Well, the interview is over. I’ll start from the beginning though…
You know how sometimes you’ll sleep for a few hours, but not really
well, till some early AM, get up, have a drink of water, go
to the bathroom, roll over, whatever, and then go back to sleep and
actually do the good deep part of your nights sleep? Well, when I
woke up and rolled over it was 4am and my alarm was about to go
off. I left lots of time, anticipating traffic, delays getting a shuttle bus
from long term parking to the terminal, etc. Turns out there is pretty much no
traffic at 4am, and I arrived and was sitting waiting for my flight an hour and
a half early. grrrr….. oh well, will know next time.
The flight itself was uneventful, and when I got there Tig was already there
waiting for me, and took me home (like a lost puppy). I vegged out for a bit
and watched the rental they had, Thirteen Ghosts. I’d say that
watching it at someone else’s house is how this film should be viewed…. let
others get it, watch and ridicule, then go home. Anyway, when the time came I
dressed up with my best “sexy nice hirable alan” look, and headed out, escorted
by K. We returned about ten minutes later, collected my wallet so that I could
afford the LRT ticket, and left again. I arrived exactly 4 minutes late, to
which I blame the fact that I thought you could get to the 12-19th floor
elevators from the top of the 1-11th floor ones. My mistake. You gotta get on
the right ones to start. I also jammed my thumb trying to push a pull door,
and broke the skin under the nail. Luckily I didn’t bleed on anyone.
Eventually met with Colleen (HR) and Mark (development) and had about an hour
long interview. They had many questions for me, and I think it went quite well.
Of course afterwards you think “I shouldn’t have stammered so much, just answer
the question and shut up… don’t answer it if you have to dig, just say no I
don’t know about X, Y, or Zed, etc.” My interviewing probably needs some work
(hopefully not after this though). I wish I knew the “right” answers when it
comes to questions like “what do you expect to make?” and “what are you
weaknesses… erhm… areas in need of development?” There wasn’t a skill test
really, unless I missed it. I did get to put in my thoughts on a hypothetical
data gathering senario, but I’m not sure if that was to see how I thought, how I
worked at thinking, what the end result I came up with was, or what. No idea if
there was a “right” answer or if I gave it, but it felt right. It was easy once
I ignored Mark (sorry dude), and closed my eyes and just imagined that I was in
charge of setting it up, what would I do. I had to do some translating from
“put in a mysql or postgres database” to “put in a database of some kind” (I
have no idea what windows-speak for some things are 🙂
At the end they asked if I had any questions and of course I did not, until I
got outside the building and was heading back to Tig and K’s…
It seems like a nice place, the non-manager types have cubes, and the managers
(Mark included) have awsome views out over Edmonton from the 18th floor. They
have a nest, a lunch room, and some good benifits and so forth. Tig works there
and hasn’t gone postal yet, so it can’t be that bad. They said I’d find out
this coming week.
I discovered making my way back that I need better non-everyday shoes. The ones
I have are ok looking, typical loafer type shoes that one would have for
weddings and dressing up occasions, but after a 20 minute walk my feet were
killing me… I was almost limping. It was hot out as well, so
it was nice to get into shorts and a t-shirt!
Rumor has it we might be meeting up with Pommie for dinner tonight, which is
cool. Until then I plan to sit on the couch or surf, and maybe even do a little
work 🙂