First off, thanks for all the well wishes. I truly do appreciate y’all’s thinking of me.
I went to dinner at Chow last night with Brandy and Tony. (Brandy, whom I know from college, works at the company I’m interviewing with. Tony, her boyfriend, is the same guy that went apartment searching with me.)
Turns out Tony was being much more diplomatic before in his assessment of neighborhoods. He really really loves where he lives and was strongly recommending that I move somewhere near them (which is… Dolores Heights, I think…).
So that general area (Dolores Park, Noe Valley, Castro, maybe Glen Park, maybe the Mission) is where I’m leaning towards. For the commute, for the atmosphere, for easy access to public transit and to the only people I know in town.
Brandy said that she knew everyone I’m supposed to interview with and that they’d all be pretty okay. A couple guys were managers of other groups, on par with the manager of my potential group. Another couple guys would be co-workers in my group. She said my FDA experience was a huge plus, and that on-the-floor troubleshooting and follow through are also good.
She also warned it would be a long, grueling day. I figured it would be. What day of interviews isn’t? Having confirmation didn’t make me feel better, though. She was talking about how she’s had to interview people, usually playing the nice guy and just asking casual questions, and found out some really strange things about people who otherwise seemed okay.
I wasn’t at all worried about making a good personal impression, but it’s sometimes a struggle for me to remain engaged, particularly when I’m tired. I’m glad that I had the managerial types in the morning and the peer types in the afternoon. I thought the latter would be easier to relate to and I figured I’d totally be dragging ass by then.
And I was. My brain is mush right now. I didn’t feel like any interview went particularly badly. I didn’t feel like anyone was particularly tough. I did feel like I told some of the same stories over and over again. I do feel like I made a good impression as far as my people skills and the softer stuff, but my lack of direct experience in the area might be a problem (I’ve sort of danced all around it, but never done anything exactly like this before). I was actually expecting more technical questions than there were.
Now I’ve got to call the HR guy for a wrap up. That’ll have to wait until tomorrow when I’m fresh.
And the waiting begins…. *tick*tock*tick*tock*
