August 5, 2003

• Job Interview

  
  I was slightly nervous. I didn't sleep well. I kept waiting for the alarm clock to ring. I would sit up, look at the clock, see how much longer I had, make sure the alarm really hadn't gone off and that I hadn't slept through it, then go back to sleep. Finally, the alarm went off.
  
  I tried to wake the dog so I could give him his pill and put him outside for a while. He steadfastly refused to wake up.
  
  I went into the bathroom, did my morning things, shaved, washed up. Emerging, I dressed. The memo had specified "business casual dress" so I wore slacks and a guayabera. I got the newspaper and put a stack of outgoing mail in the mailbox for pickup. Now the dog decided that day had, indeed, come and he wanted to go out. I shoved a pill down his throat and put him outside to do his thing.
  
  The kitchen was a total disaster. I was away all day yesterday but Cathy was home all day yesterday, up until the time she left for Los Angeles, so there had been no opportunity to undo the damages she had inflicted on the kitchen. Okay, I could survive without coffee. I wrapped a pair of hot dogs in paper towel and popped them in the microwave to heat for breakfast, serving myself a glass of V8 juice to go with them. I did my blood sugar test and accompanying insulin shot, the dog insisting that this was the moment he had to come back inside, then was free to quickly consume my breakfast before heading out.
  
  The company, ADNC is hidden on Mira Mesa. The street it is on has a building with the number 9605, a wide driveway, and then another building numbered 9805. Process of elimination led me up the wide driveway to an industrial park which included the place I was looking for, number 9725. It is good that I started early since finding the place required some trial and error and several trips past the entrance.
  
  Once inside, the receptionist gave me a page with some questions (a quiz) and sent me to a small conference room to fill it out with the promise that if I passed the test I would be given another. There were eventually ten others taking the same quiz. Eventually, someone named Jerome came in and led six of the others away for a tour of the company. I got myself a coffee and started talking with another victim candidate, Jerry, about coffee and Guatemala. The remaining nine never spoke to anybody, as far as I could determine. Then Jerome got the remainder of us and gave us our tour.
  
  The company is a server farm. It is in its fifth or sixth location, having outgrown previous locations because it consumed other, similar companies. They have an interesting rule: all technical people start in tech support, the job I was applying for.
  
  They interviewed us in the order in which we finished our second test. All through my interview they laughed at me. First, the interview was conducted by John Oliver, the Technical Support Manager who had been my initial contact, by Jerome, whose position I'm not sure of, and by the company's vice president and Chief Financial Officer. The laughter began with the VP commenting that I had graduated from college the year before he was born. Then they remarked on the various antique systems, both hardware and software, that I had worked on, some of which they had only heard of but had never encountered. One of my test answers showed my distrust of Microsoft Outlook, perhaps shared by those present, but the vast majority of their customers use the product and I have to be ready to answer such questions for them.
  
  Then they asked why I wanted the job. I said, "I've tried finding work before. My age works against me. I think I've proved that I can do anything from building and repairing computers to designing and implementing software systems." Fortunately, they continued laughing.
  
  They called to offer me the job at 16:30. I report for a preliminary hour of orientation tomorrow at 9:00.

  • 19:57
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