EuroTrip - Day 30

When It Rains Freebies

There is one thing that is common across all the students around the world. "free pizza ke liye ham kahi bhi jaa sakte hai." The freebies in question this time were not pizzas but small gifts like pens and t-shirts. And the event where it happened was the job fair organized by the placement cell of our college. As part of the process to get its student internship and full time job opportunities, our college organizes job fair where the creme de la creme of the industry come to campus and interact with the students. Today it was the day for IBanks and it really was the chance to meet the big players. BOfA, Citi, Nomura, Barclays - you name the firm and they were there.

And what do these firm do to attract the best of the talents? They offer them a chance to get closer to the firm, discuss their resume and application and exchange visiting cards. And for the others? They offer branded merchandise. Freebies like pens, notepads, sticky notes, Tshirt and what not. Things are in plenty at each and every stall. You just need to go there and grab it. At times you might at least show some interest in having a conversation. That's precisely the point where we started our treasure hunt. With PooCh in our team, we were all equipped to ask some sensible questions and make our presence felt. We did it at a couple of places and realized that in reality the offers on plate did not have a great significance for us as there were language barriers. And once the realization occurred, our attention shifted to find opportunities where there were no such condition. After a couple of attempts and after collecting some pens and writing pads, we proceeded to the class. In a deep corner of our heart we had a little guilt of doing such a cheap thing like grabbing those freebies shamelessly.

However, the class had something else to offer. The discussion there was all around who had the best freebies on offer. Everybody was sharing their catch and was proud about it. Others felt bad if they had missed something. And we were having a cultural shock. The guilt seem to vanish as we realized that whatever we did was apparently an inherent nature of every student. Our nationality or identity had nothing to do with it. As the guilt receded, a feeling of dissatisfaction occurred as we had not collected the best of the things. Others too had similar feeling. Greed has no limit. The next opportune moment and we all were out there in the fair. This time there was no and feeling whatsoever. We happily shared information about our find and filled our bags. It really was a treasure out there.

I really wonder if these freebies indeed serve their purpose. For me, the most important thing is that I could collect some pens and now I won't have to pay a euro (around 75 rs) to buy a pen that I could have bought in 2 rs in India!!

The lesson of the story is that it was a day when we shamelessly grabbed freebies from a campus recruitment fair while there were some people out their toiling with their blood to get that first major break in their career.

On an afterthought I really think we would not have done anything like this if the event had taken place in our alma mater. It was the comfort of being in some 'other' place that let us do this.

PS:
1. To an extent, this blog is a confession letter. I don't take any load anymore for whatever whatever we did.
2. The event continues tomorrow with consulting firms putting up their stalls. And we are looking forward to it.