April 05, 2004

If playing cellphone Tetris on the train on a Monday morning is wrong...

...then baby, I don't want to be right.

I think I can say without any fear of inaccuracy that this is the largest number of interviews I've ever had for a single job. In fact, the interviews-to-jobs ratio today is nine times what it was the last time I was interviewing for a job, which is fairly astounding.

What happened was this: on Friday, I talked to D-blank at the architecture office in question and we scheduled an interview for this morning at 9:00 with the office manager, C-blank (note similar pronunciation of names). D was distracted and forgot to put the interview on the calendar, so she forgot to contact C and tell her to be in the office this morning. I didn't know any of this when I walked in at 9:00 this morning, nor did I know what either of the people in question looked like. So, I had a lovely half-hour chat with D, and didn't realize that it was D with whom I was talking until she gave me her contact information at the very end of the interview. I walked out in a state of confusion and headed home. Two blocks from home, I got a call from my roommate Katie, saying that D had just called and asked if I could come in for another interview this afternoon. I called back, figured out what had happened, realized I had to go back and trade my lovely informal conversation experience for an actual, stressful, sucky interview, and was generally less than pleased about that. I threw on some comfier shoes and went anyway.

C turned out, to my boundless joy, to be incredibly sweet. We chatted for about 40 minutes or so (ding), one-on-one (ding), in a friendly and not very stress-inducing fashion (ding), and she only threw one (ding) of those horrible "tell me about a time when blankity blank blank blank and how you dealt with it" questions at me. She was even apologetic about it and admitted that it was one of those canned questions that I'd probably answered a hundred times. What, you ask, am I dinging about? I'm dinging about ways in which this interview process was vastly more enjoyable than my other recent interview processes. I'd like to give this woman a prize for Surpassing Non-Ogreyness. I'd like, in fact, to give her some chocolate. She alluded to her mention of chocolate in the job posting; I grinned and told her that it was what made the listing stand out for me; I decided against mentioning Zap-a-Gap fumes and 22-hour workdays.

Basically, I'm feeling decidedly less feudal today than I've generally been feeling in my job search. You mean someone actually wonders whether I'll mind tending to the office plants, rather than assuming I'd happily feed them with my own blood for the privilege of getting the job? Wonderful. You mean you're interested in whether the commute is all right for me (it's great), how I feel about the salary (holy lord it's great), the hours (splendid), and whether the temporary-or-permanent-depending-on-need nature of the job is convenient for me (I can deal with it)? You don't just want to know whether I'm a highly efficient robot desperate for employment?

GREAT.

So after that lovely interview, and meeting the owner of the business (which involved being enthusiastically introduced by C as, "this is Dianna, and she has a green thumb!"), I left the office and wandered up the street toward my transportation home. It was sunny, yet breezy, and I was dressed just warmly enough. The street sloped away invitingly to my left, just happening to be the direction I was going, so I huffed my way up over the hill grinning like, well, someone who just had a job interview go well for a change. Somewhere along the way I decided that if there is a better place in the world to be than stomping up a hill on top of San Francisco on a beautiful sunny afternoon in April while wearing comfortable shoes, I can't imagine where that might be.

And that is why I called Jacob from Dolores Park at 1:45 to tell him that this might just be the best day ever.

Posted by dianna at April 5, 2004 03:49 PM
Comments

w00t! j00 r0x0r3d d4T 1nt3rv1eW!!!!!! sh0w3d d0z3 n00bz d3Y c4n'T fuXX0r wiT j00!!!!!!!!!!1

Posted by: Jacob at April 5, 2004 03:54 PM

[flashback to recent experience of being called a n00b while trying unsuccessfully to join a multiplayer, online video game]

"n00bs?"
"all r n00bs lol"

Posted by: Chris at April 5, 2004 05:28 PM

happy clapping!

Posted by: michele at April 5, 2004 05:40 PM

Beg your pardon. I think you'll find it's "n00bz". We don't hold with using the o key around here.

I use the h4xx0r version of Google now because I got bored with plain English. When I try to search for something that doesn't return any results, it tells me, "c0m3 0n D0od ch3ck y0ur 5p311i|\|g!" I love it dearly.

Posted by: dianna at April 5, 2004 05:42 PM

To be fair, I was quoting. The only mistake that I made was not adding [sic] to both instances of "n00bs [sic]" (again, quoting).

Posted by: Chris at April 5, 2004 06:08 PM

Chris- 'adding' was spelled correctly, I believe.

All- Damn, that's 133t!

Posted by: Erik at April 5, 2004 07:32 PM

Hooray! Good job interviews are, rather dorkily, one of life's major-minor pleasures.

Now I need two things from you:
1. An answer. Did the book come in the mail?
2. Some digits. What's your damn phone number, woman?

Posted by: Arianna at April 5, 2004 09:34 PM

dianna, how many jobs did you apply for before you found this one? so far I have applied to 13 and frankly I am shocked to find the only thing beating down my door is a healthy draft from the hall.

(that was sarcasm though. I am sadly not shocked at all.)

Posted by: didofoot at April 5, 2004 09:49 PM

But... but the economy is getting better! Unemployment as gone down! Oh wait, that's because people have stopped looking for jobs? Well then I guess we're all just fucked.

Posted by: Chris at April 5, 2004 09:55 PM

1. Arianna: Oh good lord. Yes, the book came in all its aesthetically pleasing glory, and I, like a n00b, forgot to mention it. Also, I will email you my digits.

2. Kristen: About 60, I think. Three of them resulted in interviews, and I got phone-screened out for one or two more. I think job applications in this economy are like vegetables-- you need five a day to do you any good. Vegetables, however, never throw your resume in the trash.

3. Erik: would you like a little more vermouth in that humor? It's not quite dry enough yet.

Posted by: dianna at April 6, 2004 09:57 AM

Dude, what's going on here? I just noticed my 00's are being turned into oo's... it's anti-dork bias! I'll sue! I will!

Posted by: dianna at April 6, 2004 09:59 AM

No, no, it's the font. Forget I said anything.

Posted by: dianna at April 6, 2004 10:00 AM

Yeah, I noticed the same thing. Luckily for your readership, it didn't take me several comments to figure out the problem.

Posted by: Chris at April 6, 2004 10:08 AM

*shame*

Posted by: dianna at April 6, 2004 10:13 AM

Holy crap, are you gonna work in San Francisco? I live there!

Posted by: jason S at April 6, 2004 06:35 PM
Cementhorizon