Submit eSign Presentation Myself

I have had the opportunity of giving 'THE UPSC INTERVIEW' twice, one in 2016 and other in 2017. Both the time I had the same board headed by former Air Marshal Ajit Bhonsale.I was awarded pretty good scores both the times, 184 (in 2016) and 187 (in 2017) :)Before I answer what happens in UPSC interview, let me break some myths.MYTHSInterview questions are not like the whatsapp forwards you recieve. Example : How to throw egg from a building without breaking it?Interview is not a system of rejection or acceptance. It is just a part of whole process , your written marks are added in your interview score to determine your rank. So you may have high written score but low interview marks can mar your chances of rank and vice versa.Interview is not a test of your knowledge. Knowledge has already been tested in written examination. Interview is test of your personality and confidence. Obviously questions are asked to test your confidence but if you don't know the answer you can say “I don't know sir/ma'am” confidently instead of bluffing. You have to be truely honest.Some interview boards are dreaded due to myth that they give low marks but I think every board has its range of marks( Bhonsale Sir board is dreaded but he awarded me good marks both the times). It is just that every board chairman has probably different parameters and ways of testing you. For example : Ajit Bhonsale sir will make you really comfortable but sometimes when you become very comfortable you let yourself loose and commit blunders. On other hand B.S. Bassi sir is very strict ( I have heard) , puts in you in spot for the first few minutes. His strategy is maybe to check you during tough times.UPSC interview is not like a roadies audition. All the members of the board are highly cordial.BEFORE UPSC INTERVIEWNight before the interview is really tough. There are butterflies in your stomach. There is soo much going on in your head that sleeping becomes a task.On the day of interview it becomes quite a task for us girls because we have to tie a saree. My mom was with me so she helped me with that but handling the saree gracefully is your task. I want to tell you that I wore the same green colour saree for both my interviews because after my first interview I thought it was lucky for me :)2016 interview2017 interview ( 5 kg lighter!!)Once you signNow UPSC office on Shahjahan road , you are made to stand in a line outside the gate for verification by showing summon letters. For me this moment for the first time was in 2016 and it was really mesmerizing. I was like Aamir Khan ’s character in “3idiots” movie where he couldnt stop smiling because it felt like a dream.After all verification candidates are made to sit in a room for document verification. There are 6 tables with 6 candidates each. All the 6 candidates on one table go to same interview board. After document checking candidates are moved to a central hall. Here we are finally told which board we are assigned.Candidates are called one by one for the interview and headed towards respective members 's rooms. A candidate is called 5 minutes before the previous candidates 's interview is over. So you are made to sit outside the interview room. This is the most unnerving moment. My strategy used to be: to sit and gaze around so that I don't think about the impending interview and calming myself in the process. And finally after few minutes the peon asks you to GO INSIDE!!DURING THE INTERVIEWHere I will narrate my 2017 CSE interview held on 24 th April 2018:I entered the room I wished everyone good afternoon ( it was around 1:30 pm ). I was asked to take seat. The interview board had chairman (Air Marshal Ajit Bhonsale Sir in my case) and 4 other members seated around a table. There was a member seating very close to me and watching my every action, most probably he was psychoanalysist or something like that.So finally the interview started :CHAIRMANChairman : Shilpa sit down. Feel comfortable. Take a deep breath. I see a young and smart lady in front of me who has a very good academic background. Are you nervous?Me: No sir ( I smiled)CHAIRMAN : Ok then we will start with the interview.Which areas you are expecting that we would ask from DAF ( detailed application form , it is like a CV which contains information about you, your qualification, your hobbies etc).Me: Sir about my graduation i.e. BDS , my birthplace Chandigarh and hobbiesChairman : What do you derive from making greeting cards? ( Apart from reading , teaching/ mentoring , I mentioned “making handmade greeting cards” as my hobby in DAF)Me: Sir, it is a form of creative expression for me which gives me immense pleasure.Chairman : Ok shilpa.MEMBER 1M1 : What are your views on death sentence for rape accused in case victim is below 12 years? Accused are generally known to victim in cases of child abuse cases.Me : Sir ,you are right. NCRB records state that in child sexual abuse cases 94% of accused are known to victim. This may lead to non reporting or victim turning hostile due to pressure from family.Secondly, death penalty is not a deterrent. It has been proven from many reports.Thirdly , now rape and murder have same punishment so now the rapist will not leave his victim alive .(M1 : good point Dr. Shilpa)M1 : Have you heard about euthanasia? What is the recent SC judgement.Me: Euthanasia in common terms means mercy killing. It is of two types : active and passive euthanasia. Recently SC has allowed passive euthanasia in case patient is in permanent vegetative state.M1: Who decides it is time for euthanasia?Me: Sir , It consists of three layered mechanism . A mechanism for living will has been given which is accessed by the doctor. If he feels that there is need for go ahead the permission is send to a special medical board which consists of four specialists. After approval it is forwarded to district collector.M1: What is living will?Me: It is a directive by a patient that in due course of his treatment if stops responding to treatment or is in permanent vegetative state he be considered for passive euthanasia.MEMBER 2M2 : Comment on our relations with our neighbours with respect to Bangladesh , Nepal.Me: Sir , Neighbourhood first policy has been major component of our foreign policy.Good relations with Bangladesh for example recently land boundary agreement was signed very amicably. There is just one irritant in form of teesta water treaty.Nepal we have historical and cultural ties. 'BETI AND ROTI' ka rishta. A buffer state. But due to unprecedented foray of China into south asia and Nepal playing China card due to its domestic compulsions , relations have taken toll right now.( I wanted to summarize but M2 said ok shilpa fine)M2 : Chinese president XI Xingping and PM modi will be meeting recently. Where?ME: Sir there will be an informal meeting in City of Wuhan , China. Here wide array of issues will be discussed.M2 : China is saying it will be sharing data on satluj river. What is that?ME: Sir basically hydrological data. Water levels and dams to be constructed.M2: Sociolgists are better administrators. Why? (Sociology is my optional subject)ME: Sir, it is basically study of social groups , social institutions and their dynamics. And as civil servant you are basically dealing with these institutions and groups. For eg : as a sociologist one knows laws decide where society SHOULD GO but Societal norms decide where society actually GOES. It serves a great value as a civil servant.MEMBER 3M3 : Dr. Bhatti you were talking about China right now. How are we same ?How does it poses a danger how India is responding? Can we learn something from China?( it was a long question so I broke it into parts)Me: China and India are same with respect to thriving economies. China is second largest economy in terms of nominal GDP and India is 7th.Both are populous nations with huge human capital potential.Dangers : China 's unprecedented foray into South Asia. Increasing footprint in Indian ocean.Learn from China: China has emerged as workshop of world. Its manufacturing sectors contributes around 34% to its GDP where India its just 17% ( Member said good Dr.Bhatti)MEMBER 4M4 : Social media is turning a place for spreading wrong news and all ( long lecture) . How to address this?Me: Sir in the post truth era social media is turning into menance where fake news are being spread. (M4 interuppts)M4 : You used word post truth. Very interesting word. What is that?Me: Sir it is an era where facts are considered less and beliefs and emotions shape the public opinion.M4 : Very good Shilpa. Continue with your answer. How to address?Me: Sir we can address first at legal level. For eg : EU has .......( M4 interuppts.)M4: Shilpa talk at a more local level. Like you are Chandigarh DC.Me: Sir first we can use social media itself. These days every administration has official twitter , FB accounts. From this we can give correct info n allay fears.Secondly in Chandigarh during Ram Rahim case SMS were sent as precaution. We can use this platformThirdly , involving civil society to create awareness to not accept any news at face value before confirming it from standard source.M4 : Did you choose Medical field by choice ? You are no longer pursuing it?Me: Sir , Civil services was always on my mind but idea wasn't very concrete at that time. I choose medical field because of my love for science and I have always performed good in academics.Also while working as a dentist I realized that civil services gives much larger platform to bring a change plus job diversity it offers is unparallelled.CHAIRMANCHAIRMAN : Tell me where woman bureaucrats or officers in general can be of great help?Me : Sir , in police administration for example if the cutting edge officers or bureaucrats in general are woman we can make our police services more gender sensitive.Chairman : yes ok. Continue.Me: Sir I cant think of other areas right now.(Chairman smiled and said ok)CHAIRMAN : Ok Shilpa tell me one last question before we go for lunch. You have heard about tussle between delhi chief secretary and chief minister?Me: yes sir.CHAIRMAN : So now bureaucrats blame its ministers who hamper work and politician blame bureaucrats. What to do?Me: Sir the permanent executive and the elected executive has work in tandem.CHAIRMAN : Yes tell me solution?Me: Following SOP and due process of law.Secondly, Sir transperant administration. Egovernance to cut down bureaucratic red tapism and also ensuring the executive is pro active in various people centric schemes or policies.Thirdly , we can have informal meetings in form of ‘chintin shivirs' or organising sports events for breaking the ice and acting as confidence building measures.CHAIRMAN : Ok Shilpa your interview is over. So now you will go back to Chandigarh or stay back.Me: Sir I will stay back for medical and leave on 26th.Chairman : Ok. Thank you Shilpa.Me: Thank you Sir. ( I thanked other member too)Interview lasted around 25 minutes. Members were extremely cordial and I had a feeling that it went well.And I got a good score of 187 :) I was able to secure 712 rank UPSC CSE 2017 and currently Iam preparing for rank improvement :)I hope this answer conveyed what happens in UPSC interview :)

23andMe screens for the purposes of health, traits, and ancestry.From a health perspective, most of the data that you'll get isn't going to be useful. DNA isn't designed to be read like a book, and no company or research group is going to be able interpret the information for you because there's just not enough research yet to make definitive connections to many of the big diseases people are worried about (i.e., diabetes, heart disease, and depression). At the end of the day, just having the information isn't going to make it useful to you. Let's say, though, for argument's sake, that you do find that you have some well-researched predisposition to a disease like diabetes (the few studies are years away from being validated medically). Having a predisposition doesn't necessarily mean you'll get the disease. There's a lot of nurture that goes along with the genetics to an illness. In other words, if you eat an irresponsible diet high in processed sugars and fat and never exercise, chances are you're going to get diabetes even if you aren't genetically predisposed to it.It's true, though, that there are some diseases that have a clear genetic linkage. First of all, your doctor is going notice in your family history if said disease is wreaking havoc on your family tree. Secondly, many diseases with a clear genetic linkage present themselves early in life, often when patients are still quite young. You're probably not going to find a big nasty surprise buried in your genes. And even if you do find said nasty surprise, most doctors are not going to start treating you until your body actually starts showing symptoms. Most genetic diseases do not have a prophylactic treatment. And unfortunately there is also no special DNA laser that can zap your genetic code back to compliance.Health aside, there is the pressing question of the medical ethics of this sort of screening, especially when you start screening for traits. It has been standard practice for physicians to screen for genetic diseases in fetuses. Many ethical debates have used this guideline as the springboard for discussing designer babies and the genetics of traits. The types of screenings that 23andMe propose provide another step down the slippery slope to designer babies. Regardless of what an individual's final opinion on the subject is, it's important to understand that there is an ethical component to a general DNA screen.

I feel like I am pretty much eligible to answer this question as I have used FreeCodeCamp for over 2 months and a friend of mine, took couple of nano-degrees courses in Udacity. We both started at the same time.You’re comparing FreeCodeCamp(Which is Web-Development Based) and Udacity (Which has lots of other courses other than Web Development). So let me talk about the Web-Development part only, i.e Full Stack NanoDegree on Udacity vs Free Code Camp.Udacity focuses on Python as their programming language and all the stuff you do, will be in python. They teach basic Object Oriented Programming’s introduction and then teach some of the basics of Databases(SQL). If you’re new to databases, you surely will miss a lot of stuff. They want you to have a bit of previous programming knowledge in python as well. Their main resource is “videos”, but you don’t really learn enough by watching stuff, unless you try it yourself. He has a lot of troubles finding help for some of his problems, and usually get demotivated. Their curriculum is 9 month long, and almost about 6 hours a week, even if I calculate, it’s about 220+ hours, that’s around 10 times less than FCC. They ask you to pay 200$ per month for straight 9 months, but well, no one can guarantee you for your job unless you really work hard.FreeCodeCamp on the other hand teaches everything you need to know, and it has a nice and well-structured curriculum. It covers everything you need to know in HTML, CSS, Bootstrap and jQuery, and moves forward with a nice pace. It has an interactive platform where you write the code in each challenge, and test it. They have some cool projects for us that take a lot of time, and if you complete all of those projects, you will already have a nice portfolio. FCC has many beginner/intermediate/advanced algorithm challenges that help us to improve our approach to a problem. They keep the things interesting. FCC’s community is really very very active. You would get a reply within seconds, if not, in couple of minutes. FreeCodeCamp has been around for 620 days, and still, like Quincy Larson said, no one has yet received the Full-Stack certificate. FCC’s whole curriculum takes about 2080 hours to complete, compared to 200+ hours of Udacity, is a lot. And that too for Free!No one really promises to find you a job. It’s all up to you, if you’re willing to do everything that takes to be a web developer?Both are good, but if you need a more active community, if you want to work on more projects, if you want to help non-profits, if you want to enjoy coding and if you want to help others and that too for free, choose FreeCodeCamp(Learn to code and help nonprofits) else you are free to go for Udacity’s Nanodegree.

Smart people are broken sad people who go through life in hard mode.Have you ever heard the term "Ignorance is a bliss?" Too much intelligence can also be your biggest curse.The smartest people in history suffered from depression and various kinds of mental illnesses due to the impact their thinking habits left on their social life. The smartest people are the saddest people, and that's evident if you survey the best and most creative people in history, regardless of their domain, whether it's science or art or entertainment, all of those individuals who sparked additional intelligence and creativity rather than the rest of the crowd had to pay for it big time in social isolation, social bullying and social rejection, as children or grown-ups.A smart person is a relatively depressed person and you'd think if they are so smart why they can't control their depression? But that's the sad truth about depression, it's superior even to intelligence and doesn't care if you're smart or not so smart if you're young or an adult, depression couldn't care less if you are prepared or not to handle it. If anything being smart can maximize your depression episode to new highs because intelligence is linked to attention to details and every confusion lies in details, not the big picture normal people see, so intelligence becomes your curse and worst enemy than a gift you can run with and see life from a special view.The mind of a smart person is doing non-stop work and running endless cycles working out solutions to problems that don't even exist! Even when they're resting their mind works, in-fact that's when their brain works the most, their sleep pattern is a mess, their social performance declines to very low alarming levels, and this ongoing cycle can be so brutal that it kills their will to live and eventually suicide in some sadly not so rare cases because in their mind every problem has a logical solution then they look at all the injustice and destruction around them without one working solution no matter how big or small the problem at hand is their desire to be part of society shatters then they seek even more social isolation.They are not very argumentative people, they have more debates and discussions inside their heads than they do with other people. So, if you ever get nothing but silence out of them know that they don’t see you a match to get them to react. If you don’t grasp the fundamentals of the topic you are discussing or debating them with they won’t give you the time of the day and may just respond with a cold mini smile or a sarcastic but not offensive comment. Smart people are twice as defensive of other people than they are of themselves. They are more than willing to sacrifice their time and sanity helping someone out than helping themselves out of the same particular situation and it goes back to a perfect psychological barrier system they created themselves which means you can only offend them if they let you to, otherwise all you can do is try. So what this means is that they don’t get offended by the same things that offend other people, for example calling them “weird” is like giving them a compliment, they do like and enjoy being weird, they naturally strive to be different than everyone elseIf you get loud while discussing something with them they will write you off entirely. To them, getting loud is the equivalent to losing the argument so if you want to get them to be responsive make sure you stay calm and refrain from using complex big words because that also means you are not well informed on the topic you are discussing, you can fool many people and they may admire you for it but you’ll never be able to fool them. Smart people won’t be standing in line waiting to get a best seller book or attending a global phenomenal movie. While they may respect the intellectual effort of the writer or the movie staff, in their mind, only generic concepts can touch a vast amount of people so they seek unheard of books, rare unheard of movies or watch an old movie that has sentimental value or reminds them of their childhood.This society labels smart individuals as “Nerds” and paints them with the most outrageous adjectives there is. A nerd according to our society is someone who is socially awkward, unpleasant looking, needs thick glasses to see, fails to function among a large crowd, is easily embarrassed and bullied, can’t get a date, can’t get it together. Instead of crediting smart people by referring to them as smart they're called nerds and this is exactly how a troubled society operates by isolating the positively different and embracing the negatively influential individual simply because positivity needs effort, while negative is the default and needs no effort to be achieved.The saddest truth about smart people is that the world around them speaks on their behalf, it speaks so loud and harasses them for being different and daring to be defined by their intelligence by sporting it in their social interactions and refusing to blend in if it meant acting as stupid as everyone else. You'll often find them hanging alone with no friends either by choice or because others see their social behavior abnormal, they may wear a sweatshirt to a formal gathering and pay no attention to social etiquette. In their mind, these are all fake things people do to seem what they are not. They are observant especially of their own behavior and have a self-corrective system which always keeps track of any personality changes made just for the sake of blending in. They beat themselves up at night if during the day they said something against their character just to get public approval and can dwell on it for days. Smart people are very moment-aware even if it may look like they aren't paying attention to you they have already studied the room and everyone in it and decided that no one there is worth their direct interaction, so they switch to hibernation until the function or gathering is over. When I think intelligence I instantly think of Einstein, he spent years unsuccessfully trying to snag a faculty position at a university. Even after he came up with E=mc2, Imagine you're reviewing a resume and rejecting someone like Albert Einstein. Every time an innovator showed moments of brilliance society rejected them, if you go as far as 100s years back when Giordano Bruno dared to think against the church teachings he was given the chance before he was set on fire at the stake by being told: take back your claims that the universe has no center, and stars are suns, surrounded by planets and moons and you'll be allowed to live, and he said NO, I won't, Bruno decided to die and let his idea live (and it did) than live and let his idea die before him. Throughout history, smart people have been tortured, abused not by society but by a whole complete systemic abuse that doesn't approve different individuals and sees them as inferior and a threat needs to be eliminated.The saddest truth about smart people is that they are smart people in a world that values and respects the stupid, a world that glorifies and fears dumb individuals and puts them in high ranks, as high as ruling a nation. Human psychology is so complex and impossible to understand we only just began decoding ourselves and there are things yet to be unraveled that as of now we are not prepared to understand, but decades later it will make so much sense and that's what it's like to live in the mind of a smart person. They are here, but their minds are well ahead of their time, they have to be present, but their thinking is in the future, and while they do all that they have to deal with psychological discomforts and various painful episodes they collected as young kids from all the bullying they endured for just being special and different.Overthinking is a minor, barely reliable sign of intelligence, persistent thinking is a more obvious, reliable sign. When you overthink you are practically stuck inside a loop and that's not a smart thing to do, however persistent thinking until you work out a solution is a smart person trait. Being an overthinker can happen at any stage of your life especially if you are an average person. Overthinking to obsessive levels is mentally draining and can kill your potential and creativity, and that's why it's hard to say smart people are overthinkers because many have created and achieved life-changing achievements.Not every smart person is depressed and not every depressed person is smart, however, the life routine of the smart can potentially lead to depression due to social disadvantages and also thinking habits and problems sorting. One of the most false stereotypes is linking intelligence to doing mathematical calculations on the fly or solving complex Math problems faster than average people but you can be smart and not know how to do that and you can be average and know a couple of calculus tricks it doesn't mean you are intelligent, we often set Math as the most reliable scale to determine if someone is Intelligent/Smart/Genius because of its complexity and randomness to achieve problems solving, but that's one small factor of many. It's often said that: if you hire a lazy worker he'd find the fastest route to finish a given task at the least amount of required effort, and while math is far from static you can learn to hack it and master it and still not be one of the intelligent people.One of my favorite examples of natural intelligence and gained intelligence is the difference between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Cristiano is a hard worker he trains non-stop, always working on learning and shaping his skills, but only one thing separates him from Messi, it’s called natural intelligence. Lionel Messi just goes out there and performs like he created the sport, he only needs to train to stay fit and still be the best player in the world without having to try as hard as Cristiano does, however mastering one domain in life makes you an expert or smart in that particular domain, the kind of smart we are discussing here is the universal kind smart which is so rare but it wouldn’t be if teachers at schools paid more attention to their students than messing on their phones. Our education system values grades more than it values education and that’s one of the main reasons we rarely hear of gifted smart people anymore.This world is still not ready to respect and value the smart, as long as you see Kim Kardashian making millions of dollars know that we are not heading in the right direction, and we still have a long time to go as a species to develop and learn. As long as you see a scientific discovery documentary gather a thousand views and a famous model in bikini video gets millions of views know that we are a generation to feel sorry for. People get worked up debating hip-hop artists feuds all over social media and burn hours of their lives defending famous people who could care less about their existence. Luckily life is the gift that keeps on giving and there are more smart people yet to be born and bring outstanding innovations into the world, and hopefully, by then this world can learn to appreciate and embrace them, instead of making them feel like inferiors and harass them every step of the way.The “in their own mind genius” people are very common these days and they don’t have much that separates them from failures with that mindset, with all due respect to people who fail to achieve in life, no one enjoys or seeks to become a failure, sometimes life circumstances are stronger than our wishes and desires.I can imagine myself building a spaceship that can take us to Mars in 5 Months but if I don’t start creating, submitting drafts, e-mailing and pitching ideas to involved people that means I accomplished nothing but being “Genius inside my own head” which amounts to absolutely nothing if it doesn’t end up with an outcome people can touch and see. If you feel like you have a revolutionary idea no matter how crazy it may sound, get off your seat and promote it to people in your region, on the internet, anyone involved in the particular domain you feel inspired enough to revolutionize or improve. Never settle for “in-head drafts” and keep projects locked in there, they die with you and that’s a sad way to go. Most innovators in history were considered crazy the moment they started thinking out-loud and people ended up respecting them after seeing their achievements, the best ideas sometimes sound the craziest, especially to those who don’t want to see you achieve.Thank you, everyone, for the overwhelming response and beautiful comments.

WARNING: This is a really long piece and I don’t blame you if you don’t want to read all of this. However, I would urge you to do so - I might tell you something you don’t know. However, for those who are in a rush, a tl;dr is upcoming. Also, some of the following may be considered insulting to Americans - to which I say, grow a pair and move on, but, for those who are incredibly sensitive, realise that this text is meant to inform, and not to offend.TL;DR: So, compared to other histories American history is goddamn boring, but mainly because the USA is quite a young country, only having been around for a couple of hundred years, whereas countries like Greece, Italy, Egypt, etc… have been around for thousands of years, and have a much richer history.Ordinarily, I would say that history is not a boring subject. It’s an exciting one, a thrilling tale of the paths our ancestors have taken, to get us to where we are now.However, in this case, I’m going to say yes, American history - by which I assume you mean the history of the United States - is incredibly boring.Let’s take a look at some facts, and compare it to several other histories.I’m gonna’ pick three unique histories and judge them against American history. My judged categories will be genesis - the beginning of - an outstanding event - a really cool event that took place during history - and a leader of each history. The leaders will be analysed and judged against the American leader as well.Let’s get to it.So, I’m gonna’ go with Roman history, Greek history, and - even though this’ll piss off pretty much every American reading this - British history. The reason I pick these is that they are quite well known as a general subject, but they are easy to compare to one another.The United States of America came around as a result of the American Revolution of 1783, although I do believe it started sometime in 1765. However, the only reason that the British lost - and I’ll even get pedantic about that - was because the Americans happened to have the French, the Spanish and the Dutch on their side. And, as it happens, these three were global powerhouses at the time. It seems so useful that the Americans seem to have amnesia whenever these three show up.Not to mention that the Americans didn’t even win, because America didn’t exist until after the Revolution. So the British beat the British. Well done, we beat ourselves - now, disloyal colonialists, please proceed to continue being the British rejects that you always will be.Now, I’m gonna’ state now that this birth in itself isn’t boring - a force of rebels assisted by three of the most powerful countries in the world, defeating another one of the most powerful countries in the world? Sounds like the plot for a movie - and like I said, on it’s own, it isn’t boring.But, compared to other histories, it is rather boring.Take Rome for example. I’m not even gonna’ cover the ‘first’ birth of Rome, since it is kinda shrouded in myths and legends. Instead, I’ll cover the birth of the Roman Empire, since this is also what I know the most about when it comes to Rome.For those who don’t know, this is a bust of Augustus Caesar - some of you may know him as Octavian. Regardless, he is responsible for the rise of the Roman Empire, out of the ashes of his father’s republic.There was a huge civil war that spanned across Southern Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia, between Marc Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian. Eventually, Lepidus was exiled, and Marc Antony poisoned himself alongside Cleopatra VII, leaving Octavian as the sole ruler of all of Rome’s territories.He restyled himself Augustus Caesar.If that isn’t cool, than I don’t know what is.What about Greece? They came out of the ashes of the Mycenaean civilisation, after losing their language. Instead of giving up, they stole the Phoenician language, and modified it to create their own language, becoming the seminal civilisation.Much, much more interesting than American history. Britain was occupied by the Romans, so I’m not gonna’ go into that one here.Now for the interesting event.My events to analyse are: the assassination of JFK; the Battle of Thermopylae, the Second Punic War, and the Battle of Britain.First of all, the assassination of JFK is not boring. It’s a brilliant mystery. I’ll give you that. But come on, it’s not very original - leaders have been assassinated throughout history, and certainly in more interesting ways.Now for the Battle of Thermopylae - this was an interesting event because it was a land stand against a powerful enemy. Even though the Greeks didn’t win, they managed to bring all of the warring city-states together and defend against a huge Persian army, led by none other than Leonidas.For the Romans, I chose the Second Punic War, because of the characters present during said war - for one, Scipio Africanus, who had several legendary exchanges with the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca, who led his elephants over the Alps and into Italy.And for the British - the Battle of Britain, a pivotal moment during the Second World War, and perhaps the reason why Hitler lost the war on the Western Front. If it wasn’t for the Battle of Britain, I wouldn’t be sat here writing this very post in English.Now for the finale - historical figures. Up for analysis are:Theodore RooseveltJulius CaesarAlexander the GreatSir Winston ChurchillFirst of all, let’s start with Roosevelt. He was awesome - he took a goddamn bullet to the chest and then continued by making an hour long speech whilst the bullet sat mere inches away from his heart.Julius Caesar rebuilt Rome and was stabbed to death by his allies. Alexander the Great built an empire without losing a war, but the empire collapsed after his death, being shared between the Diadochi.Winston Churchill led the UK during the darkest days - WWII. For all his flaws, he was one hell of a man.So, after all that, I’m still gonna’ say that American history is boring, because everything’s been done before. It just isn’t original. xD

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.

Yes. First, I’m going to bullshit around for a few paragraphs (please skip if you don’t care at all about me) and then in final paragraph or so I will tell you what to do.When I was 22 there was nothing I wanted more than A LOT of money and a serious relationship.I thought a lot of money was $600,000. I assumed I’d just make $60,000 a year off that on interest and then I could retire.By “retire” I meant: I can sit around and watch TV and have sex all day. I’m not sure which came first. Like, was the TV what I would do while waiting for sex. Or would sex be what I do while waiting for my favorite TV shows to come on.There was no “on demand” TV. I couldn’t DEMAND my favorite shows then. I had to wait. So it’s a reasonable question to ask.I had one idea: I went to real estate offices and asked if I could videotape all of the houses they had for sale. Then real estate agents can more quickly show people homes while sitting in their offices. Nobody said “yes”.I had another idea. I helped create the Internet Chess Club, which still exists at chessclub.com. And then I had another idea, write a lot of novels until I became a massive bestseller and made a ton of money.I would stand in the shower and think about all the money I was going to make. I still do that. Picture it.None of my ideas worked. Not even the idea of getting into a serious relationship worked. I’m 48 and I’ve maybe been in a few (enough to produce two daughters about to bloom into adulthood) but, in any case, I woke up alone.Then I got into a serious relationship AND I made a lot of money. Almost at the same time. I think they are linked.But because I was unhappy in my relationship, I ended up losing all of the money.Let me tell you how.Every day I gambled. I played poker every single day. And I would put millions into bad tech companies. Like a wireless software company that made text devices for deaf people. Or a company that sold magazine subscriptions online. Or a house where I put nothing down so my expenses per month skyrocketed so much that the idea I could live on $60,000 a year was like a cruel joke.Every day feels like a sprint. Even now. It feels like I have to make changes TODAY, so that by tomorrow (or even tonight) my life would change and be better.It’s so hard to realize the basic cliche “life is a marathon and not a sprint” is true.Because everyone opens their mouth and shits out the word “NOW” or “mindfulness”.NOW sort of implies it’s a sprint.Ok, enough of this garbage. I have another paragraph or two you can ignore and then I’ll tell you what to do specifically.FIRST: you have to build the foundation of well-being in your life. Without well-being you can’t succeed. It’s true.Do this: sleep 8 hours a day, eat well, move a lot. Be around good people and ONLY good people. Eliminate all toxic people. Be creative at least once a day. Remember every moment to say “thank you” to the good things in your life.Ok, that’s the foundation. You have to do it to succeed. For “creative”, at the very least write down 10 ideas a day to build your idea muscle. Else you will be one of the 99% dumb people. Be in the 1% and don’t be ashamed of it.Now I will tell you what to do to make money.Research something enough that you can become an expert. Do something in one of these categories: “Get paid, get laid, lose weight”. Write a 30 page special report that is unique. Or at least a summary of 100 other reports you’ve read.We need more concise information in this world (and yes, that includes this long answer - I know you had that joke ready).Make a Facebook ad for $10. Give away your special report for free but only if they sign up for your email list.Now come up with a product to sell. Even if you did not make the product you can get a nice affiliate fee (at least 50% and up to 100% of the revenues).Sell it to your new email list.By the way, I would not recommend something I did not do myself.All of the above works.But I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if I didn’t wake up myself, alone.