Nervous system, does most of the control signal propagation leading to control and actions for an average organism. Thereby, are voluntary and involuntary system, so I learn. The involuntary system would do what it has to do, regardless of how much we hope to control it. The voluntary system is in our conscious control. Consciousness collaborates from awareness, when we are aware, we are conscious, we could put our effort into controlling the controllable using the voluntary systems. Sometimes, we forget to understand the controllable and then worry voluntarily about the uncontrollable, uncontrollably.
A movie may make us go through motions of emotions, make us believe, make us happy and sad, and if there are options go through the entire spectrum of rainbow. The measure of success of a movie, also depends on the human connect, how convincingly it can make us forget the controllable, and transform us into an universe of unnatural systems and processes.
In regard, to the economic immigration, people choose to go to places where there may be opportunities, try their ‘luck’, because that ‘luck’ is uncontrollable. But the effort to get to the luck is controllable with achievable targets, workable with checklist.
We can choose to take chances and work towards job using study then work, or straightaway work. From the beginning of humanity there may have been some kind of work, some form of employment. Industrial revolution would have solidified the systems in place to streamline employment and hence work-life was officially born. In some countries they have classified the universe of employment into categories. Like Charles Darwin’s origin of species, origin of employment would eventually evolve into labor classification, standard occupation code in the USA, national occupational classification code in the Canada and similar codification elsewhere. This is a more logical organic classification than the erstwhile work based caste system in Indian peninsula where you are born into a caste. While the pros and cons, supporters and haters exist for this this. Little would an Indian imagine that you will be born into a work based lock in the US H1B visa system. Which is a work visa system.
Other countries have yet another chance for foreigners in terms of job seeker visa. Currently some countries have some form of job seeker visa.
These countries are looking for workers, if working is what we are seeking, then we can get the job seeker visa, which does not guarantee the issuance of the visa, nor does it guarantee a job when we land there. We may voluntarily take these chances.
Some relations are also like this. In particular the immigration systems of the world. First and foremost, Canada as a globally known immigration system with express entry system, works for them. By entering the pool of candidates that the country may be willing to select, the metrics of which may be known, however, who will be beneficiary will not be known. This is a chance based system, a lottery with some components that we control like work profile, life skills and so on, but with absolutely no guarantee to get selected. Many in the USA mistakenly think that Canada is an easily place to migrate to. Perspectives, that we control. Ignorance is controllable. Ignorance is a choice in this age and time.
Sweden is also apparently an immigrant friendly country, until you read the troubles. How an employer’s paperwork can cause the beneficiary of the visa to be in uncontrollable situation is exemplified by this story.
With each of these opportunities we do not see much transparency in the policy, consistency, laws and systems in its entirety. Some things have to be experience, somethings learned, somethings we are told and are mandatory. The mandatory ones are easily understood, like getting a job needs work visa, legal residency, temporary or permanent, tax numbers mean to do the work, enough health to work and so on. Sometimes it is easy to fill forms given to us, as part of job application. We know that we need an address, a phone number and so on. This is as good as a checklist. And working through it is achievable to the most part. We do not predict natural disasters with 100% detailing, not all lives are saved in the world with all the predictive knowledge, do we say the universities and the eminent scientists of the world are useless? We could probably say they are not as useful as expected. Expectations are controllable, expectations however great can be controllable.
In all such employment, if we keep our expectations to limits, emotions to limits, limits to a controllable, then we could control. This is so as not be become a control freak. Every limit also defines the sphere of influence and control. Every control gives us a feedback, a feedback completes the loop, the loop of employment, work-life. Is this a re-definition of the work base caste system, at a global scale?
We get classified based on education, work, for some people work defines there routine and family life. Defining boundaries and freedom, benefits and rights. To the extent that success defined by work translates to work life. I need not believe this, though there is some understanding of the way this system works and I get to play it by being in an employment based visa. Even without taking visa and work permits into consideration. In everybody’s home country of citizenship too we get our life defined by work and employment. Even if we are running our own business, the employment of business defines certain part of us. Social life, environment, situations and circumstances that present to us are influenced by such work.
Life in H1B brings surprises and because the H1B is sponsored and beneficiary is you. Life is decided on somebody’s else’s mercy. The amount of say you have on the H1B is zero. Hiding it does not help. That makes one vulnerable. To make it normal, selling, and upselling and shameless self promotion is warranted.
Looking back at my notes, analysing the option to head to US also read that I would on my toes when I move to the USA. One of supervisors who referred me to the MS program, advised that I should go to the USA. Although he never got to reap the benefit of post study work, because of inability to land a proper job during the 2008 recession.
Knowing this why would I head to the USA. Because this is a famous country, loan is available and it is possible to repay in post study work. Post study work permit is also possible. That much was planned. H1B and further could not be planned. Because H1B is a lottery. If it is made available take it. Any opportunity is better than no opportunity. And since I had to work outside of my home city, because of the availability of the jobs elsewhere, some overnight trip long. USA may be a little bit farther at 30 hours, but fair deal. USD to INR conversion fills any shortcomings.
My supervisor also advised that I should be looking for job from day one. I was extremely pro active, And this was noticed by one professor. I told him the truth, I am exploring all of what is avaiable. I had read ” What color is your Parachute” during job search. And exactly as mentioned in the book, I landed in a Silicon Valley based startup and as luck may have it next to my university. So I did not have to take all the bad and good of the SF. It was a different small company setup. Like a house almost, with excellent people – except the few I mentioned earlier. And then there were changes with H1B, you need to step up the game to get the green card petition. Why because, H1B is only for 6 years and with an approved green card petition it could be extended. During this period, I had to hold fort and keep quiet, until it is completely approved. I had opportunity to move to SF, infact my manager(s) wanted me to move. I could not, they did not understand, HR did not give how much of salary change would happen, co-workers one by one tried to understand why I am not moving and why I should be moving.
They all had good intentions but had absolutely no clue about the legality implications of moving and H1B, which would bring another LCA, H1B, yet another PWD, PERM filing. That will effectively delay my reach to green card by 1 more year.
And what about my freedom to pursue a part time PhD. I was well on the way completing coursework, publishing papers, getting conference fundings and really having 100% of life filled. I was maximising and firing in all engines.
I had to scientifically present to them why I will not be moving, they accepted, held on to me and let me go.
It was pure shock. Layoff newbie. First time layoff. I had all the office hardware equipments at home ready for work from home due to Covid-19. I had the house table setup like an office, with experiment running and then through some random meeting that showed up on the calendar. I was told in a video that I was affected and am part of the lay off.
I had my 60 days clock start to find another job, or exit the country. Such is the H1B life.
All the progress in PERM filing was lost because it was not approved yet.
Everyone is disposable, my first full time american work boss had said. I remembered that. I could not say bye to anyone officially.
I had 4.5 years more of H1B. All that is useful with only an employer sponsorship. I had to find an employer. Meanwhile, getting ready to move. Selling all the stuff, because in my location that was the only job I could get as an international. I knew all my classmates had moved to other cities.
I could move to PhD. But change of status from H1B to F1 was atleast delayed by 1.5 years. If status is pending I could stay. But where is the money. So back to the first step. I had to make money. If I have a chance I should attempt for work rather than studentship. So priority was set. I was on the toes again.
I learned from all my campus dining jobs, that to get SSN I needed to get work in a non-veg serving area. Which is faster than getting it later using OPT. I could not get internship so I worked in Athletics, I could not get research assistantship so I worked as graduate assistant. I could not get a senior engineer role with my 4 years’ Indian experience, I could get electrical engineer job. I could not get research role, I could get a job, that will sponsor visa and take me as an international with work authorization. So I was mentally ready to take any job. When keeping the visa alive took precedence, any job would work. I could be on my toes.
Hence, I am very grateful to my universities for teaching life lessons. University of Calicut taught me how to survival in adversity, and uncertainty. IGNOU gave me confidence to achieve what I wanted. SUNY at Buffalo gave me perspective on how to work and survive.
Since 2020 with reasons varying from Covid 19 and what not there has been inconsistent trends in the layoff excellently tracked by https://layoffs.fyi/ . This excellent data is not only useful for the trends in the companies, but also gives locations, industry and sometimes even a sheet with the list of employees who were affected. Another way to track laid off employees is the Open to Work banner in Linkedin.
Now what if the employee, now ex-employee is not able to openly show that they are looking for work. Mind you, there are cultural significance of having a job vs not having a job. And not having a job is considered to be bad by the extended family, what? Do you worry about the emotions and shame that comes with orthodoxy or do you look forward to get help. The best is to ask. To ask in the social media world is to post. And many many many people do ask in linkedin and facebook groups. What is the shame in it if humans are meant to live the urban life by this method of having a job and working to earn it. Not many people can hope to be politicians and be successful in it?!
I remember the times when I was affected similarly and a post reached extended family and bounced back saying what a shame, you lost a job and then you post about it? The whole world knows this no.w Good thing with the trends in layoffs especially the ones from big companies like Meta and Amazon is a seismic cultural shift in such orthodox view of having a job and not. While a generation or two back would have kept a job for a lifetime, it is not that common in this new connected world. Everyone is replaceable. That is the first lesson I learned from my first professional job in the USA, from my hiring manager and boss. Such transparency, holds high respect in my mind.
While this company laid me off, they called me back with the same job in same location after 2 years, and in that same year some of my old friends got laid off. This was a 3rd layoff for that company. This proves that anyone is replaceable once again.
And as it says in the award winning film Argentina 1985. We need to build a personal set of memory, not of oblivion and this shall happen never again! May I add ‘Hopefully’.
So what shall we look for in a future job? Tenure? Money? While nothing is still guaranteed with a data given, we tend to make some safe assumptions and work with what we have. One such metric is the median tenure available in the LinkedIn website. Say, for example you were to look at Google as a company and checking to see how long do people stay, LinkedIn Premium has this feature.
Search for company > Click Home> Scroll to see the Median Tenure
My company, KeepTruckin has been generous to grant me opportunity to be cast in the company video. This video is a brief on why we are excited about work with KeepTruckin.
One school of thought says pdf-s are not as machine readable as word documents. Some “online job search gurus” to suggest avoiding PDFs so that machine can parse keywords from MS Word better. Unless a recruiter/website specifies a type of document the candidate can only guess what the recruiting system wants.
Sending a document via e-mail warrants a properly formatted document. So may be a fraction of the resumes send into the resume black-hole needs to be in PDF. However, some recruiters are generous enough to give feedbacks. Seeking advice and suggestions on resume is aided by the ease in which the mentor can comment and keep tracking changes in MS Word. An open source enthusiast may frown. I have not seen a more popular word processor than MS Word. The most popular may not be the best. But it is worth if it works.
I came across the author Cal Newport due to the Happy Schools Blog. This book arrives in style, for a job hunter in USA. Yes, I am searching for positions in electrical engineering as I am approaching end of my studies.
As an engineer with some awesome experience in my field, I can say that I have met a couple of people who said the same. They never wrote a book or go to MIT. Great People. Here, was this great retired man who was called back to help serve the company and help the new fellows to catch up with the technologies. I have asked him if he had any passion for the things that he did and if there is any tips and tricks of career life that I can use. He said ” It is good to have your own ideas and developing knowledge to implement it. Even more important is to flow with the crowd till the time is reached; the time when you are confident and knowledgeable enough to have a separate direction of commute than the general flow.” And then the bus had arrived and those were probably the last words I heard from him. Since I left the company- for higher pursuits. The book reinforces this thought.
There was this amazing scientist, who was also called back from retirement the same way as the former. I had breakfast with this man very often when I was working there. I remember that I posed him the question ” Did you have any particular interest or great passion for what you are currently doing, when you were my age”. He replied ” Not really, I got the job, I learned the job. Now, I know some things, with which I can help new people”
And then I talked to a colleague in university very recently, asked him why he changed majors and what his interest is. He said ” I do not have any specific area of interest, But , I am not proud of it. I know jobs are in the computer science area, the number of jobs in software is more than electrical engineering. So I am where I am.” The last I heard from him he had an internship in this super big company in USA.
Very recently, I was speaking to a friend, he was really interested in this wonderful research and was in the process of starting his research. He has not started any job application and he is OK with that. I have this another friends who went from Bachelors to PhD straight and says ” I do what I do , what I like, what is interesting, I keep doing it, Job will come”.
In the beginning, I had this biased understanding of what these people told. It was naive of me in the thought process. Everyone has some attraction to say some colors, some food, some topics, some places. This could be yellow, pasta, history of Incas, Egypt for some. This could be anything. The rational mind of mine tries to normalize the bias whereby this is diluted to any color, veg.food, history, World. This rationality and dilution is for the world to see. This is a form of outlook, self-created outlook, banishing the old preferences and making life simpler. Categorization and division was a tool to tackle odd chunks of data, information or knowledge. This is never diluted, because it becomes hard to grasp. My understanding is that this is not representation of real world. It is not like there are land animals and water animals, there are amphibians. Elephant which swims is not amphibious. That sounds like blasphemy to categorical knowledge. 🙂
The book
As per the book , there are only two kinds of people.
Passionate people and Craftsmen (people who work to achieve their greatness). Also, the book says that ‘passion is rare’.
I got this question from an interview 2 days back ” How much interest , do you have in the work or job description?”
I was lost for words since I was reading the book. I cannot say “I am a passionate worker”. I cannot claim that I am an expert , due to modesty and truth. I cannot suggest that I am a hardworker who is a go-getter. Because, I am not there to be a self-proclaimed worker who is not interested in the subject , who can master any subject by hardwork, I am not a machine. I see the blurring of the categories? There is a mix. This is not mutually exclusive, this is my understanding. If I am interested in something, it does not mean I will forget everything and focus only on that. If I am an expert in data entry ( actually I am !) and burrito making (too) that does not mean I am passionate about these. The point is, there are things that people do out of need and circumstances. This makes them experts of the field, in my case burrito making , I can do it blind-folded, I can do it in sleep, you can wake me up at 3 in the morning and I can make burrito. This by no logic means that I am passionate about it.
Passion is a thing arousing enthusiasm. Work is generally perceived as a bad thing. Increasingly, I hear that job is the worst thing that you can get, who does not like freedom. Don’t we all trade our freedom with someone else’s freedom !. I mean free as being free to do anything with the time they could have probably invested that in. Then we come to selectivity of fields in which one wants to work. some people like being mathematician, while some do music. There is math in music and music in math. There are people in the interdisciplinary-gray-blurred-line who work here. World is not a number of countries, each with boundaries and armies on either side. This is because everything is depended on everything else. Not just globalization/localization there is glocalization. This is depicted by mentioning Alan Lightman who wrote Einstein’s Dreams who made a career in combo of math and culture.
The religion of logic says : choose a field, focus, work hard – you become an expert.
How to choose a field ? – by gut feeling, and elimination process of uninteresting stuff can help shortlist the field.
There are many venues to connect with interest. It is easy to find that out, with what you do in your spare time.
I cannot do something which is not interesting or satisfying me. This can be termed passion. And then I go on to learn how to do these things, if I do not know how to, I learn. This is what Cal says as passion is side effect of mastery. You can start doing things you do not like, to test how broad you are in the mind. See for yourself, where , unintentionally we put limits for ourselves.
The Case of Incremental Improvement.
I got bowled over in one of my classes since I was to give a presentation on a new idea. I had this vision of myself as a visionary, going to change the world. After the presentation, I came to terms with what I have heard years back ” There is more than enough of technology available, your phone has tonnes of features, how much of the features do you use or know how to use ?” This was before the advent of android!
I see myself as learning how to do stuff with existing technologies. Necessities will always push up the technologies to be innovated. That said. The knowledge of existing technologies would bring in the required mastery and formulating the exact requirements for improvement . In this sense, like a big project, steps follow a waterfall model, the goal of which is a moving target, the field of which is the area of interest. Improvements happen in agile fashion. Continuous improvement! In the religion of science, this is a scientific improvement called innovation/invention(sometimes). In the religion of life , this is self-improvement and sharpening your saw (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal ChangebyStephen R. Covey). Improve yourself, so that you can grab the opportunity as it comes, because you are prepared. I would combine Cal‘s mention of ‘exploring the adjacent possible’ with ‘little bets’ with incremental improvement. This is because on a personal side, when you make innovations, improvements these carry the risk of going beyond the comfort zone, this opens venues for exploratory work.
Key Take-aways
All said, with my opinions and Cal‘s opinions (what he calls ‘rules’). I would say I have to work get some career capital (that is expertise) so that I can create opportunities and may be ones that Peter mentions in Notes on Startups.
“Creating a research bible”:(here bible only means another book)
Cal gives good tips on how to go about research. He is a research professor going about his research. It makes sense to follow this path if you have not discovered your own. This involves
summarize a research paper that you think is relevant for your work
keeping a timesheet/schedule/calendar
maintain a research note for brainstorming ideas
do practice beyond the practice that we do that can be tagged as “productivity – oriented”. This involves
stretching one’s self beyond comfort zone.
read tough papers.
keep improving.
track your work , to see the improvement.
References
This includes provocative title such as “my job went to India“! Jobs are going everywhere.I have read that USA thrives on creating ideas. When new ideas stops getting generated USA job market is not going to be the same. Because this is were the ideas get exported and get adopted by the globe. The title could have been re-thought !
When it comes to bananas, the dwellers in USA get it from Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and other places. When it is jeans, it comes from Bangladesh and Vietnam. Belts comes from Thailand and China. Now, please do not tell that all these jobs went elsewhere. It was the market and policies of trade that led to this.
The references in the book that I would like to refer are as follows. T
The style is lucid and easy to follow. The emotions are kept at neutral while the facts and references are cited. This is a good way to write making it an easy read. The book tries to number the ideas (written as ‘Rules’ in the book). This can be a drawback to people who dislike rule book. But the count is very less, and it is manageable.
“Sharing” work in the Internet-This post is a book review for “Show your work” by Austin Kleon This is the TVC that comes first to mind about “sharing” Like the boy in ad, whatever our age, we do “sharing” for personal need/satisfaction/benefits , knowingly or not. Austin talks about the value in sharing work online, establishment of personal brand, … Continue reading “Sharing” work in the Internet→
Blinked-Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews I picked this up a second time. Thanks to Buffalo-Erie Public Library System for providing this free facility. Blink takes the reader through some case studies and associated case studies on snap-judgements and its base … Continue reading Blinked→
Reading Napolean Hill’s – Keys to Success-Napoleon Hill’s Keys to Success: The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement by Napoleon Hill My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews Having read Think and Grow Rich and quiet impressed by it, this was a natural choice to pick up from my wishlist. Napolean Hill does an amazing job in formulating … Continue reading Reading Napolean Hill’s – Keys to Success→
Book Review: Destiny Disrupted-I heard about this book from a Palo Alto entrepreneur. I read the book Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary. The style of writing is unbiased for most portion and biased whenever it is expected. This book gives a good idea on the endless wars that the west Asia has seen the history and some facts. … Continue reading Book Review: Destiny Disrupted→
Book Review : Algorithms to live by-This book came up in the circles of job search and discussions of things that don’t matter. It would have been a fallacy if the title said stood by what it said. Algorithms are thought processes and having behavioral philosophies of itself, that mathematicians may appreciate better. However, math being a yesteryear wonder-keyword and a … Continue reading Book Review : Algorithms to live by→
Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups-Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews I came across this book accidentally. My lab mate had this book on his table for a long time. I see it sometimes on this desk , even now. I … Continue reading Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups→
Narrative of the Blunder termed war-Brig. J.P Dalvi gives a clear account of want exactly happened at the India- China war (1962), which was less than a war in his book, “The Himalayan Blunder”. The motivation to read this was reading about VK Krishna Menon , the then Defence Minister of India. The title given is great because it happened … Continue reading Narrative of the Blunder termed war→
This is the concise form of Panel Discussion with Young Alumni in the Second Career Perspectives and Networking Conference, held in University at Buffalo, 04/08/2016.
Things to look out for in your first job >
Believe in yourself.
Estimate what are the skills that you have.
Most places will train you.
Most jobs try to know how is your thinking and approach for a problem.
Once you are in a job , or offered a job, Identify where you are in. Is it truly where you want to be.
Always assess the potential ability to learn or earn money. Take a step back and try to understand.
Grab the opportunity that you really want. Then there is no stress attached to it and you will enjoy your career path.
There is no way to know everything you have to do. Do not be afraid to fail. Take your experience as learning steps. Make sure you learn continuously, learn from your job.
Do not be afraid to learn on superiors. There may be questions about priority. Feel free to say no. When you are in doubt don’t be afraid to get the authority with higher vision to set priority for you.
Having too many deadlines and projects with low completion rate is not the kind of reputation that you want to carry with you. Make sure you get the right people to contribute to your work.
Make sure you add education and skills to your profile from every professional experience you get.
—
What happens when you are searching for a job >
If you have the talent that company is looking for then you have the ball in your court, don’t be afraid to leverage on that.
Evolve yourself into something social.
Communicate.
Communicate.
Communicate.
Differentiate yourself.
Resume gets you to door. Conversation keeps you in the room.
Thinks that you talk about in interview >
Networking is huge. Network as much as you can. Every person you meet puts you in a larger web where you can reach out to anyone in it.
What you bring to the table is crucial. Pitching your part is important. Practice your 30 seconds pitch.
Demonstrate aptitude and passion in interviews.
Companies look for not young but young minded people.
Take control and ownership of assigned task. Find time and drive it forward. If there is a bad employee in your team, good employees will be sick of that one bad employee. Learn to work with all kinds of people. And come up with solutions that your business needs. Interpersonal skills are often big in working.
Tell a story about your passion based on your resume. Resume is your roadmap. Expand on your resume.
Communication skills need to be demonstrated in the interview conversation. It cannot really come out of your resume. How do you communicate about your passion about something you have done? May be you talk loud, or express it. Whatever it is. if you are truly passionate about it then you love what you are going to talk about.
Just show it. Be that guy!
Put hobbies that are really interesting.
Research about your company. You cannot send the same resume to 30 different company. Make connections through resume and then try to show your passion by building on the story from resume.
On Cover Letter
Cover Letter should be very focused to the company. Not the things that you would like to put as hobbies.
Most of the panelists did not have cover letter but the resume had a hook to sell the self.
Salary negotiation
You are trying to put a price on your labour. Check out some websites. If it is your first job, then you probably do not want to negotiate too much. If you are bringing lot of skills that they need then you can leverage on that, because you have room for expansion. Education is things that you retain, bring to your job and develop yourself. So, have an honest conversation with the HR.
Salary negotiation is very difficult. Larger companies usually offer less.
Too many companies rely on salary.com and glassdoor.com. But there is a difference. So it is a tough negotiation. If you truly like the job, then may be you can ask for the number you have in head.
Negotiate on graduate school reimbursement, vacation, phone bill reimbursement. All these ancillary things could be negotiated.
Have a number in head.
Give them that.
Be able to back up your number. By telling them here is what I make, here is the cost of living adjustment. They know that you are being honest, when you can justify and give your number.
“I don’t want to be looking for a job for a long time” is a tactical way to negotiate on salary.
It is difficult to know your value. But you should know what you are worth.
In today’s world health insurance is huge. So, see if the company offers good health insurance coverage which could be as beneficial compared to another offer with lower insurance coverage but higher salary.
The duration of Summer/Winter Trainings/Internship for college students will be 1-2 months. The trainings are provided by ONGC in the following disciplines:
MBA (HR)
MBA (Finance)
Geology
Geophysics
MSc. -Chemistry
Mech. Engineering
Petroleum Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Chem. Engineering
Civil Engineering
BE/B Tech- Computer Science
BE/B Tech- IT
BE / BTech Electronics.&
Telecommunication
Law
Environment Science
Mass Communication
Micro-Biology
Logistics
MCA
The Schedule for students training will be as follows:
Summer training
Winter training
MCA
Applying date
1st February
1st October
1st October
Last date of receipt of
application
On or before
15th April
On or before
31st October
On or before
30th November
Finalization of list
On or before
10th May
On or before
15th November
On or before
24th December
Training commences
15th May to 30th
June
20th November- 31st
December
On or before
1st January
Training ends on or
before
15th July to
31st August
20th January to 28th
February
On or before
30th June
The students have to submit their applications in ONGC’s prescribed Format addressed to “HoI, ONGC Academy, KDMIPE Campus, Kaulagarh Road, Dehradun-248195” along-with following documents:
1. Training letter provided by College/Institute
2. Marks copy of last semester
3. Marks copy of XII class
Ajeya: The Invincible's Crucible 