December 15, 2014: Interview Day

Today is going to be just super busy.  I woke up at two in the morning and could not figure out what time it was.  Finally got back to sleep and was back up around four.  Fell asleep a little bit more but was finally up around five thirty and gave up on getting back to sleep.

I got up and started getting ready.  My interview is at ten thirty in Menlo Park which, I am told, is roughly ten to fifteen minutes away from the hotel so I do not need to leave the hotel until ten. That is more than four hours away.

I did some reading this morning.  And I spent a lot of time on the phone.  I talked to some recruiters about the status of a few companies that I am looking at on the east coast – one in NYC and one in Boston.

I got a chance to talk to my recruiters about the Barclays situation too.  I found out that that offer was official rescinded on the flight yesterday but I had not had an opportunity to actually talk to anyone to get the scoop to see what had happened.  We are happy to finally have closure on that, as depressing as it is.  Yesterday was two days short of four months since that entire process began.  It really put our lives onto an emotional roller coaster, one that has not stopped yet.  It is amazing how much change and upheaval was caused by that job offer!

So in the end, Barclays was unable to hire me without being attacked and they did not have the stomach for the court battle.  They feel terrible, both because it messed up our lives so much, but also because they are now stuck starting over on a process that has already taken them more than ten months.  It is a really awful situation for them as well.  It’s just bad for everyone.  We are very sad because there was just so much great potential there.

I got a little time to do more reading and to program for maybe an hour at most before I got the hotel room all packed up and went down to the lobby to check out and get a cab to go to Menlo Park.

I got to Menlo Park to the Facebook offices at a quarter after ten in the morning.  It is going to be a long day there today.  There was a light rain.

It was a good day. I was there until a quarter till five.  A very busy, fully packed day.  I felt good all day but by the time that we were wrapping things up for the day I was feeling pretty tired.  Having traveled all day yesterday and getting so little sleep and then many hours of intense interviews just left me ready for a rest.  But there is no time for that.

I grabbed a taxi and rode in heavy traffic up to San Francisco.  That took almost an hour and a half.  That added to my exhaustion.

It was after six when I got to Jeff’s office.  But one of the founders and the technical hiring guys stayed behind to make sure that they would get time with me.  I did several interviews while I was there.  We squeezed in a bit and stayed until nearly eight!

Sarah picked Jeff and I up and the two of them took me out to their local diner for dinner before taking me on to the airport.  It’s a “local” diner chain from Oregon famous for their pies and they really did have the best French Silk pie that I have ever had.

I got to the airport a bit on the early side.  My flight is at eleven thirty and we were there at a quarter after nine.  But best to just get to the gate and relax.  So they dropped me off and I went and camped out at a work station at the gate and got some writing done while I was there.  I love the San Francisco (SFO) airport.  It is the nicest airport that I have ever been in.  They had playground facilities for the little kids too.  And tons of power and work spaces for people to get things done.  And free WiFi.  And lots of great eateries.  I was quite impressed.

I had nearly two hours to kill.  Finally boarded the plane around eleven but due to a technical issue with the in flight entertainment system we did not manage to get off of the ground until nearly half past midnight!  I was really worried that I would not manage to make my connecting flight in Chicago in the morning.

I am flying a brand new American Airlines Boeing 737-800 from SFO to ORD.  This is the first flight that I have taken where there is a power supply for every seat on the plane.  I might have been able to use my CPAP but I did not try it.  I was fully charged up from the airport so did not need to use the power on the plane at all.  Very cool, though.

I had plenty of space on this flight.  It was very comfortable.  I read a little bit but not a lot.  I was pretty tired and spent a lot of time nodding off.