Free If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir by Om Swami Page A

as the old man could get quite mad.
    'Are you going to pay me wages and commission for two days or not?' I asked the lady.
    'Get the f**k outta here,' he answered on her behalf.
'What's wrong with you, man?' I said. Feeling helpless, I tried to match his pitch and authority but couldn’t. I knew I sounded meek and insignificant, even to myself. He shook his head and went back in his cabin. The lady urged me to leave.
              I picked up my bag and walked out. Deeply stressed and lost in thought, I passed the bus stop without realizing and kept walking. Finally, I collapsed on the kerb. For a long time, I just sat there thinking. My tuition fees of $5,000 were due in about ten months. And I needed to move out of my cousin’s house soon. I had to find a way to earn my living.
    Arun was home when I got back. 'You’re back early!' he said affectionately.
    'The man swore at me.'
    'Who swore?’ 
    'The owner of the company. He swore at me.' I divulged some details.
    'That's unusual. But why? What did you do then?'
    What could I do? It's not like I had a choice, Bhaiya. They asked me to leave.'
    'That's awful, but don’t worry. You’ll find something else,' he said.
    Did they at least pay you for two days of work?'
    'They only paid in insults. No cash. I put my pride aside and asked them for my wages but they refused.'
    'Screw them. Come on, let's have a coffee.'
    He tried to motivate me and make me laugh but I was really dispirited. I didn't feel like doing anything at this point but that wasn’t a luxury I could afford. My survival depended on action. I picked up the Yellow Pages and began calling companies with even greater vigour.
    Six weeks and fifteen hundred calls later, I got my first opportunity with a company called Australian Windows Publishing (AWP). A lady called Margo Plowright called me for an interview for unpaid work experience in software programming. I went to meet her the next day, and found that she ran that business with her husband.
    Unpaid work was not the best offer, of course, as I desperately needed money. But an opportunity to work in the IT industry mattered more to me than a paid opportunity in any other industry. I asked them if I would get to code in C++, a programming language I knew really well, and they indicated I would. The programming language they used was Delphi though, a language I’d never heard of. I wasn’t really keen on working in it because there was no growth or future as a Delphi coder. Still, getting any break right now was good enough for me.
    AWP offered me four weeks of work experience. The entire time, I was simply copying and renaming HTML files. That was my job. Easy, very easy. I wasn’t looking for an easy job though. I had understood quite early in my life that the amount of money you made was directly proportional to the degree of difficulty you could handle. The more stress you could handle, the more money you were paid; easy jobs paid less. Anyhow, I had no choice.
    At the beginning of the fourth week, the couple gave me amazing news. 'We’re very happy with your work. We would be pleased to offer you a one-year contract. Starting next week, we'll pay you $15 an hour for forty hours a week.'
              I couldn’t believe my ears. Finally, I had a job offer. Someone thought what I did had value. Money can make you feel important, and I felt important. I thanked them for their offer though I wasn’t entirely satisfied. One reason was that I wasn’t coding; I was doing something that even a sixth-grader could do. Two, I hadn’t yet told my employers that I was allowed only twenty hours paid work per week as stipulated on my student visa.
    That evening, while I was attending classes at college, my principal called me into his office. 'Congratulations, Amit, I’ve got some good news,' he said. We’ve lined up an interview for you with a software company.'
'Thank you so much, Richard!'
'It’s unpaid work experience for