Effortless victory

Certifications are nightmares. The obvious reason is that there are no short cuts. Work your ass out, sit back after office hours, put an extra effort of 2 hrs everyday for 1 to 2 weeks, mug up the entire trash; then, there is a remote chance that you might pass. Iam missing something these days, may be the interest in studies or may be an unflinching heart to work hard.

Certifications are mandatory in Infosys. Every year we are expected to complete 2 or 3 certifications. Most of these certifications require 100% dedication, which is not quite possible. I have completed 3 certifications last year. I still wonder how I did it last time when iam not able to pass even a simple one this time. Infosys Quality Standards, .Net 2.0 and Performance Engineering were among the certifications I successfully cracked last time. Out of these .Net and PE exams were really tough ordeals. Hardly few ever passed in the first attempt; most of them did in the third and the last attempt.

It was domain certification this time. My domain was Human Capital management (HCM). This is one of the least demanding and fairly simple domain in Infosys. The study material was over 1500 pages and it is impossible to go through all of it. The only hope was brain dumps; these would be out after the first few days, when the ones who have taken the certification come out with questions they had for the exam. So the smarter ones attempt last, putting least effort; Infact they don’t have to study but simply go through the question papers.

My first domain attempt was on 8th Nov. Had enough question papers to study from. I was more than confident that I would pass. Out of 50 questions 25 will be from the respective domain – HCM in my case, which I was confident of cracking. The remaining questions are compiled from other domains, and I believed the question papers would help me crack them too. I was wrong. That was a big mistake. I flunked. I was not sad that I flunked but that I failed for 1 mark made me desperate. The cut off mark was 30 and I got 29. Instinctively I banged on my head, diverting the attention of everybody around, a clear indication that I didn’t make it. I left the exam hall wretched.

The first thing I did back at my desk was to register for the next attempt which was 15 days later. The minimum gap between two attempts is 15 days! I waited for the 15 long days. I have not made any serious attempt to study. I was lazy and still am. On November 24th I attempted again for the same certification. The questions were tougher than the first time. I didn't have the courage to submit the form. I was sure of losing and the result was no different. I failed again. This time losing by 2 marks. My performance was slowly degrading. I felt dejected.

By now I was totally hopeless. We have some bizarre rules here. The rule is that you can have a maximum of 3 attempts. But for the same certification if you change the domain you can have 3 * N attempts, N being the total number of domains. I decided to drop the HCM certification. I switched to a different domain - Facilities, Finance, Infrastructure, Purchase and Legal (FFIPL). This was of course tougher than HCM, but the number of slides were lesser compared to the HCM study materials. I wanted to study this time but unfortunately was caught in some critical work and didn’t have enough time to study. I got hall ticket for the exam on 5th November. The exam was scheduled at 2:00 pm. I was not prepared and decided not to appear for the exam. Third failure in a row would depress me totally. So the best choice was to give up the exam.

On 5th November after lunch, we left to our favorite destress area - Loyal world, a small shopping mall inside the campus. I sat there along with Antony, making eyes at girls who pass by. This is also the best spot to flirt around. Iam sure no guy would ever disagree with me on this. I had to go to Airtel counter to activate my SIM. I had a sudden change of mind and decided to take the test. By then the time was 1:55 pm and it would take me 10 minutes to walk all the way to GEC – the exam centre. I took the shortcut, but half the way in and the route was blocked. They have closed the road for maintenance activities. The only road open is the main road and this would take me another 15 minutes to reach GEC, since I have already covered more than half the distance along the closed route. I ran and ran and managed to reach GEC by 2:10 pm and oops!...I didn’t know the exam hall!!..My only confidence was that usually the certifications are conducted in Devang Mehta hall or FL2 room. I rushed to Devang Mehta, only to find that the room was closed. I ran to FL2 hoping that would be the exam centre this time. The room was not closed but it was occupied by trainees. They have changed the exam centre for the first time. These were clear indications of the bad day ahead. “There is nothing more to lose, so why back off now?” I thought to myself. I dashed to the GEC security room in haste, asked them to connect me to the Education and Research – E&R admin. They pointed towards the nearby room, the E&R Admin room. Never had I noticed this room before, I was wondering how I could miss such a noteworthy room. I entered the room and asked the lady sitting in an extreme corner,”Where is the certification room?”. “It’s FL5”, came the reply from someone else. I turned back to face him, and he had a smile on his face, clearly showing his tacit disapproval of being late for the test.

I reached FL5 at 2:25 pm, late by 25 minutes. Having unfound irrational beliefs I decided not to sit on the right side of the class, this is on the lights that I failed twice sitting on the right side. The questions were tough indeed, I was completely clueless, but this time I had the advantage of being tranquil. I had no confusions, since I didn’t know anything. No knowledge, no confusion. I submitted the answers without a second thought, unlike previous times I didn’t bother to go through the answers again. I submitted the answers and looked down at the bottom area of the result sheet and saw that it was “25”, I was impassive. I didn’t even expect to get 20! But slowly scrolled up to see the session wise total and there it is, my actual score, I got 32!!. Unbelievable! I was flabbergasted. I almost passed out seeing the result. My happiness bore no bounds. Miracles happen every now and then in life, and it becomes one when you least expect it, and so it is in my case.

The next is MCTS. There are enough brain dumps to realize the next big dream, being a Microsoft certified professional. It is either Do or Die. There is no second chance. It’s a bad idea to waste free MS vouchers, and iam not an imbecile to waste one.