I sigh in relief as soon as I leave the interview room. This exhausting torture is finally over.

With no idea whether I fared good or bad, all I can do is head home and wait for the company to call.

I take out my phone as I walk through the corridor.

The interview took more than an hour, no wonder I’m worn out; these old men asked me about virtually everything they possibly could.

Within that one hour, my mother sent me three messages:

“Good luck! :)”

“Is it over? How did it go?”

“Well? :|”

As always, she spammed me with whatever she felt like.

When she spams with text messages and I don’t reply fast enough, she usually ends up calling me; such a nosy and worrywart woman.

Since I don’t like talking over the phone, I send her a quick reply:

“Done now. I hope it will fine.”

She is probably going to spam me some more anyway, but there’s little I can do about it.

I soon approach the waiting room.

The only one occupying the place is a young woman wearing glasses. There is a white coat on top of her casual clothes, which reminds me a lab coat.

“Build... Release...”

The woman mumbles to herself, with eyes nervously glued to her phone. Her face is pale and her body trembles a little.

I’m the type to get nervous before interviews, but this woman is in a whole different league. With anxiety of this level she is bound to fail by default, regardless of her knowledge or experience.

“Sanity check... Smoke check...”

As I head toward the exit, I end up walking right beside the fidgeting woman. I can hear her mumbles a little clearer now.

There are only fragments of sentences thrown around, but I can tell they are all related to QA testing. She must be trying to memorize common questions and answers for QA job interviews; I have been doing the same before every interview.

Using the internet to dig up common interview questions is undoubtedly a good practice, especially for the first few interviews. However, focusing on it too much can also be toxic.

“Retesting is testing fixed bugs, while Regression is...”

There are many articles, many terms and many tips. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all this information and to fall prey to panic. I walked into this trap in the past; this woman greatly reminds me of that time.

“Rika Wood. Please head to room 104.”

A loud voice resounds across the hallway.

“Y-yes.”

The woman jumps from her seat and turns toward the corridor.

She strongly clenches a phone in her right hand, so much that I fear it’d break. Her whole body trembles, as if she’s going to fall apart any moment now.

She is so stressed out that even a complete stranger like me gets nervous for some reason.

The woman walks forward with stiff, robotic motions. I think I can even hear some mechanical noises as her limbs move.

Just how nervous can one person be? Even the air around her trembles.

As I turn away from the unpleasant scene, an important detail catches my attention: her bag; she forgot it on the chair.

“Hey, your bag...”

She is too far away and I’ll have to raise my volume to reach her.

“Hey! Your bag...”

Even though there’s nobody around, I don’t feel comfortable shouting in the middle of a corridor.

I’ll just quickly deliver the bag and get this over with. I carefully pick it up and rush after her with wide strides.

Judging from the weight, there’s probably a laptop inside the bag and perhaps a few notebooks. It’s a little heavier than I expected, but no sweat.

“Hey! Your bag.”

She still doesn’t turn around. Her consciousness was probably killed by stress, she is now just a roaming nervous zombie.

“Hey.”

I tap on her shoulder.

“Ah!”

Her shoulders jump and she gasps in shock, as if touched by a ghost.

She turns around in confusion and I immediately shove the bag into her hands.

“You forgot your bag.”

“Ah... oh... thanks...”

She looks at her own hands with a puzzled expression; it takes her a while to understand what’s what.

When standing this close to her, I can practically feel her anxiety crawling on my skin. Just how nervous can one person be!?

This fog of anxiety is so sickening that I feel obligated to disperse it, as if it were my own.

“A-about the interview.”

“Yes...?”

She raises her head and looks at me with her hazel eyes.

“These guys don’t ask much about QA stuff. They ask more about your background and personality. So you don’t need to worry too much about memorizing all these QA terms.”

She looks at me with a dumb face without uttering a word.

It’s not surprising. I have no idea how I’d react if some stranger were to randomly talk to me right before an important interview.

“A-anyway, good luck.”

Retreat retreat retreat!

I awkwardly turn around and begin walking away.

A few seconds later I hear a door opening and then closing.

At the very least, it seems like she wasn’t nervous enough to bump into the door; that’d be hilarious.

I have no idea whether she took my advice seriously. Either way, it has nothing to do with me; she is probably going to fail anyway.

I keep walking toward the exit and leave the building.