Lost - or not - in a Jungle of Debit and Credit

It was like reading a novel, finding a fault in it, and wanting to eliminate a misplaced paragraph in order to make the story coherent and clear. At the very most, in order to make the elements of the plot consistent. This was what I felt upon finding myself answering the third part of the applicants' examination in Banco de Oro (BDO).

Last Thursday, I was called for a " job interview" in BDO-Ortigas for a possible job opportunity. "The position that you will be given shall be advised to you tomorrow," said the woman on the other line. With my openness to any probable employment option withstanding my dream job in the media industry, I said yes to the call. I had a thought of Bernadette Sembrano lingering in my mind (working first in the corporate world via an employment in a bank before she got a slot in broadcast journalism). So I said to myself, "Why not? Embrace the now." After hanging up, I texted Papa to tell him about the job interview.

And so, I went. Upon entering Testing Room No. 1 where I was asked to proceed, I knew this would not be a "job interview" rather an "exam". Fellow applicants were donned in business attire, seated on chairs with a college class set-up that made me reminisce (and miss) being a student in the academe. I seated at the front row of the middle aisle and got George Gabriel's Love Life as a good read while waiting for the appointment. Half an hour later, a lady carrying piles of paper entered. She would be the proctor for the applicants' exam.

She gave instructions and set the alarm for 10 minutes for the first part of the exam which was, apparently, an essay. I answered it with ease and finished just in the nick of time for the start of the second, which was an IQ exam (exactly the same that I had in ABS-CBN). The first two parts seemed very common to me that I responded to each question, in each number, with a lack of difficulty. Not until I received the questionnaire for the third part with the heading in all capital, underlined letters: ACCOUNTING EXAM. All I whispered to myself was, "What the hell, what am I gonna do with this?" The first question baffled me most: Define Accounting (according to AICPA).

I wanted to give back the papers, tell the lady that I did not know what to answer, ask her what position am I applying for (which was an irony, by the way, because I was supposed to know what am I getting before I try to have it), and summon her that I did not have an accounting class ever in my entire life. However, it would seem arrogant and absurd for me to do that. So I just answered the exam, trying my best to understand whatever-principle-or-item-each-question-is-asking-for. Fortunately, I survived filling in the blanks of each item. I passed my paper knowing that I would flunk, and returned to the book that I was reading.

For the alloted 30 minutes of answering the ACCOUNTING TEST, I thought, "I was a rabbit lost in a jungle of debit and credit, where the animals that hid in every tree were mostly wild ones. What I must do in order to survive was to choose the tree with a bush of carrot behind it - not by way of intelligible reasoning based on laws and principles (I never had accounting classes, all I knew were basics of Finance and common arithmetic in relation to accounting) but by instinctive guesses."

It was a mismatch that ought to be corrected; a paragraph in a story that needed to be deleted. At the back of my mind, despite the interesting reading that I have in my hand, I thought: I was not supposed to be there.

The Twist

After minutes of waiting, another lady finally peered into the room and called two names; on the second time, mine was included. I went down with fellow applicants (who were also called) discovering that they also did not have any knowledge on accounting because they were from other courses as well (business administration and information technology were some). Together, we waited at the lobby for further instructions, expecting a Thank-you-for-your-time-taken-for-this-but-we-have-chosen-another-candidate note from the company. Nonetheless, what happened was the other way around.

Another lady talked to us and gave each one of us a note bearing the following: person to conduct the interview, time of interview, requirements, and contact details. We have been scheduled for an interview (this time, really an interview)! What I felt was a mixture of amazement, mesmerization and excitement. I asked her how the got my contact number because I did not even apply for any position in BDO (not even in my wildest dreams). She said that probably the persons tasked for this got it from Jobstreet, or from a referral note given to applicants. The thought of the interview schedule overrode her indefinite answer.

The position would be given to us on the interview per se. I would just wait and see whether I was lost - or not - in a jungle of debit and credit. If the department where I would be designated (where the application was headed for) would be public relations, in-house advertising or marketing, I think I would not be lost.

But if it would still be about debits and credits, I would be.