So, What Do You Want To Do?

Yesterday, I had my very first job interview.

A front-man told me to wait for Pak Raman in a room. In that room, there was a big table and 6 office chairs. I sat on a chair the nearest by the door. While waiting, I filled a document gave by a man from front office.

He greeted me before I can realize that he came in to the room. Pak Raman came in with his widest smile. He wore black 'sorban' and a nice batik shirt from Jogja that have Prabu Yudhistira character on it. He is an Indian with his cool english-bahasa indonesia accent. He is absolutely a very nice guy.

We started the conversation. The first question for me is, 'what do you want to do?' Then I told him that I got a recommendation from my brother's friend. He said that digital media industry have a very good future. And it will be great if I can start my first job in that industry.

The conversation went very good, he shared about the digital industry. He totally knew that I still new and know nothing about digital media industry. Pak Raman asked me the same question, 'what do you want to do?' I told him that I can write well, I told him that I got the best paperwork when I study in my university. I can analyze thing, and I love to do research.

Then he told me about his carrier history. He started his first job as a media planner, and now he lead a digital media company. And again, he asked me the same question, 'what do you want to do?' I stopped. I was thinking whether I gave a bad answer to his question. Why he kept ask me the same question, three times!

That man knew that I confused and he started to speak wisely, "for now, forget what you can do well. I ask you what you want to do. What I see from a young talent, like you, is not just a good grade or what he can do well. I look for a potential. Yes you have a potential, but you need to perform your potential in the future. Your GPA, your CV is your past that you have to prove with performance."

"I know that you had good performance from your CV. Your recent performance will 'just' be a potential for the future and your standard, poof! will rise. You have to do better than before, because now everyone knows that you have a good potential. It will be like that over and over again. You need to perform better, 'cause you know that your standard now is even higher."

"How can you improve your standard? He continued. By your attitude to response criticism. When you got critics, all you need is to listen carefully. Then choose which one can build you up, which one that you can just leave it. If you are trapped in the criticism, you will not going anywhere. You will sink."

"Now, again, forget about what you can do well. I don't need to ask you what you can do well, I can read it from your CV. I just wanna know what you want to do. If you can tell me about it and I know what you want to do, I can consider where I will put you in the team. If you feel you are good in A, but you want to do B, it's okay. Because, if you want, you will put your extra effort on it even if you are not good (yet)."

I was amazed by his words. I forgot that this is a job interview. I got a big lesson from my (maybe) future boss. I realize again that life is a dialectics. I will always face thesis and antithesis. Its a circle of life, so I need to always move. I have no limit, except I limited myself. Life have no edge. The edge is when I'm not alive anymore.

Then he asked me once again
"So what do you want to do?"