The start that did not start

Featuring no offers and full confusion

Image by Drazen Zigic on Freepik

This is a story from the very beginning — back when my career had not yet begun, and all I had was a thinning resume and a lot of misplaced optimism.

There is a particular kind of pressure that builds when everyone around you seems to be moving on with their lives — crisp shirts, confident strides, and a sudden fondness for polished shoes and hotel-standard smiles — while you are still loitering near the exit, waiting for someone to tell you where the actual door is.

Placement season had come and gone in a flurry of handshakes and hurried goodbyes. My classmates had slotted neatly into their new roles — management trainees, assistant F&B managers, future somebodies. They left with crisp uniforms packed, shoes that had not yet known a kitchen floor, and that unmistakable glow of someone who had just been handed their first appointment letter.

I stayed back. Not because I had a plan, but because no one else had one for me.

I wish I could say I was holding out for the right opportunity. That I turned things down because they did not fit my vision. That would require having a vision. Or options.

What I had instead was a quietly aging resume — photocopied so many times it looked more nostalgic than necessary. A single sheet of paper that had seen more rejection than a college romance proposal. I began to wonder if the recruiters who received it thought they were being handed a historical document, something to be preserved rather than responded to.

I became familiar with a certain kind of silence — the one that follows after handing over your resume, when the person smiles kindly, says, “We’ll get back to you,” and then places it in a stack that may or may not be purely ornamental.

I haunted noticeboards and HR offices like a polite ghost — still present, but slightly translucent. People stopped asking, then started avoiding. Not out of cruelty, but because no one quite knew what to say anymore.

Placement season was like a grand buffet. Early birds piled their plates high; latecomers picked through the leftovers. I was still standing at the entrance, holding an empty plate, pretending to admire the décor.

I became good at lingering near conversations, nodding at good news, laughing a little too loudly at someone else's joke. If optimism was the dress code, I was overdressed. Outwardly, I played the part — easygoing, unbothered, vaguely busy. Inside, I was just trying to look like I belonged at a party where no one had actually handed me a plate.

Slowly, my name stopped coming up in placement conversations. I was no longer “still waiting,” just quietly... still there. People meant well, but you could feel the silence growing around you, like a curtain slowly closing.

I imagined recruiters sipping tea and having a quiet chuckle at my earnestness. I became convinced my applications were being passed around in hushed tones, as an internal case study titled What Not To Do. It was rejection, but with the added bonus of mystery — no reason, no reply, just the dull ache of not being seen.

And then, after what felt like a lifetime of near-misses and kind smiles that led nowhere, it happened. I got a job.

Not in a gleaming skyscraper. Not with a monogrammed blazer and shiny lapel pin. But a job. A real one. In the hills of Ooty and Kodaikanal. It came with an ID badge and a locker with a key on a coiled cord. And for the first few days, I wore both like medals — proof that I had finally entered the world of adults. That I belonged somewhere. That I was no longer waiting to be chosen.

It was not a grand arrival. But it was mine.

Looking back now, years and many zigzags later, I find myself smiling — the real kind, not the tight-lipped version. That boy who waited awkwardly by the sidelines? He had no idea what was coming. He did not know he would switch paths, again and again. That he would stumble into startups, climb, fall, try again. That one day, he would look at rejection and not see failure, just redirection wearing a bad outfit.

And every once in a while, when I meet someone still waiting for their turn, I want to tell them — quietly, without grand advice — that it is okay.
Some of us take the scenic route. Some of us become the story we never saw coming.

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In many ways, this memory — and others like it — became the seeds for Accidentally Wise, a book that is rapidly coming to life. If you would like to peek behind the scenes as it unfolds, I share updates in the Accidentally in Progress section. I would love to see you there.

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PS: Audio version generated by Google NotebookLM