Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Updates on Life, the Universe and Everything

Since I've had so many questions from my RL friends about either my sister, my job interview, or both, I thought perhaps I should update here as well.

Sister is still in the hospital. Baby Katherine was discharged today. Her Mimi (Sister's M-I-L) is there to help take care of her and big brother David, which is great. Sister is still in a great deal of pain, although they're trying to wean her from the really heavy stuff in preparation for sending her home. They have to have her blood pressure stable for 24 hours before she can be discharged, so the hope is tomorrow, but we'll have to wait and see. When I talked to her this afternoon, her last reading had been "a little high," whatever that means. She did have Katherine, hubby and Mimi there, so hopefully that was helping. My small group and church are praying, which is appreciated.

My interview with Large went reasonably well today. I "flunked" the technical portion, or at least parts of it. I went in telling them that I hadn't done a lot of technical work, and I'm sure they were trying to find out where my limits were. It, um, didn't take them very long.

They ask me to do a theoretical plot (something I haven't seen or thought about in a good 10 years). Only two ways this plot could go. After an hour of technical questions, I'm too brain-dead to think, so I just guess... wrong. "Take us through your thought process," they say. "Why did you graph it that way?" At that point I know it's wrong; no one says that if it's right. I stare fixedly at the white board and pray for instant death. God elects not to grant my wish. Drat. I fix the graph. They ask me which area of the graph is "pass" and which is "fail." Again, without thinking, I just pick... wrong again. D'oh!

Worse yet, I came home and presented the same questions to Son the Older, who proceeded to... that's right, draw the graph right and guess correctly which area was pass. "Excuse me, Large Corporation? You'll be needing to hire my teenage son, not me..."

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyeah.

The non-technical portion was much more favorable (at least I think so). I just chatted with these nice men. They asked questions; I answered them. Talking I can do. Shocking, I know.

I would like to know why, when I knew I was going into this interview, I didn't prepare for some technical content, but siiiiiiiiiiiigh. Now they know they're talking to the least technical engineer ever. I can do that stuff; it would just take me longer to get up to speed.

Now I wait for them to tell me whether I'm suitable for one of their many openings. Whee!

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