A job interview

Today is the second anniversary of my interview with the company I still work for. Nothing much remarkable about that; I've worked for a few companies in my time but this is and was my first American job!

You know that I've worked for Hewlett Packard and Unisys, both American companies, but those were the Australian subsidiaries and no matter how much they may have disliked it they had to comply with Australian industrial law. I won't comment too much on the new Australian industrial legislation, Workchoices. All I know about it was read on Australian news websites plus some commentary from Heino but I have to say that it certainly sounds draconian!

The first impression wasn't good but, having been in the job market for a year and a half with nary a bite I wasn't in a position to be choosy. Maybe 3 months after I started with em I was sent on my second trip to The Philippines, on the usual 3 hour notice. So fast in fact that the travel advance cheque wasn't ready when I got on the plane. No biggie, my wife could drive down to Tempe and pick it up.

As she told me 40 or so days later, when they'd finally allowed me to come home; 'it's not a very impressive office'. All she'd seen was the reception area and I had to tell her that she'd seen the best of it! It went downhill from there. A month of so later she saw the rest of the office and she had to agree I'd been gentle in my comments.

That was the old building; we've been in the new one half a year.

So back to the interview. I'd applied online for the job and got back an email saying ring such and such a number. Talking to them they intimated that I could have the interview anytime I liked tomorrow. You've probably worked out that I'm a night owl so naturally I went for early afternoon. 2 PM with the hint that it'd probably take a half hour or so.

It took over 3 hours! A good sign; if the interview is prolonged to the point that they wheel you into the big bosses office for an impromptu (from his point of view) chat that means they reckon you're hot!

I've had interviews where they bounce you around between this low-level manager and that one. No one willing to bite the bullet and say yea or nay. But if a prolonged beyond endurance interview encompasses someone with real power that's a good sign!

Our big boss is Indian and he tried to sieze upon what he thought would be a common thread between me, the Australian in the US and he, the Indian in the US. What did I think of the chances for the Australian cricket team? I reckon I must have been the first Australian he'd met who couldn't have cared less. Certainly the expression on his face when I expressed that sentiment was comical in the extreme!

One of the other guys who interviewed me had apparently flown in the previous day from Korea and was on the plane back there the day after tomorrow, so I don't blame him for yawning all the way through the interview!

Two years down the track I reckon this could still become a reasonable job but I've had a lot of smoke blown up my skirt to say nothing of the grief caused by Ed. Fortunately Ed is in the past but the smoke remains.