Welcome to Nowhere

`So I ended up going in for the interview this morning as threatened, and it actually went remarkably well for an interview I had very little time to prepare for. They didn’t play 20 questions with me like a lot of them will do, which is nice. Mostly the HR dood and I went over my resume, he gave some general info about the job like sallary and whatnot, and then I got to play 20 questions with him. Which was awesome in the extreme. Then he brought in the department manager I’d be working for if I’m hired, and there was more specific info gave about the job, like call volumes (they do email, too! Yay!), and generally how they run their break/lunch schedules. Which, I do have to say, I love their approach. That is to say they don’t *schedule* breaks/lunches, but rather trust their staff, all of like 30 people in that particular department, to take them when they feel they need to. Which means no going like 5 hours between a craptasticly scheduled first break and my lunch. Which, okay, I liked that at Dell my lunch was rather conveniently scheduled around the same time as a certain person’s break, but damn. That’s a god aweful long time to wait before stuffing your face when you leave home at 6:30.

It sounds like they make things about 3 times easier than I’m used to, which I love. I mean really, really love. I got to play 20 questions with him, too, which really helped to get a handle on exactly what I’d be doing if they decided to hire me. One thing that did sort of catch my attention though was he basicly asked me why I’d trade one job doing the exact same thing for another. Which kinda makes sense, in most cases. But what he probably doesn’t have a clue about is if Dell hadn’t decided to close up shop, I’d probably still be working there. Now granted I’d be working there making $36k/year, which is a far cry from the $28k they’d be starting me at with this job, but I’d still be there. And since I’m not really dealing with a whole lot of joe users who have absolutely no clue what the hell the difference is between a keyboard and a base guitar, it *should*, God willing anyway, be a whole lot less stressful in certain areas than my last job. Not that that was overly stressful to begin with; there was, after all, a reason I stuck with it for a year and a half. But, you know, not having to tell someone where the start button on their freakin’ machine is 20 times in a row and 20 different ways is probably gonna give me less of a headache. combine that with the fact the 3-hour call, at least so far as I can see, no longer exists and good lord why didn’t I apply to this company sooner?

I should know, according to both the HR person and the departmental manager, by late this week or early next whether or not I have a job. And they seem to be pretty flexible for start dates though they haven’t given me any solid indications yet either way. I did tell them I had prior commitments though, and from initial impressions they do seem to be willing to work with me on that. Which is always, always, always a good thing to keep in mind. In the meantime though, because I fail at the whole optimism thing, I’ll do my usual hope it works and fire out 6 more applications in 6 more directions, all at the same time. On the bright side, I’ve still got a few months so it’s not like I need, need, need a job like yesterday. But hey, if I’m getting offers, then I’m not about to be stupid with them.

The interview itself took all of maybe an hour and 10 minutes, after that mom and I went out for breakfast. I got my coffee fix, mom did her usual cleaning rampage of the apartment when we got back (she did one before we left, too, but I guess she was bored?), and we shot the shit for a few minutes. Then she headed up back to her place, and I crashed serious hardcore. I ended up getting up about 5:30 or so, and have been pretty much catching up on email and processing things since then. At some point I may actually find something with which to stuff my face, though that probably won’t be until much later; breakfast’s still sitting there like so many tons of bricks. But for the time being, I go ingest additional caffeine, find methods to prevent the sticky, and enjoy my evening. Damn it feels good to be a geeksta.