It wasn't. I still have this vague, nagging feeling that there's something I'm supposed to be doing, but I haven't the slightest idea what it might be. *sigh* Anyone who knows what it might be, don't hold back.
My interviews yesterday went all right. I got hopelessly lost trying to get to the first one, though. The woman who'd given me directions told me that the street into the NASA/Langley area would end shortly after I got on it, and that I should take a left and then immediately take a right. Well, it sortof merged with other traffic, but I doubt that's what she meant, and at any rate, there was no immediate right to take. I followed the road for a while, and it split, but there weren't any other left turns. I turned around and went the other way, and wound up at the gate to Langley Air Force Base. I asked the gate guard if he had any idea where I was supposed to be, showing him my directions, but he wasn't familiar with the NASA half of the base, shrugged, and let me come through the gates so I could turn around.
So I went back the other way again. It wasn't long before I found myself at NASA's gates. That gate guard couldn't figure out from the directions where I was supposed to be, either, but he let me pull through the gates, park, and come back to the gatehouse where there was a small office for issuing temporary badges. In there, they had a phone, and I called the woman back, feeling like a complete idiot. This is just great. You're late and you're lost! What makes you think they're going to want to hire someone who can't even find their building??!?
However, when the woman got on the phone, she apologized profusely - she'd apparently realized this morning on her own way to work that she'd given me the wrong street to turn onto in the first place. Okay, well, so it was her fault. I felt much better. She had to come out to the NASA part of the base to pick someone up anyway, so I parked just outside the gate, and met her when she pulled up, and then followed her back to their building, which wasn't on the Langley base or the NASA base, but in a separate, less-guarded area set aside for contractors. And as we pulled into the parking lot, I saw that if she'd given me the correct street name, it would've been very easy - it's walking distance from K.T. and Kevin's apartment! I felt even better.
This lady and three other people interviewed me, and my first impression was that since this was a contract to take care of the business side of things at NASA - payroll, rent, etc. - that it didn't sound all that fun. My second impression was that they were looking for someone with more database experience than I have, or at least, someone with experience in the particular database they're using. So I don't think they'll be calling me back in a week or two like they said, but I suppose there's always hope.
After that, I came home for a while to pass the time until my Syscon interview. I called the guy who had left a message on my answering machine yesterday, and arranged another interview (only about three buildings down from the first interview at the NASA contractor's base!) for Monday morning.
The Syscon interview was a little weird, because I already know so many people who work there. Driving up to the building, I saw my dad on his daily walk, and waved. While I was waiting for the HR woman to come, I chatted with another woman. When the HR woman came in, a good friend of Matt's and mine, Jim, came in behind her on some business, and he gave me a big ol' grin. After I'd finished hearing about the benefits package (which was funny, because they're all changing in January anyway) the HR woman took me to the kitchen so I could get some water, and I was accosted by Jerry, another friend. After the technical part of my interview, the interviewers told me to say hi to Matt for them.
If I hadn't been warned about this one interviewer's penchant for asking bizarre and difficult questions, I'd have sweated a lot. I only got about three questions right, and had to confess to not knowing most of the rest. I leaned heavily on the excuse that, being self-taught, I only knew what I'd needed to know for any given project. It made me feel better that, about half the time, after I'd once again said, "I'm pretty sure I've never used that," one of the other interviewers would look at him and say, "Well, don't keep us in suspense - what is it?"
I did much better with the questions from the other interviewers. I told the story about how I'd learned Visual Basic (that is, I had it thrown at me and was told to figure it out and figure out why the customer hadn't been able to make our stuff work with it, and I learned it in about two days.) It's always impressive to illustrate one's ability to pick up the salient points of a programming language in a very short time. I think I earned a couple of points by trashing Oracle's database systems. I mentioned that my off-work hobby was web design, and I think that got a couple of points, too.
All in all, I think I did all right. I think they'll offer me something, though probably not the top salary I asked for.
How odd. While I was writing that last section, another company, Metro, called and did a sort of preliminary phone interview. The person I talked to is going to send me a packet of information about the company, and they'll call back tomorrow or over the weekend to do a technical interview. Metro is a job I'm not sure I want, since it's based in Norfolk, but the woman on the phone implied that since they're a consulting firm, they could try to keep me hooked up with jobs a little closer to home, so I wouldn't have to drive down to Norfolk every day.
*pant, pant* And another phone call while I was writing that, this time from one of the contractors who built the house - they're finally going to come install the vent cover in the kitchen and fix the stuck vent in the computer room, on Monday.
Unless I can remember what it was I've forgotten, today's plans are fairly simple - I'm going to pick up Kevin and take him to his A+ exam, since K.T.'s at work and they only have one car. After that, I'm going to go to the mall that's near their apartment and think about spending the gift certificate my parents gave me for my birthday.
Later!
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