varun was already gone by the time.I smirked. I won’t show the UI I made using gs-ui-library to Rudra!Next day Varun was on my desk. He asked whether I showed both the UI’s.“No, actually I forgot to show the other..”“See, the people above us will probably ask why we didn’t use GS-UI. That’s why I am saying so. I have no problem with material-ui. Just ask Rudra if he is fine with it. Rudra…”“Yes, Varun” replied Rudra.And then he showed both the UI’s to him. The ugly one. The good one.“I think it looks great - the ‘gs-ui-library’ one!” Rudra exclaimed.I shouted in my mind - “How can he..!”“See Shilpi, we don’t have any problem using material-ui one but the people for whom we are making the app will ask why we didn’t use the internal-gs library. Okay, tell me one thing - it does have all the components you require, right?”“Yes, Rudra” I sighed.“Seems like Shilpi wanted to use material-ui, haha” Rudra giggled and looked at Varun. I could hear the giggling from one if the two interns from behind - Tejas (name changed).He was also working on a UI, along with some backend stuff. He was using ‘gs-ui-library’ from day one. And so, he giggled.Rudra -1 .. Shilpi - 0This was the first time I went home feeling sad. Why didn’t they tell me 2 weeks ago? Now I will have to work on the other one. And the library has no documentation.Next week , Varun decided to keep the name as “ELEGENT-USERS-APP”. He refused Rudra.Varun -1.. Rudra- 0So I went back to my desk and began.“g-s-u-i-l-i-b-r-a-r-y” I typed.Gs-ui-library was a really terrible library. No documentation, made by mixture of other available libraries online. It was like an accidental product of some cross-breeding. A scientific failure.Anyways, I somehow learnt basic features which I could implement using the library. On the other hand, my machine was damn slow - for a reason I didn’t know.“Why are you using vs code? How did you get it!” asked Rudra who saw me coding on vscode.“I like it- it’s really good for react. Installed it from the store.”“Haha, use intellij, okay!” Rudra said in a serious tone.Wow. After making me work with the gs-ui-library, now he is snatching away the editor I love. Cool.I still continued with vs code. Varun was totally fine with it.I went to drink a glass of water. Didn’t bring my bottle that day. So took a ‘visitor’s cup’ from inside the drawers.“Ma’am, you can’t drink in that. It’s only for visitors” said a staff guy who saw that I was about to drink water from the visitor’s cup.I looked at him in shock.“Oh, it’s ok for today you can use it..Ma’am” he replied.Great. Block websites - facebook, gmail, codepen. Take my material-ui away. Don’t allow me to use vs-code. And also, don’t let me drink water at peace!I was pissed off. Huh!2nd MonthSo I started working on the integration part. Meanwhile we used to have meetings in which we were told about GIR and it’s functions. Rudra used to tell us about how fun the NAPA training is going to be, and how we will start hiding our id cards after the event.I completed the integration part in a week or so. Gave a weekly demo to Rudra.Next week was going to be a demo with Monica’s team (name changed). The finance guys for whom we were building the ‘ELEGANT USERS APP’. Varun was happy that I had completed the integration part and added 2 more features to implement.- feature1 & feature2Before the demo, we had a meeting with Monica just a week before. Rudra, Varun and I gathered in a room.“So Shilpi, how’s the work going? Are you liking it - the UI stuff? Aren’t you bored?” Rudra asked.“Hehe.. Actually yeah it’s a little boring. I hope backend stuff starts soon!” I honestly replied.“You know UI people make the most money.” Rudra smirked.“No, that’s a lie. Backend people make more money.” I replied.“Shilpi, that’s the case of technical firms. In financial firms like us, UI people earn more bonus.” said Varun.Soon came Monica. Varun and Monica proceeded on what she wants and what actually we have. It was a debate between them and I listened.Since the lunch time was over, Rudra and I went to the food-court outside to have one.“Shilpi, you know I was like you. The silent guy in the room. If someone else was at your place he would have asked a lot of questions! ”“I think it’s better to listen Rudra, than argue. I didn’t have much idea about what they were talking and the talk was mostly concerning Varun.”“See..it’s good very good. But to be at a place like GS…you know! The world is very mean, Shilpi. You need to speak more than you do work here! Many people don’t know much but they’ll get ahead of you because they speak. I was like you when I joined GS. In the group discussion round, when everyone was debating.. I just sat at the corner. HR came and asked each of us individually. If she hadn’t done that, I mayn’t be sitting here today”I gave it some thought. He was right.Some days later feature1 stopped working. I had no idea why, I was using an excellent library for feature1, of-course an external one. Varun himself has asked me to use an external for that case since we don’t have a gs library for that.But now. It wasn’t working.It took me a week to include the library - react-bootstrap-table2 with the project along with the features it had, and use it. And some magic happened. Now feature1 stops working. Damn!I woke up the whole night - till 4 am to make the feature1 work. The remote desktop worked very slow. In GS, we are not given laptops for security purposes. So we have to use remote desktop.It was damn slow but I was patient. I kept on trying and trying till I fell asleep early in the morning. Woke up around 12.An hour before demo with Monica’s team, I told Varun about it. He said it’s fine, we will show the demo without it.Tik…tikk….I wasn’t satisfied. I worked damn hard for 45 min and was able to make feature1 work!We went to give the demo. Varun pulled out a chair and sat before a PC.“Hi Monica!”“Hey Varun!”And so it started. The demo. The UI I made. The features I implemented. The integration. My two month’s hard work.All of them was presented by our VP, Mr.Varun!“Uhm…but we don’t need feature 1 and 2, Varun. You can remove it” said Monica.W-H-A-T! What did she just say. I went an hour back in time.I am sweating. I can feel I am nervous. This has to go good. I know well about the project, and I will make the feature-1 work! I will!Yes, I did. Only to lose the presentation as well as the feature.I rushed out of the room with the unhappy face which no one bothered about in the meeting room. I was silent and in hurry, it was weekly demo too today.“Haashh.. It went great!” exclaimed Varun who barely ever talked to me. Since like 1962!“Okay, but we have a weekly demo too!”The weekly demo got cancelled. Varun proceeded to tell me how we don’t need feature-1 and all the new features which Monica wanted. I remembered them all. One of them was a feature-X which was not possible technically. I tried making Varun understand and he did, after quite a while.Then came the mid-semester exam and I finally got a break!3rd MonthI went to my home after holidays. After 2 months, 1,40,000 was credited to my account. I bought clothes for mom and dad. I was delighted and ready to go back!Came back to office happily. Compiled the code.React-bootstrap-table2 library code - gone. Whole UI code changed in a week. My 2 week’s effort - 1 week for the library and 2 nd for other features went to ashes.Just in ONE SINGLE WEEK.~Varun committed the code 2 hours ago~~Varun committed the code yesterday~~Varun….~And so on.Varun started using an internal gs-ui-library library instead of react-bootstrap-table2. Instead of giving proper review comments, he changed my code by himself. Some backend stuff also came to me.I fetched the code from repo, the one Varun had implemented. And tried to understand.“You just have to implement feature-b-xyz, no need to go through whole code” he said.Fine.I added a new feature. Compiled and checked. Everything was working fine. Committed the code.Next day I came. Compiled the code.‘EXCEPTION THROWN’‘FAILED’And my PC hangs. For no reason why.I checked the code - it was changed. The integration part was changed. Feature XYZ was changed. And it stopped working.~Varun committed the code an hour ago~Why did he commit a code that fails? I wondered.This started happening daily. I had no idea why was this happening.The next series of days started with me coming late - 11:50, 12 or later than that. I used to mail Rudra about the update. Sometimes I was able to attend standup, sometime I wasn’t able to. My health started deteriorating.Everyday, Varun used to commit some changes. And it took a hell lot of time to update the project in intellij, go through his changes and do other changes. I was pretty much frustrated.Took 2 wfhs in 2 weeks. Logged in late many times. Had to push myself from bed everyday. Devoted my time to video games than gs work. Lost interest.Then I was given some backend part. I took WFH a day I wasn’t feeling well and learnt about apis stuff. Still some part of me wanted to do well and take interest in the work genuinely.We - all 3 interns received a mail from Rudra which we could never forget. Rudra had showed his ‘Rudra’ roop. The mail said -“You guys are not taking the work seriously. WFHs are not to be taken for granted. So many WFHs and late loggings. Not at all serious about your work. You guys need to have deliverables by the end of this month.I don’t care, work for your career not mine.”I was shocked. The friendly, giggling Rudra! I remembered the first time I met him. And the mail was quite a shock to all of us.Late loggings were targeted at me.WFHs for another one.But… Tejas? What did he do?As far as I remember, he was a hard working guy. Always on time. Never missed a standup. What did he do to receive the mail?Days after that, Varun took four wfhs in a row. Rudra was quiet. Nisha only came like twice in a week, Rudra said nothing.Why us? Why the interns? I wondered.One day I stayed at office till 8pm. I could hear Rudra talking about ‘The Elegant User’s App’ over a phone call.“We are building it again since the last UI was in angular. We wanted it in React.” he said to somebody over the call.Throughout my whole intern, I had one doubt in my mind.The app on which I was working upon was already built by someone and was functional too. But my manager wanted it to be built again since he wanted us to use a new technology.What’s the difference even if angular was used? What’s the need of rebuilding the app again from scratch? I wondered.And the next words I heard shattered me.“Yeah, Varun is working with some intern on ‘The Elegant User’s App’.”What did he say?The last two months were fully devoted to the UI. I went back in time.“Shilpi, if you want any help - Varun would be able to for this project.I was made to believe that it was an independent project, which it never was. I worked my ass off for three months only to hear that I am ‘some intern’ working under Varun and helping him building the UI.I got depressed.It was Holi’s festival - the festival of colours. I never really celebrated holi, hated to be coloured all over. We had a group for our department, and I wished everyone a “Happy Holi!”.Tejas replied with a “Happy holi” too.“Happy Forest Day” - stated an image I received on whatsapp. It was from Rudra. On the whatsapp group. This was his reply for “Happy Holi”.It's okay, don't respect our festival. But atleast don't disrespect it. Why was there even a need for reply?Needless to say, I didn’t go to office that day as sign of rebel (we didn’t have holiday on holi). Varun was already doing WFH. The “Happy Forest Day” frustrated me.Why Rudra why. You are better than that.“Niharika (name changed) is leaving GS” somebody whispered.Niharika, a very smart lady was in our department. She was mentoring an intern and sounded quite knowledgeable. Her sudden decision of leaving GS came as a shock to everyone.I had a last chat with her only when everyone was away for lunch. She had refused her farewell too I guess. She came to me and we had a decent chat. I asked her the reason of leaving. She wanted to switch the team maybe but it was taking a long time. Sweet and smart is all I could say for her. She had done work with JPMC & Morgan Stanley (US) and held a green card. A dedicated worker.After the lunch, she had a long meeting with Rudra. She was too firm with her decision.After she left, someone told me she bitched about many people in the team - specially Rudra. I was really sad. GS lost a good employee that day. And maybe, due to politics.Next day, GS was having an orientation for all new campus hires. It was one hell of a day. World-class hotel stay and world-class orientation.Varun was going out to the new office for 2 weeks. For some work.4th monthBefore Varun had left for the new office, he had asked me to attend telephonic standups for our team from 3–3:30. Now I used to attend 2 standups - the department one, and the team one. Full time waste activities!He had also asked me to get details of a task from Raghav and get it completed. I messaged him and he said he will be there at my desk in 5 min. Well, he never came. I asked him 2–3 times more to which he sent me a random link. I was disheartened and had nothing to do for 2 weeks.One day Rudra called me to fix some errors which he wasn’t able to fix by himself. He said he spent the whole night trying to fix those but didn’t know how to.I came to his desk. Those were linting errors!After having 10 years of experience, and you don’t even know what they are! Even if you know, please try to google. He was not getting what those line numbers represent. I explained him everything and fixed those.Soon, we got mails from hr regarding our joining dates and NAPA training, which is held in New York. I told the HR about my case, that I have courses left in college and I won’t be able to join on 3rd june.“Can I go to the training and join later after 12th july - when my courses are done” I asked.“No, you need to join as FTE. We will process your visa in june and you’ll go during july first week”“Okay” I replied.“Try to make your college understand, it’s important” is all she said.Next day, I refused. My college will never agree for me to take 2 week vacation during summer term.Rudra received a call from HR. I knew it was regarding me.He took me outside the cabin and asked why did I opted out of NAPA training. I told him everything - how my degree would be affected. He was ready to give WFH for 2 months. I was shocked. Again.Rudra was the most unpredictable mysterious guy I ever met. He was good and bad, at the same time. 2 months is a long time - and he agreed to give me WFH! He earned my respect.Then there was second meeting with Rudra. He told me everything - the work I’ll do as an FTE. Also, he never left a single moment he could get to brag about himself.“You will be working under Varun. He will be the team lead. Your work is XYZ-AHSH-PPOS…..”“Be as mature as me. I can make complex things simple easily. Learn it from me.” he said.Varun. No!!The silent guy. Who took away all the presentations. Even during our team standups over calls, he used to answer when some guy asked me about the project. My code was changed everyday. All the torture I faced last month. And now- I’ll be working under him. Wow.I told Rudra - how my code was changed everyday, how I was not told about the changes Varun did in the backend and still expected my code would run successfully. He listened to me for a while and then said -“When I was a NAPA, I used to ensure that I get 0 review comments”“I don’t get review comments, Rudra. My code gets changed, and it’s hard to understand it everyday without help of Varun.”“It’s a good thing, right? You will learn something from what the change he does. It’s good for you.”Cool. I have to look at the new code and somehow “learn without doing”. Interesting.I worked till 9 pm that day. Before Rudra left, he smiled at me sarcastically.“Shilpi, still working?”“Yeah Rudra, I came little late today.”“Varun changing your code and you changing his code.!”“Yes. That’s what is happening.”And then, he laughed maniacally.This was not the first time he did this. He used to laugh at me sarcastically many times after giving me the UI project.Next week, Varun was here. My virtual desktop was not working and I had no idea why. Called help-desk 5 times that day.“REBOOT!”“TRY IT FROM A DIFFERENT MACHINE!”“IT SHOWS ‘AVAILABLE’ ON MY MACHINE!”was all the response I got from 5 different help-desk-assistants.Took a day off the next day. Saw a mail. Varun had given presentation to our MD that day. UI presentation, which was supposed to be given by me.Next week, same schedule. Help-desk people failed miserably.I tried remote desktop and was able to open my outlook. My inbox was full of -“DISK CAPACITY OVER 95%! CLEAN IT!”I got it. But in order to clean it, I had to login to the virtual computer which I wasn’t able to. It was a deadlock.Soon I was assigned a new virtual computer. My whole local setup - was erased.My whole enthusiasm had turned to ashes at that point. Came late, went early. Stopped attending stand-ups. Late Loggings. WFHs. OOO. No updates. No weekly updates. Nothing to do next since Raghav didn’t help. Frustrated as hell.Our department was hiring more and more people. I had nowhere to sit. No one to talk to.The only friend I had in bengaluru left 2 weeks ago.Please note that I’ve nothing against GS. The management there is really good, they care about their employees. I don’t think any company could’ve given me 2 months WFH and I do respect Rudra a lot for that!The experience may vary from person to person, someone may find GS a very good place, based on the traits he/she has or the team he is working with. But for a shy person like me, who loves to code sitting at the corner of the room - GS is not the place. It was me who was not able to adapt to the culture there.This answer was written by me when I was still an intern. I had no idea what this could do to my life.Next day after I wrote this, I was called by the Head HR of Employee Relations in GS - Devika. I thought she had called me in order to discuss why am I choosing signNow over Goldman but this wasn’t the case.“I read your answer on Quora about Goldman..”“I’ll remove it!” I replied with the speed of light.“No..I don’t want you to take it down, Just tell me the issues you had”And she pretended to listen. Both of us knew why she called me here - to take the answer down.“See, these days many people are on social media and it is affecting how people see us. Probably, some interns wouldn’t want to work with us after reading the answer. Therefore I want you to remove it”“Also, please remember this meeting is confidential. DO NOT tell anyone from your team about it!” she said just before I left.And that was it. I deleted this answer.I saw Rudra’s text on my whatsapp. He asked whether I have a desk to sit, and when will I signNow on my desk. I knew something was fishy since he never ever bothered about.I finished the work and went home.The next day, I woke up to 10 calls from the HR and lots of messages. I asked what happened.I told her I have already deleted the answer, but there was something else. I wasn’t able to login from home. My remote desktop was taken away from me and I had no idea why.And then, came Monday.13th May 2019The day started off with my phone full of Devika’s texts. She insisted that I directly come to the meeting room first instead of going to the GIR cabin.I went to her cabin where she was sitting. And soon the harassment started.“What was your motive behind putting such kind of answers on quora, tell me what was in your mind”“I am sorry, Devika. I’ve already taken them down.”“Didn’t you knew about the firm’s policy? You knew it very well right? Still you put the experience on Quora?”“I was frustrated. So much that it didn’t occur to me at that time. But yes, I knew it.”She wrote it down on a paper.“You put it on social media, and don’t expect your manager to read it? Wake up! Everyone in your dept knows what you did okay! You are always saying that ‘don’t inform my manager about it’.. you know what, infact Rudra only informed us about this. He was the one who forwarded the answer.”I sighed. He knew about it the whole time. Still acted as friendly on thursday.“You can take action against me if you want to. I can’t say anything else.”“We are a very big firm. Many people are there writing these kind of negative - one sided answers. We don’t care”If she didn’t care, why was I sitting here?“I have talked to both Rudra and Varun. Now I know about their perspectives too. Did you inform your manager that you were on leave? No, you didn’t.”“Yes, I was really depressed and woke up at 5 eve..”“You were completely one-sided in your answer. Such a judgemental answer it was! You never wrote what you did!” she exclaimed.“Devika, I did. I wrote I was depressed and was late for standups. I wrote that I took WFH and..”“That was completely in another way!” she interrupted.And then she gave me a tough look.“I have tracked down your whole information, when do you come and leave, wfh etc. I don’t think it’s too much. You were also 1 hour late on the GS event, I heard”I wasn’t. What was she saying?“No, I was a minute late. You can ask my friend who was sitting there.”“Also, you were absent on 4 presentations Varun gave, right?”I was shocked. What did she just say? I was present in 3 of them, I remembered. Now I felt something was really wrong. Varun probably gave her false information about me.“No, I was there for 3 of them” I replied in a low voice.“And you weren’t allowed to give?” She raised her eyebrows.“I didn’t ask him, neither did he offer.. he just took the chair and..Did Varun said I was absent? I wasn’t!” I defended myself.“Oh yes you weren’t, I know. When did I say you were absent? You are just misunderstanding me” she replied and wrote down some points.And now she started lying too about things she said earlier! I was shocked to the core.“They said bad things about me, didn’t they.” I asked.“No, infact they praised you for technical aspects. ‘She did all her tasks which we assigned.’ ‘Used to find solutions of the problem till the very end.’” she read it from the paper she had.But what about the other aspects? I was sure they had said something worse about me. I wondered what was that except me coming late.“GS-UI-LIBRARY!!” she exclaimed.“This is what you wrote about the library. Seriously!”I looked down. I couldn’t say anything except sorry.“Rudra even let you choose jersey for cricket match, didn’t he?”“Yes he did.” I sighed.“What you think what made your experience bad? Was it yourself? Why put it on social media, and didn’t contact us. What about the HCM?”I was late and silent. The only faults.“Does anybody in your team knows about it?” she asked hoping that nobody knows.“No, just me and the interns.” I replied.“And what did you write? Niharika left because of politics..? Did you talk to her? Who told you?” she almost shouted.“I got to know that from a teammate.” I replied in low tone.“So you will put anything you hear on social media??” she tried to overpower me.“If I were your signNow HR and I read this answer on Quora.. you know I’d have..” Devika scolded in a rude tone.She would have taken my offer back. That’s what she meant.“I have already deleted it , Devika. I said sorry, what else can I do? ” I almost cried.“These things never happened with me at signNow. But people here..”I broke down. Couldn’t speak much.“What even if you deleted? 1000s of people saw it. All the people on your floor saw it. They may have copied it, downloaded it. It had so confidential information!”“And yeah, put this conversation there too!!” She said in a very rude tone.“I won’t. You know I won’t.” I whispered.“Anyways Shilpi, now it’d be too awkward for you to go there. We have already stopped your remote access. We don’t want you to work anymore. Since you’ve already rejected the offer too, no discussion related to it. You can submit the id card to me.”“Okay.”I cried a lot in the cab. Rudra knew it all the time. Why didn’t he himself fire me instead of sending a rude HR. And those two also lied a lot about me. The tone of HR was totally different when I met her on Thursday. And today she was really harassing me.It took me a while to understand - all this was planned by Rudra. He choose the rudest and senior-most HR to deal with my case and harass me, just to get back at me.2 interns were joining today and space was very less in the small GIR cabin. And he knew very well I completed all my work the last week itself. Win-Win situation for Rudra!Varun and Rudra lied to HR. It was evident from the way she treated me. I was made to be feel like a garbage - just because I was late at the office!I cried for an hour. And then, I edited and restored this answer.Next day I came to know none of the interns or people in my team knew about this! I was fired secretly. The HR lied the whole time.All because Rudra didn’t want to see my face in GIR!Do I fear them? Not at all.“I will survive, Tracy thought. I face mine enemies naked, and my courage is my shield.” ― Sidney Sheldon (if tomorrow comes)Many people want me to take this answer down or go anonymous. I have done nothing wrong. Those who have, they should hide their faces behind “anonymous” mask.If GS has some problem with the answer, they are free to take action against me. I am not bonded by any legal agreement and atleast deserved decent exit process.

I worked for The Walt Disney Company in Burbank from 2002-2007.  On my first day of work during orientation I asked the Disney University what the company's mission and core values were.  They didn't have an answer for me but promised that they would follow up.  A few weeks and a long e-mail chain later I heard from someone in HR that we didn't have a mission statement or a list of core values.I was pretty surprised by this and wanted to keep digging.  I signed up for a breakfast with Michael Eisner and Bob Iger and was fortunate enough to be able to attend.  I posed the question to Mr. E...

Your boss starts pushing you out of the loop. You no longer know exactly what is going on in the company but it's obvious everyone else knows.Your replacement is in training to take your job and to rub salt in the wound you're the lucky person that gets to train them! When you ask your boss about said person they will tell you they need an extra person for off days, vacations, and emergencies. That's funny, the last few years you said we couldn't afford another person? Hmmmm.Your coworkers begin to distance themselves from you. You'll also catch them staring at you intently. Like you're a walking dead person. An animated corpse. Just waiting for the final blow to come down. "Off with his head" that look seems to say!There's no talk of the future. Next week, next month, next year. Just today, and getting through the day. More specifically, getting through the day without making direct eye contact with you.Coworkers go out of their way to be extra nice or extra snide! This is where you find out who really liked you and who secretly hated you but smiled in your face.You get called into an impromptu meeting. Usually when you arrive at work. Sometimes you'll be asked to come in on your day off. There will be at least two people besides yourself attending. A lot of dumb excuses will come your way. Anything you say will be shot down with the precision of a modern warplane.But really, it's not the end of the world and usually leads to something better in your future. So don't take it too hard. You were tired of working with these scumbags anyway, weren't you?

Mystery behind Padmanabha Swamy Temple's seventh vaultThis is the temple…And this is the entrance of the vault…There are 8 vaults in this temple (Primarily six of them and later the rest two were found). These vaults are documented as A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H.The seventh vault means Vault B. For centuries (presumably), this remained closed. Vault B had a eerily robust wooden gate behind a metal-grill gate. These two gates were opened under the order of Supreme court. But behind the metal door, there is an iron door jammed shut (picture given above) having two big cobra portraits on it and this door has no nuts, bolts or even latches. It is just a plain chunk of steel. It is a greatest mystery in the world that what is behind the door.Vault B is counted as highly mysterious,sacred and risky by Trust members and learned astrologers. Many believe that this cannot be unlocked by breaking or by locksmiths, but can be unlocked only by Magical spell or chants by highly erudite monks. The mantra/chant/spell may be Naga Bandhanam. But royal family of Travancore strictly opposes the opening of it and so does their supporting administrators of the temple.If minutely followed, you may listen some sound of water or hissing sound of snakes from this side of door most probably.Also, the vaults that were opened, contained extremely valuable treasure - gold, silver, precious stones. For exact figures , you can Google it.Chapatti MovementA bizarre and enigmatic incident that happened in India during the British rule, which was the distribution of chapattis throughout the country during the revolt of 1857 remains an inexplicable mystery till today. Though recent studies have theorised that the circulation of chapattis may have been an attempt to deliver food to people afflicted with cholera, the evidence is inconclusive about the actual purpose of the Chapatti Movement. Only one thing is accepted unanimously by historians – the mysterious chapatti deliveries definitely created an atmosphere of restlessness that was particularly disconcerting to the British in 1857.Disappearance of Nana SahebNana Saheb, regarded as one of the important leaders of the 1857 revolt, disappeared soon after his defeat at the hands of the British. History is still unclear about his fate, with questions also remaining about what happened to his fabled treasure that today would be worth billions. Most historians believe that he was never captured and escaped to Nepal with a signNow part of his treasure, although no concrete historical evidence of that exists. Even after 150 years, Nana Saheb’s fate and the whereabouts of his treasure remain among the most enduring mysteries from the British era.Bullet BabaWhen Om Banna got into an accident while riding his bullet and passed away, little did the country know that such mysterious events were to follow. The police towed the vehicle to their police station but it returned to the site of the accident the very next day. No matter how many times the police towed it away, locked it up, emptied it of any fuel, the bike would find its way back to the accident site.Also, Shri Om Banna is said to guard other drivers (who drive safe themselves, but are in a threat due to other rash drivers).Stone manThe serial killer that went rampant first on the streets of earstwhile Bombay and then Calcutta still remains an unsolved mystery to this day. Given the title of Stoneman, this one or more murderer would roam the streets at night and select his victims from the street-dwellers and rag pickers, whose head they would bash in using a huge stone rock.Lal Bahadur Shastri’s deathLal Bahadur Shastri was the second Prime Minister of India. His popularity soared during the Indo-Pak war of 1965. It was during his visit to Tashkent to formally end the war that he died supposedly of a heart attack the very next day after signing the Tashkent Agreement in 1966. Various conspiracy theories suggest that he was poisoned. There are disputes about the dark blue spots and cut marks on his abdomen when no postmortem was conducted.Magnetic hill, LadakhLocated around 11000 feet above sea level in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh is a mystical and absolutely stunning place that needs a visit at least once in your lifetime. Out of the several enchanting places in Ladakh, one is of particular interest: The Magnetic Hill, a small stretch of road located about 30 km from Leh on the way to Kargil. This particular part of the Srinagar-Leh highway can be clearly seen to be going uphill, but if you stand at the right place, turned off your engine and put your vehicle in neutral, it will slowly move on its own and can go up to a speed of 20 km/hr.It is rumored that there once lied a pathway on this patch of road that led straight to heaven. People who were deserving of it would be pulled up automatically while the others could never make up the path, no matter how hard they tried. Experts believe that the Magnetic Hill is just an optical illusion wherein a slightly downhill slope appears to be an uphill slope due to an obstructed horizon. Whatever it is it does attract thousands of tourists to this place just to experience the phenomenon.The Iron pillar of DelhiThe Iron Pillar that stands at the center of the Quwwatul Mosque dates back to 4th Century A.D. It is counted in one of Delhi's most curious structures. Erected in honour of the Hindu God, Lord Vishnu, it has inscriptions of ‘Brahmi characters’ on it to indicate the same. Some people also say that it was made in the memory of the Gupta King Chandragupta II (375-413). There are many archaeologists, historians and scientists who have been studying it for so many centuries now. But the mystery remains unsolved.The centuries old Iron Pillar has been the example of great engineering, as it stands stiff, even today, with no rust (maybe negligible amount of rust), even after being built in open ground, facing rains, winds and sunlight-the supporters of rusting, continuously .Thanks for reading

Daily lifeUnethical life hacksConversational life hacksDaily habits to boost productivityHouse hacksCooking tips and hacksMumbai HacksBoosting productivity while studyingTravelMaking the best of daily commute timeMaking the best of in-flight timeProfessional lifeTips & tricks for interviewsWorking smarter instead of harderTechnologyWikipediaChrome                                                1.a. Unethical life hacksA. Professional lifeApplying for a position you are not really good at? Add main keywords (related to the role and the industry) to your online resume in "white font". Most HR departments of big companies have a basic screening algorithm that scans the document for such keywords. Is this ethical? NO. Will it help you bypass the first line of defense? LIKELY.No idea about how good/bad your competition is for a particular job?Post an fake ad for a similar role (on any site you choose). This way you will get a good number of resumes you can use to come up with a benchmark.Are you a jackass for wasting people's time? YES. Will it help? YES.B. Making and saving moneyList your item on eBay and any other commerce site that allows bids. Create multiple fake accounts to drive up the asking price.Warning: This could land you in serious trouble with the authoritiesGo to the theater, watch the movie you wanted to, pay for 1 movie ticket, watch multiple moviesGet student discounts even after graduating. A lot of paid online sites have student discounts (can be accessed by using the college or university email). Things like train or flight tickets also have it (and just require your college ID card)As a research scholar, you can access almost all paywalled sites that host academic papers and journalsBut a first class air ticket, eat free for a yearP.S. Doesn't work everywhere                                          1.b. Conversational life hacksEven though you are not really interested in it, ask people to "tell you more". They might ramble on for 2 more minutes, but they will feel welcome and would be more open to you.Fumbling and saying something off-topic, yet hilarious, is good. Occasionally. People can relate more with people they feel are fallible. STAY AWAY FROM YOUR PHONES!(Source: Modern Conversation)                                 1.c. Daily habits to boost productivity#1. Multi-tasking.Before you say, "But true multi-tasking is nigh impossible", hear me out. My idea of multi-tasking is to combine two (and no more) tasks - one passive, and one that requires active participation.If you are on the phone, clean up your place. If you are stuck in traffic (but not driving), catch up on your reading list, listen to a good podcast, or reply to your emails and social media messages. Almost half of my daily reading is done during coffee breaks, while cooking dinner, or on my way to and from office. You can also catch up on the news by switching on your TV or on an audio news app in the morning while working out, eating breakfast, or getting ready.#2. Automate the mundane stuffAnytime you come across an activity that needs to be done on a regular, or semi-regular basis, it is always worth the time and effort to automate it.For example, you can use a host of recipes from IFTTT, to achieve this. Be it syncing and backing up your mails, social media data, and your phone content, or creating a custom news feed for yourself depending on your interest. #3. FILTERSThe current state of things, and primarily information generation, leaves most of us overwhelmed.A few months ago, I spent more than 2 weeks cleaning up my multiple mailboxes. I went through all emails in my inbox, deleted the useless ones, archived and categorized the important ones, blocked and unsubscribed from hundreds of mailing lists, set up rules and filters to auto archive or delete emails that fit the criteria. Granted it took me dozens of hours, but the final result was a clean inbox. Now I do this once every week (takes no more than 10-15 minutes) and only have unread or "to-do" emails in my primary inbox.I did a similar exercise on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Quora and purged my account by un-following multiple people, blogs, groups etc.Try it. Being organized pays off.                                                      1.d. House hacksKeep things in their proper place. Takes a little immediate effort but saves a lot of time and effort later on in finding them.Print your wifi password as a QR code and stick it on the wall. That way your guests can easily connect to your wifi and you don't have to tell them your password too.Know about some tips and tricks for a frugal living on: Waste Less-Gain More!DO NOT GET A TV: Saves both precious time and money. Any show that you actually care about can always be watched on the internet.Learn to make stuff. Something like a simple coffee table (wooden) or a small bookshelf.Use CFLs instead of bulbs or tubelights to save energy.Use the AC judiciously. My summer electric bill was 2000/month and in winter (that requires no heating) was only 400 for comparable other uses.Keep everything you need in the morning - handkerchiefs, keys, wallet, change, glasses, ID card, mobile charger - at one place to avoid muckups.Use free apps (like Viber) for calling your parents or SO.Bargain. ALWAYS! I got a sheesah for 500 bucks. The original quoted price was 3000.Better, search for the lowest price online before buying. Search for <"Item Name" lowest price India (or your country)".Works brilliantly for a lot of electronic stuff, especially mobiles and accessories.Always search for coupon codes before buying stuff.Use ThisYaThat.com - a book price comparison website - before buying any book online. Steve Jobs: The Exclusive biography is available for as high as 746 and as low as 521.Page on ThisyathatKeep all medicines in a medicine cabinet, all important documents in a big folder, all bills in a (makeshift) box.Buy handicrafts instead of branded items whenever possible: they look better, more vibrant, are cheaper and also promote the traditional arts industry.Paint your keys different color for easy reference and use. Save 2 minutes of fumbling time every time you open the door.Automate mundane tasks on your laptop - Use AutoHotkey.Keep track of your daily expenses using a expense manager app.Buy groceries and other essential items on a weekly basis. From the supermart. In bulk.Use your common sense.                                             1.e. Cooking tips and hacksIf you are looking at reducing the overall time to cook a meal, including readying raw materials etc, then the most effective way is to treat cooking like scheduling a project with multiple modules.For example, I was making some spaghetti last night. It includes the following activities:Boiling the spaghetti - 20 minsChopping onions - 5 minsFrying onions - 5 minsChopping other vegetables - 10 minsStir-frying onions and vegetables - 10 minsMixing and cooking everything - 10 minsOn the surface it looks like an one-hour activity (20+5+5+10+10+10 = 60 mins).But:1, 3, 5 and 6 do not need active involvement; 2 and 4 do5 can only be done last3 can only be done after 2 is done, 5 can only be done after 3 and 4 are done1, 2 and 4 are independent activities (need no prior activities to be completed)So, in essence, it can be done only in 35 mins.​Simple rules:Anything that is happening on its own - boiling, simmering etc - should be started firstIn case of multiple activities that need manual intervention, start with the one that takes the longest.Do not make too much mess. People spend a lot of time clearing after cooking. I simply spread an old newspaper before starting, and all the waste is simply collected later and dumped (<1 min).Prepare raw material in bulk. Chop up veggies and store half for tomorrow. Having pasta today and tomorrow? Boil double and keep half in the refrigerator.Cook at the optimal temperature. Too low takes too much time; too high risks burning the recipe.Use covered pots and pans as much as possible. Simple 6th grade science - stuff cooks better and faster in a sealed, pressurized container.P.S. Use the last phase (when everything is done, and the meal is getting ready) for other activities like cleaning utensils from before, restocking your fridge, or sit down with your laptop and clean up your mailbox etc. Do not just stand there and wait. :)                                                      1.f. Mumbai hacksWhen in need, do not hesitate to ask people for help. Mumbaikars are a bunch of really helpful folks. I have never been ignored or turned down when I approached someone with a request.I guess it is partially because living in such a huge city with 2 million other souls makes everyone realize how small we are.Always factor in traffic conditions when making plans. Need to signNow somewhere that usually takes 30 mins? Check the time. If it is from 8-11 am or 6-9 pm, you will encounter some really fucked up traffic. Start 90 mins before. Take the local/metro/monorail. You might have to bear with the crowd for some time, but you will definitely signNow your destination on time. The same cannot be said about buses, autos or taxis.While travelling in local, have a map handy on your smartphone. Helps you know how far your station is.(I use this, linked directly on my homescreen)(related to #4) Better, download the m-Indicator app. Useful for knowing info about all modes of transport.Play store: Android Apps on Google PlayApple store: m-IndicatorWhile travelling in a crowded public transport, keep your valuables in your front pockets and your bag on the front side. If you travel regularly, get a pass (monthly, quarterly or annual). Saves you a precious few minutes everyday waiting in the ticketing queue.                              1.g. Boosting productivity while studyingRemove distractionsEasier said than done. Make sure you have a "DND" sign on the door of your room. Put you phone in silent mode (or if you are expecting a call, turn off all notifications except the ringer). Ensure that you are not signed into any social media/IM service. Ensure there is nothing too bright/contrasting in front of your eyes. Stow away your comics and books. Try and find some sublime, instrumental pieces and put it on at the bare minimum volume. Music has been shown to improve concentration and also helps to relax.(Image credits: reading.ac.ukAvoiding distractions and staying motivated)(Further read: I Listened To Music Designed For Focus By Scientists - And My Productivity Shot Up)Reward yourselfThe age old formula of incentivizing user behaviour works for self too. I love to snack while reading or studying. So I reward myself with a helping whenever I complete a module/chapter.The reward can be non-food too. Want to watch that particular video? Complete 5 modules. Wanna go down for a quick swim? Better speed up and wrap up the course till mid term.Take frequent breaksIt does no good sitting in one spot and poring over large volumes for hours on stretch. Slowly your concentration and efficiency will go down to the point where it's no longer advisable to continue. Also, taking a break just before finishing a task has been shown to improve retention as opposed to completing it in one go.The Zeigarnik effect states that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.Take a break. A glass of water. Some stretches maybe. Lie down for 5 minutes. Ensure that you do not overload your visual faculties (so no books/comics/videos).Make the environment conduciveIs the lighting fine?Is the temperature comfortable?Is your posture good?Is your body relaxed?Ask yourself these questions. Be sure that you are not exerting your body or mind any more than it should be. Have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and in what time frameExams are a rough time. There is a lot to cover but never enough time. So be prepared with a battle plan. How much there is to study? How much time do you have? What are the most crucial parts? Do you need time for a final revision?Be prepared with a checklist. And a rough timeline. Keep yourself on track with regular checks.                          2.a. Making the best of daily commute timeYou could read.Best short stories online100s of free literary works from Project GutenbergBest Wikipedia articles75 great online comics to readOr just take a book or your kindle with youYou could learn.Best Youtube channels for learningMust read sites and blogs for MBA studentsYou could have some fun.A few short movies to watchThe best Youtube channels to subscribe toListen to some great podcastsYou could catch up on the news.Or just talk to people, be part of interesting conversations, know others, know yourself.You could work on a hobby of yours - writing, doodling, sketching etc.                                  2.b. Making the best of in-flight timeIf you are going on a business trip, use the time to prepare yourself for the meetings, to send meeting notes, next steps, thank you notes to clients etc.If you are flying for leisure,Read a book: Seriously. That one book you had been putting off for the past few months? Read it. While you are at home, there are a plethora of things to do and other distractions. While you are flying, you are disconnected from the world - no mails, no IMs, no facebook, twitter or quora. So grab that bundle of pages where someone has created a vivid fantasy world, penned a heart-wrenching story, exposed the truth, and give it the time it deserves.I mean, the only reason you are allowed a backpack with you on board is so that you can carry a book or two :)Strike up a conversation: I mean, face it. Not always do you get the opportunity to bore people for hours on end without them having a way to escape :DOn a serious note, you come across a widely interesting array of people while travelling. And each of them has a tale to tell. Something that might stick with you for the remainder of your life, make you laugh when you are feeling blue, or provide the inspiration for your novel when you retire and finally have the time to pen it down. You might end up having a good time and making a good friend or a business acquaintance/future partner. Catch up with people: In today's super-busy lifestyle that plagues most of us, we do not have time to catch up with old friends and acquaintances. Do it when you are flying. Drop them a simple hello. Or a detailed description of how you have been. Develop a hobby or learn a new skill: Always wanted to learn that handy design software? Or learn the basic words of Dothraki or Klingon? Wanted to know the rules of playing Poker? Or bridge? Guess what? You can do it hovering thousand of meters above the ground.Finish all ad-hoc work Catalog and back up all relevant informationChange your iPod playlistCreate the to-do/to-read/to-watch/to-buy list for the next monthRearrange your photographs into albumsWrite your journal or blogDe-clutter your mailboxIntrospectSomething really important which most people ignore in their daily lives. Plug in your headphones, play some Floyd, sit back, close your eyes. And THINK. Think what you want to do. Think where you are right now and is it what you had always wanted? Think and be thankful for everything in life. Think of what problems are plaguing you currently and how you will tackle them and kick them in the nuts when you land.Or don't. Let your mind be blank. Let it wander into the abstract and the surreal. Let it be at harmony with the universe.Inner peace, brother!                                      3.a. Tips & tricks for interviewsFirst impressions are pretty important (Primacy effect). So make sure you are appropriately dressed, well-groomed, and enter the room with a smile and a pleasing countenance.So is the final impression. (Recency effect) Make sure you end the interview on a good note. Do your homework when it comes to the role you are applying for, the company profile, the industry outlook and future trajectory.Most interviews end with the interviewer soliciting questions from the candidate. Try and ask something relevant and interesting.Get some sleep the night before.You want to be well-rested and fully awake the next day. Lack of sleep would mean you are a little foggy, grumpy, and not performing at your best.Be honest.Nobody expects you to be perfect and all-knowing. If you do not know something, admit it. It is better than beating-around-the-bush and trying to cover up, which almost never works. And if you get caught bluffing, it's a sure shot way of getting rejected.Be yourself.Some people try to be nicer. Some try to be more professional. And it backfires a lot of time. You can either come across as a suck-up, or downright rude. Also, if you are not preoccupied with the pretense you are putting up, you can focus more on the things that actually matter.Clean up your social media footprint.A lot of interviewers have started doing background research on candidates by going through their social media profiles.Make sure that your Linkedin profile is updated, there are no objectionable photos on your Instagram account, your retarded, inflammatory, or plain ignorant Facebook posts.Make sure your resume is updated.If the latest item on your resume is something you did more than a year ago, you will come across as either incompetent or just too lazy to even update your profile.Arrive on time.Don't think, "It's just a 15-minute ride. I will start 20 minutes early". Start an hour before instead. Make sure you have factored in any chance unfortunate incidents like an unlikely jam, an accident, the cab breaking down, not being able to find the office or the exact interview location.Also, if you arrive decently early, you have time to do a sanity check. Wash your face, comb your hair, check your documents, be mentally prepared. Make sure your "interview persona" takes over as soon as you enter the company premises. Be polite to everyone starting including the security guard and receptionist. You never know who else is there in the waiting area.Treat it like a date.Make it an interesting conversation rather than a terrifying interrogation. After all, you are there not only for the interviewer to judge your competency, but also for you to evaluate whether the profile, the team, and the company culture is in sync with your personality.                               3.b. Working smarter instead of harderA. At workBookmark the most visited pages to save the hassle of typing tens of times a dayAutomate regular tasks. Use JS, Python, Macros, Autohotkey, Windows Scheduler etc to set and send reminders, run scripts, backup your data etc.Good AHK (AutoHotKey) tricksScripts Every DayUse RescueTime to manage your time and distractionsLearn Keyboard ShortcutsCreate a To-Do list for the next day before leaving. Start out next day by first finishing all those tasksKeep your mailbox organized. Whenever a new email comes, you either respond and archive, or read and archive (if it does not require anything from you), delete (not relevant), or flag as a "to-do-later"Multi-task: If you are a passive participant on a conference call, take a stroll while on the phone.Make use of Chrome extensionsIf your job requires you to travel frequently, make the best of it.Whenever you finish a task, or a project, archive it in any manner so that you can use it later during your performance and appraisal discussionsB. In school/collegeUse Zotero for managing references and creating bibliographies while working on research papers and reportsIncrease your productivity while studyingMake the best use of WikipediaC. Personal lifeIf it takes less than 5 minutes to complete, do it right awayCall your parents, friends, and family while you are commuting to work/schoolOr, you could readHack your houseMake a personal, 30-40 minute mixtape. Ensure that the tempo increases with each song. Aim to complete all your morning tasks and get ready before the playlist ends. The increasing tempo will make sure you have a rough idea how much time is left                                                         4.a. WikipediaPrint a book of selected Wikipedia articles. Go to the Wikipedia main page and click on the "Create a book" link in the left sidebar. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)​Click on "Start Book Creator".After that, you will get the following section on any wiki page you visit.​Just visit the Wikipedia pages you want to collate as a book and keep clicking on the "Add this page to your book" link.After you are done adding, click on "Show Book".You will signNow the following page where you can customize the book - add chapters. reorder the articles etc. Download the book in any format you like using the link at the right-bottom.                                                          4.b. ChromeXmarks Bookmark Sync : The most user-friendly bookmark manager. Now, never lose the sites you love.Save to Pocket : Read anything interesting? Save it to your personal collection with the clink of a button.uBlock Origin : Annoyed of the ads and the silly pop-ups? Hate waiting. Allow uBlock to care of them while you enjoy a seamless browsing experience. Now that Adblock has been sold to Adblock Plus, it will allow some paid ads to pass through, not uBlock. uBlock is like Gandalf.Honey : Who doesn't like saving while shopping? Be notified of deals, coupons, and promo codes whenever you buy something online.Lazarus: Form Recovery : Hate when you type something and it gets lost due to a browser or laptop crash? Lazarus will remember for you the next time.Google Translate : Translate foreign words on the go.Google Dictionary (by Google) : Simplest online dictionary.Turn Off the Lights : Watching a movie at home, but want the theater experience? Turn off your browser lights.Any.do Extension : Make and sync to-do lists on the go. Plan your day more effectively.ZenMate Security, Privacy & Unblock VPN : Hate when online content is not available in your country or region? Use ZenMate to create your own personal VPN to bypass it.MightyText : Can you type faster on your phone than on a keyboard? If not, MightyText helps you receive and send messages from your laptop.Price Blink :  In conjugation with #4 (Honey), save even more by buying from the seller offering the best deal.Wolfram|Alpha (Official) : Your mathematical assistant, now is a tiny extension.WOT: Web of Trust, Website Reputation Ratings : Be more aware of the security risks while visiting a website. The trusted WOT community rates websites as per security threat levels.Project Naptha : Saw an awesome text-on-image that you would love to share but hate typing it? Project Naptha renders the text on images as usable text.

The answer is gonna be really long. Grab some snacks as it could take a while.After interning at both signNow and Goldman, without a blink of an eye I can say - choose signNow.Going back a year before, my answer was different. Probably because I was unaware of how Goldman would turn out to be.I was the happiest person the day I was selected as an FTE at GS - a reputed fin-tech company which mostly hires tier-1 students, a dream for many. I had heard from many people that GS offers package as high as 32lpa which was quite a big deal for me - or for anyone who might have been at my place.As for signNow, I wanted a PPO since I really worked my ass off there - and was given one 6 days after I got offer from GS. I couldn’t be any happier.Soon came the phase of deciding - what should I choose? I didn’t know about the salary of GS but I had an idea that it definitely pays more than signNow. And that was enough for me - a reputed firm with lots of money!Then came the HR’s call. She offered me semester long internship in GS! I was glad that I don’t have to spend my last semester in college and will also earn some money. With the stipend as high as 75k and stay at Hilton hotel during intern, anybody is likely to go crazy and say “YES”.And so I did.I decided to take my decision after completing the semester long internship there, whether to go with signNow or continue with Goldman.The beginningSoon came 7th January. Day started off with amazing orientation and a beautiful office visit. Then came the lunch buddy - GS assigns a buddy from your department to have lunch with you the day you join, let’s say he was Raghav (name changed).Raghav seemed to be a really smart guy. I asked him a few questions about GS being a fin-tech, is it easy to switch and other questions. He seemed to be out of place, not interested. A guy came who was an intern in a team in which Raghav used to work. He kept talking and giggling with him, completely ignoring my presence. Cool, maybe Raghav is a badass - who cares?Met with my manager and two other interns who were in the same department - ZIR(changed). He seemed like a chilled-out and thoughtful person. Let’s call him Rudra.Our whole department used to sit in a middle sized cabin which accommodated around 32–35 employees of ZIR. My happiness knew no bounds! Great team, small cabin and friendly manager - what else could I ask for?Then came the next day. We were introduced to our team and had a lunch together. Oh no! Lunch here was not free - no big deal. Only 80rs/- per plate is affordable when you earn 75k per month, I thought.After having lunch, we began installing softwares required. Wait, you can’t install some softwares without manager’s permission. Fine! I messaged my manager and he granted the permission. He came later in the evening and gave 3 of us an interesting machine learning problem to solve - in a week, till we get our projects.He had three projects in mind, and he left it for us to decide which one we wan’t to take. I took the one which I thought was more impactful and cool, also because we had a member of our team working for the project. My task was to integrate the backend stuff he wrote with the UI I was going to create. Also to help him with some of those backend stuffs later on.“You can take help from Varun, in case you need” said Rudra.So it began!1st MonthI started learning React.js for the UI I was going to implement from various websites. There were tons of tutorial there. After understanding some theory, I clicked on ‘try it on codepen’ - online editor.“You are restricted from using an external website - no permissions”What? I can’t even use some online editor. Okay that’s fine - we have pretty sensitive data in GS. Since it’s a finance based company, we have client data with us and user may copy and paste it online - someone might steal the data! All this made sense. ‘It’s fine, I’ll bring my own laptop tommorow’, I thought before leaving.I could see two teammates standing behind me from my peripheral vision. One who was writing the backend stuff for the project I was working upon, let’s call him Varun.Varun was a silent and sober guy - a hardworking one who speaks only when required. Another guy standing beside him was Raghav.“Hey!” I said in a low tone. Did I do some crime? Why are these two here.. I wondered.“You brought your personal laptop, is everything fine here?” they asked.I told them about the restrictions. Raghav took my work PC and sent Rudra, my manager a request to approve codepen.I waited. One hour. Two hours. Codepen still not working. Fine for me since I have my own laptop. No worries.After 2 weeks Varun called me and started assigning tasks to do for the UI. I was full of enthusiasm and paid full attention to what he wanted. I started looking out for the cool libraries out there and found - material-ui.‘Perfect!’ I exclaimed.Started with the tasks, and was able to achieve the target next evening. It looked damn good! Varun will be happy. And so, I showed it to him.“Okay, font-size is a bit huge. And please change the app’s name - ELEGANT USER’S APP” (name changed). And so I did.“E-L-E-G-E-N-T U-S-E-R—S A-P-P”What a funny name, I thought. (The real one was funnier than the changed one)So days went, 1..2…3 and I completed 5–6 tasks. The basic UI (20%) was done. Then came Varun -“Shilpi, you did this using which library?”“Material-ui! It’s really good and..”“Okay, but make sure you can use it. Only specific libraries can be used at GS. Search xyz site and ensure if we can use it. If yes, proceed. Else use GS UI library”What did he just say. I worked on the UI for 2 weeks, and he is telling me now that I may not be able to use the material-ui library! No way..With my heart beating fast, I typed..X…Y….Z….gs..comCtrl+F“M-A——T-E—-R—I—A”Boom! It’s there. I was delighted :)The next day I was late. I saw a message pop up. It was from Raghav.“Hey” it said.“Hey” I replied.’“Please try to attend the daily standup. If you do, mail Rudra about your update :)” He replied.There hasn’t been a single day I was late. But okay, FINE.Then came the 5th day - friday. I got a message from Varun.‘Hi Shilpi, can you make another UI using GS-UI?’OH NO!. Again?.‘Just for the feel…we’ll show it to Rudra next week, he’ll choose which one we can use’*Slow Claps*. Well played Varun. Why did he approve the material-ui one if he wanted it in GS-UI - I wondered.It’s fine, I can do it. I encouraged myself and went to the internal site - gs-ui-library. (name changed)Okay, fine. This looks good. Okay. Cool. Documentation.. documentation….uhmm.I searched for the whole day, no documentation. Just few codes and examples to understand how to display some component.Way uglier than material-ui - I thought. And a minute later, an evil idea came to my mind..“What if I make the UI using gs-ui-library so ugly that Rudra and Varun both reject!” That would be great!The next week on friday, I was done with gs-ui-library. My code was asked to be removed from codesandbox by Varun - it’s illegal to put GS’s internal code there. I could hear Rudra laughing about how he is afraid of the interns bringing personal laptops here, and what will happen if someone names a variable as “ZIR” and put it on github.I showed Rudra the material-ui one. He was impressed.“This looks good! But don’t keep the name as ‘ ELEGANT USERS APP’, instead keep it as ‘THE USERS SEARCH APP’ ” (name changed)“But Rudra, Varun has asked me to..”“I will ask him. We will decide and tell you”Fine. Keep the name as ‘The bla bla app”. I don’t care.Varun was already gone by the time. I smirked. I won’t show the UI I made using gs-ui-library to Rudra!Next day Varun was on my desk. He asked whether I showed both the UI’s.“No, actually I forgot to show the other..”“See, the people above us will probably ask why we didn’t use GS-UI. That’s why I am saying so. I have no problem with material-ui. Just ask Rudra if he is fine with it. Rudra…”“Yes, Varun” replied Rudra.And then he showed both the UI’s to him. The ugly one. The good one.“I think it looks great - the ‘gs-ui-library’ one!” Rudra exclaimed.I shouted in my mind - “How can he..!”“See Shilpi, we don’t have any problem using material-ui one but the people for whom we are making the app will ask why we didn’t use the internal-gs library. Okay, tell me one thing - it does have all the components you require, right?”“Yes, Rudra” I sighed.“Seems like Shilpi wanted to use material-ui, haha” Rudra giggled and looked at Varun. I could hear the giggling from one of the two interns from behind - Tejas (name changed).He was also working on a UI, along with some backend stuff. He was using ‘gs-ui-library’ from day one. And so, he giggled.Rudra -1 .. Shilpi- 0This was the first time I went home feeling sad. Why didn’t they tell me 2 weeks ago? Now I will have to work on the other one. And the library has no documentation.“g-s-u-i-l-i-b-r-a-r-y” I typed.Gs-ui-library was a really terrible library. No documentation, made by mixture of other available libraries online. It was like an accidental product of some cross-breeding. A scientific failure.Anyways, I somehow learnt basic features which I could implement using the library. On the other hand, my machine was damn slow - for a reason I didn’t know.“Why are you using vs code? How did you get it!” asked Rudra who saw me coding on vscode.“I like it- it’s really good for react. Installed it from the store.”“Haha, use intellij, okay!” Rudra said in a serious tone.Wow. After making me work with the gs-ui-library, now he is snatching away the editor I love. Cool.I still continued with vs code. Varun was totally fine with it.I went to drink a glass of water. Didn’t bring my bottle that day. So took a ‘visitor’s cup’ from inside the drawers.“Ma’am, you can’t drink in that. It’s only for visitors” said a guy who saw I was about to drink water.“Oh, it’s ok for today you can use it..Ma’am”Great. Block websites - facebook, gmail, codepen. Take my material-ui away. Don’t allow me to use vs-code. And also, don’t let me drink water at peace!I was pissed off. Huh!2nd MonthWe were having a cricket match on saturday! Rudra asked me if I want to play - since he wanted a female player as per the rules. He just wanted me to throw the ball for an over or so since it was the rule. I agreed - afterall he was my manager.I came back home, exhausted. Wasn’t allowed to bat :( even when the guy players were noob too. Whatever, I don’t care. I said to myself.So I started working on the integration part. Meanwhile we used to have meetings in which we were told about ZIR and it’s functions. Rudra used to tell us about how fun the NAPA training is going to be, and how we will start hiding our id cards after the event.I completed the integration part in a week or so. Gave a weekly demo to Rudra.Next week was going to be a demo with Monica’s team (name changed). The finance guys for whom we were building the ‘ELEGANT USERS APP’. Varun was happy that I had completed the integration part and added 2 more features to implement.- feature1 & feature2Before the demo, we had a meeting with Monica just a week before. Rudra, Varun and I gathered in a room. Varun and Monica proceeded on what she wants and what actually we have. It was a debate between them and I listened.Since the lunch time was over, Rudra and I went to the food-court outside to have one.“Shilpi, you know I was like you. The silent guy in the room. If someone else was at your place he would have asked a lot of questions! ”“I think it’s better to listen Rudra, than argue. I didn’t have much idea about what they were talking and the talk was mostly concerning Varun.”“See..it’s good very good. But to be at a place like GS…you know! The world is very mean,Shilpi. You need to speak more than you do work here! Many people don’t know much but they’ll get ahead of you because they speak. I was like you when I joined GS. In the group discussion round, when everyone was debating.. I just sat at the corner. HR came and asked each of us individually. If she hadn’t done that, I mayn’t be sitting here today”I gave it some thought. He was right.Some days later feature1 stopped working. I had no idea why, I was using an excellent library for feature1, off-course an external one. Varun himself has asked me to use an external for that case since we don’t have a gs library for that.But now. It wasn’t working.It took me a week to include the library - react-bootstrap-table2 with the project along with the features it had, and use it. And some magic happened. Now feature1 stops working. Damn!I woke up the whole night - till 4 am to make the feature1 work. The remote desktop worked very slow. In GS, we are not given laptops for security purposes. So we have to use remote desktop.It was damn slow but I was patient. I kept on trying and trying till I fell asleep early in the morning. Woke up around 12.An hour before demo with Monica’s team, I told Varun about it. He said it’s fine, we will show the demo without it.Tik…tikk….I wasn’t satisfied. I worked damn hard for 45 min and was able to make feature1 work!We went to give the demo. Varun pulled out a chair and sat before a PC.“Hi Monica!”“Hey Varun!”And so it started. The demo. The UI I made. The features I implemented. The integration. My two month’s hard work.All of them was presented by our VP, Mr.Varun!“Uhm…but we don’t need feature 1 and 2, Varun. You can remove it” said Monica.W-H-A-T! What did she just say. I went an hour back in time.I am sweating. I can feel I am nervous. This has to go good. I know well about the project, and I will make the feature-1 work! I will!Yes, I did. Only to loose the presentation as well as the feature.I rushed out of the room with the unhappy face which no one bothered about in the meeting room. I was silent and in hurry, it was weekly demo too today.“Haashh.. It went great!” exclaimed Varun who barely ever talked to me. Since like 1962!“Okay, but we have a weekly demo too!”The weekly demo got cancelled. Varun proceeded to tell me how we don’t need feature-1 and all the new features which Monica wanted. I remembered them all. One of them was a feature-X which was not possible technically. I tried making Varun understand and he did, after quite a while.Then came the mid-semester exam and I finally got a break!3rd MonthI went to my home after holidays. After 2 months, 1,40,000 was credited to my account. I buyed clothes for mom and dad. I was delighted and ready to go back!Meanwhile, an acquaintance of mine who did intern at signNow called me. She also had an offer from both the companies but was unable to decide. I told her all pros and cons, and how I was going to join GS. Being a Delhite, she wanted to join signNow.After a while, I thought. I should maybe negotiate!It was a disaster. The HR told me clearly that they pay all the FTE’s equally regardless of how many offers they had. I asked him about the work I’d be given but he didn’t tell.After 8 days, I refused. Probably the biggest mistake I did.Came back to office happily. Compiled the code.React-bootstrap-table2 library code - gone. Whole UI code changed in a week. My 2 week’s effort - 1 week for the library and 2 nd for other features went to ashes.Just in ONE SINGLE WEEK.~Varun committed the code 2 hours ago~~Varun committed the code yesterday~~Varun….~And so on.Varun started using an internal gs-ui-library library instead of react-bootstrap-table2. Instead of giving proper review comments, he changed my code by himself. Some backend stuff also came to me.I fetched the code from repo, the one Varun had implemented. And tried to understand.“You just have to implement feature-b-xyz, no need to go through whole code” he said.Fine.The next series of days started with me coming late - 11:50, 12 or later than that. I used to mail Rudra about the update. Sometimes I was able to attend standup, sometime I wasn’t able to. My health started detoriating.Everyday, Varun used to commit some changes. And it took a hell lot of time to update the project in intellij, go through his changes and do other changes. I was pretty much frustrated.Took 2 wfhs in 2 weeks. Logged in late many times. Had to push myself from bed everyday. Devoted my time to video games than gs work. Lost interest.Then I was given some backend part. I took WFH a day I wasn’t feeling well and learnt about apis stuff. Still some part of me wanted to do well and take interest in the work genuinely.We - all 3 interns received a mail from Rudra which we could never forget. Rudra had showed his ‘Rudra’ roop. The mail said -“You guys are not taking the work seriously. WFHs are not to be taken for granted. So many WFHs and late loggings. Not at all serious about your work. You guys need to have deliverables by the end of this month.I don’t care, work for your career not mine.”I was shocked. The friendly, giggling Rudra! I remembered the first time I met him. And the mail was quite a shock to all of us.Late loggings & WFHs were targeted at me.But… Tejas? What did he do?As far as I remember, he was a hard working guy. Always on time. Never missed a standup. What did he do to receive the mail?Days after that, Varun took 4WFHs in a row. Rudra was quiet. Nisha only came like twice in a week, Rudra said nothing. Why us? Why the interns? I wondered.One day I stayed at office till 8pm. I could hear Rudra talking about ‘The Elegant User’s App’ over a phone call.“We are building it again since the last UI was in angular. We wanted it in React.” he said to somebody over the call.Throughout my whole intern, I had one doubt in my mind.The app on which I was working upon was already built by someone and was functional too. But my manager wanted it to be built again since he wanted us to use a new technology.What’s the difference even if angular was used? What’s the need of rebuilding the app again from scratch? I wondered.And the next words I heard shattered me.“Yeah, Varun is working with some intern on ‘The Elegant User’s App’.”What did he say?The last two months were fully devoted to the UI. I went back in time.“Shilpi, if you want any help - Varun would be able to for this project.I was made to believe that it was an independent project, which it never was. I worked my ass off for three months only to hear that I am ‘some intern’ working under Varun and helping him building the UI.I got depressed.It was Holi’s festival - the festival of colours. I never really celebrated holi, hated to be coloured all over. We had a group for our department, and I wished everyone a “Happy Holi!”.Tejas replied with a “Happy holi” too.“Happy Forest Day” - stated an image I received on whatsapp. It was from Rudra. On the whatsapp group. This was his reply for “Happy Holi”.Needless to say, I didn’t go to office that day as sign of rebel ( we didn’t have holiday on holi). Varun was already doing WFH. The “Happy Forest Day” frustrated me. Why Rudra why. You are better than that.“Niharika (name changed) is leaving GS” somebody whisphered.Niharika, a very smart lady was in our department. She was mentoring an intern and sounded quite knowledgable. Her sudden decision of leaving GS came as a shock to everyone.I had a last chat with her only when everyone was away for lunch. She had refused her farewell too I guess. She came to me and we had a decent chat. I asked her the reason of leaving. She wanted to switch the team maybe but it was taking a long time. Sweet and smart is all I could say for her. She had done work with JPMC & Morgan Stanely (US) and held a green card. A dedicated worker.After the lunch, she had a long meeting with Rudra. She was too firm with her decision.After she left, someone told me she bitched about many people in the team - specially Rudra. I was really sad. GS lost a good employee that day. And maybe, due to politics.Next day, GS was having an orientation for all new campus hires. It was one hell of a day. World-class hotel stay and world-class orientation.Varun was going out to the new office for 2 weeks. For some work.4th monthBefore Varun had left for the new office, he had asked me to attend telephonic standups for our team from 3–3:30. Now I used to attend 2 standups - the department one, and the team one. Full time waste activities!He had also asked me to get details of a task from Raghav and get it completed. I messaged him and he said he will be there at my desk in 5 min. Well, he never came. I asked him 2–3 times more to which he sent me a random link. I was disheartened and had nothing to do for 2 weeks.I mailed the tpo of my college, he was ready to talk to signNow’s HR and get my offer back. I was relieved.Soon, we got mails from hr regarding our joining dates and NAPA training, which is held in New York. I told the HR about my case, that I have courses left in college and I won’t be able to join on 3rd june.“Can I go to the training and join later after 12th july - when my courses are done” I asked.“No, you need to join as FTE. We will process your visa in june and you’ll go during july first week”“Okay” I replied.“Try to make your college understand, it’s important” is all she said.Next day, I refused. My college will never agree for me to take 2 week vacation during summer term.Rudra received a call from HR. I knew it was regarding me.He took me outside the cabin and asked why did I opted out of NAPA training. I told him everything - how my degree would be affected. He was ready to give WFH for 2 months. I was shocked. Again.What will I do now! Rudra was the most unpredictable mysterious guy I ever met. He was good and bad, at the same time. 2 months is a long time - and he agreed to give me WFH! He earned my respect.Now I was in dilemma. signNow. GS. signNow. GS.What to do?On the other hand, I made my tpo talk to signNow’s HR. And now, Rudra is turning to be a nice guy. I will choose GS. I was firm this time.Then there was second meeting with Rudra. He told me everything - the work I’ll do as an FTE. Also, he never left a single moment he could get to brag about himself.“You will be working under Varun. He will be the team lead. Your work is XYZ-AHSH-PPOS…..”“Be as mature as me. I can make complex things simple easily. Learn it from me.” he said.Varun. No!!The simple guy. Who took away all the presentations. Even during our team standups, he used to answer when some guy asked me about the project. My code was changed everyday. All the torture I faced last month. And now- I’ll be working under him. Wow.I told Rudra - how my code was changed everyday, how I was not told about the changes Varun did in the backend and still expected my code would run successfully. He listened to me for a while and then said -“When I was a NAPA, I used to ensure that I get 0 review comments”“I don’t get review comments, Rudra. My code gets changed, and it’s hard to understand it everyday without help of Varun.”“It’s a good thing, right? You will learn something from what the change he does. It’s good for you.”Cool. I have to look at the new code and somehow “learn without doing”. Interesting.I worked till 9 pm that day. Before Rudra left, he smiled at me sarcastically.“Shilpi, still working?”“Yeah Rudra, I came little late today.”“Varun changing your code and you changing his code.!”“Yes. That’s what is happening.”And then, he laughed maniacally.This was not the first time he did this. He used to laugh at me sarcastically many times after giving me the UI project.Next week, Varun was here. My virtual desktop was not working and I had no idea why. Called help-desk 5 times that day.“REBOOT!”“TRY IT FROM A DIFFERENT MACHINE!”“IT SHOWS ‘AVAILABLE’ ON MY MACHINE!”was all the response I got from 5 different help-desk-assistants.Took a day off the next day. Saw a mail. Varun had given presentation to our MD that day. UI presentation, which was supposed to be given by me.Next week, same schedule. Help-desk people failed miserably.I tried remote desktop and was able to open my outlook. My inbox was full of -“DISK CAPACITY OVER 95%! CLEAN IT!”I got it. But in order to clean it, I had to login to the virtual computer which I wasn’t able to. It was a deadlock.Soon I was assigned a new virtual computer. My whole local setup - was erased.My whole enthusiasm had turned to ashes at that point. Came late, went early. Stopped attending standups. Late Loggings. WFHs. OOO. No updates. No weekly updates. Nothing to do next since Raghav didn’t help. Frustrated as hell.Our department was hiring more and more people. I had nowhere to sit. No one to talk to. The only friend I had in bangalore left 2 weeks ago.And then came end-term exams.5th monthStill no mail from signNow. What do I do.I mailed the HR.I don’t care about my ego now. I just can’t work like this. A place where I am depressed everyday.And I got a positive response.I’ll be joining signNow in july. I don’t care about NAPA training. I just don’t.I am happy with less base salary.Why did I write the whole story? What’s the point of writing the whole experience when I could have just compared both the companies?Because I wanted you to feel the way I felt at each moment during my intern, why did I take the decision I took. Why did I take a rejected offer back.From my story you are well aware that -GS is a company for people who are confident, who may lack in technical terms but if they speak about their work just like Rudra told me, they will be successful in long run. You can’t sit at a corner desk everyday without networking and grow in GS but you can, at signNow. One of the main reasons of me leaving.Tejas was working on unapproved project. The project may not be approved by the MD and his struggle for 4 months could turn to ashes. This could never happen in a tech company like signNow where we have approved projects.Forget free food, they don’t even provide glasses to drink coffee/water. On the other hand, signNow has free food and glasses too.People focus on deliverables, no learning in my case. During my intern at signNow, more focus was on learning.You won’t receive appreciation. Tejas worked his ass off only to get scoldings from Rudra. While at signNow, I was really appreciated for the work I did by both - my mentor & manager.People focus on stupidest things - “ELEGANT USERS APP” v/s “THE USERS SEARCH APP” is more important here. Whereas at signNow people devote their time to efficiency and readability.Meetings, meetings and more meetings! A signNow part of the day goes in meetings at GS. Not the case in signNow, they respect developer’s time.Strats position -32lpa. Tech analyst-22lpa. No more words! At signNow, we get equal salary - 22lpa as fresher no matter whether we are an iitian or not.Varun, a person totally noob in react used to review my code. Sometimes it was really hard to make him understand. Never happened at signNow where my mentor knew Javascript & C++ in depth.No help from peers - everyone busy in their own world. Raghav was the smartest person in my team. He could’ve helped me but he didn’t. Never happened with me in signNow - people were more approachable and ever-ready to help.Features changing - worked my ass off on feature1 only to get it removed later on. Only if Monica had told earlier she doesn’t want one. In signNow, it rarely happened that a feature which we don’t need is implemented.Too much into internal code - “use gs-ui-library” “use intellij”. I want freedom. Which is there at signNow.Restrictions - can’t do much without manager’s permission. Not the case at signNow.No recognition - all the work I did was presented by Varun at last. While at signNow, I gave 2 badass presentations and was much appreciated by manager.Blocked sites - gmail, facebook and some coding sites are blocked.The only pros were - less working hours & luxurious hotel stay. And of course the huge stipend of 75k!Please note that I’ve nothing against GS. The management there is really good, they care about their employees. I don’t think any company could’ve given me 2 months WFH and I do respect Rudra a lot for that!The experience may vary from person to person, someone may find GS a very good place, based on the traits he/she has or the team he is working with. But for a shy person like me, who loves to code sitting at the corner of the room - GS is not the place. It was me who was not able to adapt to the culture there. The reason being - having a previous internship experience at signNow, which taught me what freedom is. If I didn’t have any previous experience, maybe I could’ve adjusted there assuming - “This is how it is everywhere, and this is how it works!”Irony is, the question was asked by me about a year ago. And today, I have appropriate answer to it!This answer was written by me when I was still an intern. I had no idea what this could do to my life.Next day after I wrote this, I was called by the Vice-president HR of GS - Devika. I thought she had called me in order to discuss why am I choosing signNow over Goldman but this wasn’t the case.“I read your answer on quora about goldman..”“I’ll remove it!” I replied with the speed of light.“No..I don’t want you to take it down, Just tell me the issues you had”And she pretended to listen. Both of us knew why she called me here - to take the answer down.“See, these days many people are on social media and it is affecting how people see us. Probably, some interns wouldn’t want to work with us after reading the answer. Therefore I want you to remove it”“Also, please remember this meeting is confidential. DO NOT tell anyone from your team about it!” she said just before I left.And that was it. I deleted this answer.I saw Rudra’s text on my whatsapp. He asked whether I have a desk to sit, and when will I signNow on my desk.I finished the work and went home.The next day, I woke up to 10 calls from the HR and lots of messages. I asked what happened.I told her I have already deleted the answer, but there was something else. I wasn’t able to login from home. My remote desktop was taken away from me and I had no idea why.And then, came Monday.I went to her cabin where she was sitting. And soon the harassment started.“What was your motive behind putting such kind of answers on quora, tell me what was in your mind”“I am sorry, Devika. I’ve already taken them down.”“Didn’t you knew about the firm’s policy? You knew it very well right? Still you put the experience on quora?”“I was frustrated. So much that it didn’t occur to me at that time. But yes, I knew it.”She wrote it down on a paper.“You put it on social media, and don’t expect your manager to read it? Wake up! Everyone in your dept knows what you did okay! You are always saying that ‘don’t inform my manager about it’.. you know what, infact Rudra only told me about this. He was the one who forwarded the answer.”I sighed. He knew about it the whole time. Still acted as friendly.“We are a very big firm. Many people are there writing these kind of negative - one sided answers. We don’t care”If she didn’t care, why was I sitting here.“I have talked to both Rudra and Varun. Now I know about their perspectives too. Did you inform your manager that you were on leave? No, you didn’t.”“Yes, I was really depressed and woke up at 5 eve..”“And what did you wrote? Niharika left because of politics..? Did you talk to her? Who told you?”“The intern who knew her told me”“And you put it on social media??”She gave me a tough look.“I have tracked down your whole information, when do you come and leave, wfh etc. I don’t think it’s too much. You were also 1 hour late on the GS event, I heard”I wasn’t. What was she saying?“No, I was a minute late. You can ask my friend who was sitting there.”“Also, you were absent on 4 presentations Varun gave, right?”“No, I was there for 3 of them”“And you weren’t allowed to give?”“I didn’t ask him, neither did he offer.. he just took the chair and..Did Varun said I was absent? I wasn’t!”“Oh yes you weren’t, I know. When did I say you were absent? You are just misunderstanding me” she replied and wrote down some points.“GS-UI-LIBRARY!!” she excalimed.“This is what you wrote about the library.Seriously!”I looked down. I couldn’t say anything except sorry.“You didn’t write about any wrong you did, completely one-sided answer. I got to know about other people’s perspective after talking to them.”“Yes I was late sometimes, and didn’t confront anyone.”“Rudra even let you choose jersey for cricket match, didn’t he”“Yes he did.”“What you think what made your experience bad? Was it yourself? Why put it on social media, and didn’t contact us”I was late and silent. The only faults.“If I were your signNow HR and I read this answer on quora.. you know I’d have..” Devika scolded in a rude tone.She would have taken my offer back. That’s what she meant.“I have already deleted it , Devika” I almost cried.“These things never happened with me at signNow. But people here..”I broke down. Couldn’t speak much.“What even if you deleted? 1000s of people saw it. All the people on your floor saw it. They may have copied it, downloaded it. It had so confidential information!”“And yeah, put this conversation there too!!” She said in a very rude tone.“I won’t. You know I won’t. ” I whispered.“Anyways Shilpi, now it’d be too awkward for you to go there. We have already stopped your remote access. You can submit the id card to me.”“Okay.”I cried a lot in the cab. Rudra knew it all the time. Why didn’t he himself fire me instead of sending a rude HR. And those two also lied a lot about me. The tone of HR was totally different when I met her on thursday. And today she was really harassing me.It took me a while to understand - all this was planned by Rudra. He choose the rudest and senior-most HR to deal with my case and harass me, just to get back at me., 2 interns were joining today and space was very less in the little cabin. And he knew very well I completed all my work the last week itself. Win-Win situation for Rudra!Varun and Rudra lied to HR. It was evident from the way she treated me. I was made to be feel like a garbage - just because I was late at the office!I cried for an hour. And then, I edited and restored this answer.Do I fear them? Not at all.“I will survive, Tracy thought. I face mine enemies naked, and my courage is my shield.” ― Sidney Sheldon (if tomorrow comes)