Why so exhausted?

Spaz decided I needed to be up well before my alarm this morning. Luckily I went to bed early last night, so I could toss and turn until the wee hours, fretting about my interviews today.

My first interview was by phone with Cleveland Clinic. I think it went reasonably well, though I'm not quite sure I trust this guy's judgement. He originally tried to make the appointment outside the times and dates I gave him as available. Today we got halfway through the interview and he closed the notes program without saving. We had to start all over. At least I got a chance to be technically helpful. "Don't you have the option to save after entering into each field?" "Yeah, but you have to scroll way up to do that." "Is there a keyboard shortcut, like Control + S?"

The end result is, he said he was recommending me for the position. I don't know what that means, other than I passed the first round of cuts. I don't know how many other people have been recommended for the position, and I don't know how many positions are open. It's apparently in the hiring manager's hands now. I should hear something in about two weeks. If not, I call this guy back.

I had time to get out for a run in between interviews. My last few runs have been sans GPS, music, and heart rate monitor. I'm running by feel, walking when I need to, and just trying to get the miles in. My body is tired. That may be because of stress. It may be because of the massive amount of stress eating I'm doing. It may be because I've been pushing since I decided to ride the bike everywhere. Doesn't matter why, since I'm still going to get out and run as often as possible. I just won't push things until I feel more better up to speed.

I spent a good bit of the run planning how I would run to work if I got the Cleveland Clinic gig. It's only 4.5 miles away. I have to have my car there, because the recruiter guy said I may need it to transport hardware to one of the many Clinic locations. I figure I can drive Monday morning, then run home Monday night. Tuesday I can ride my bike there, then run home. Wednesday I would run in, then bike home. Thursday I would bike in, then bike home. Friday I would run in, then drive home. That gives me a "rest" day, for as long as I can bike in. By the time there's too much snow to ride the bike, I ought to be able to run both there and back. It's only 9 miles a day instead of the 10 I said I ultimately want to do, but that can be remedied by taking a different route (and maybe running at lunch).

At this point, this is my dream job. The pay is awesome. The duties are doable and varied enough to keep me from getting bored. The career potential is pretty rad, too.

The second interview today was a marathon session at Hyland Software. First there was the 40 minute drive to get there. I'm not particularly thrilled about doing that with traffic, although apparently I can do so either before or after rush hour, which helps.

Walking in the door, there is a ping pong table and a pool table in the foyer. Walk through another set of doors and there is a tube slide from the 2nd to the 1st floor. Everyone is walking around in long shorts, capri's, sandals and flip flops. I sign in using a touch screen and am given a visitors badge to wear.

I arrived on time but missed the start of the PowerPoint presentation, because I decided I had enough time to stop in the rest room before the festivities began. Ooops! It didn't seem to matter though. There were 6 of us being interviewed in that time slot, with 3 time slots scheduled in the day. They apparently have 30 spots to fill, though I don't know if they are all for the Quality Assurance Associate positions.

After the PowerPoint, I was invited to follow Keith, who at first thought my name was Karen (not even close!). Not sure where that came from. He took me to meet with Jerry and himself in a conference room literally right inside the cafeteria. They asked me a lot of the same type of questions I've being asked in all my interviews. "Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult person." "Tell me about a time you had to solve a difficult computer problem." They asked how they would know if I am stressed, and went more in depth than any other interview I've been on, but the flavor was the same. I think I did ok, though I'm not sure what exactly they were looking for. I'm not cringing about any of my answers, at any rate.

I was with Keith and Jerry about 30-45 minutes, then escorted to sit on a couch for another 15 minutes before Lindsay came to get me. She gave me a written test and set me in a room. I did not do so ok on the written test. I've studied some SQL, but apparently am lost without my notes. I do not know what a test plan looks like, so I bullshit my way through that. When asked to document the steps in making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I wanted to say "first, you substitute almond butter for peanut butter, because I'm allergic to peanuts." I didn't, but I should have.

Lindsay collected me and took me into another room, where she asked some questions similar to those Keith and Jerry asked. I used the same examples at least twice, that I used in answering the original set of questions. I did get a bit more information about the company before being escorted to the central couch again.

The final portion of the interview was with Jeff. He took me upstairs and grilled me on my computer knowledge. I am so happy I have Superman! I would not have been able to answer several of the questions correctly if I hadn't learned about those things from him. There were only 2 questions I couldn't answer, and they were related to internal networks. Once he told me the answers, I was able to relate them to my experience with internal networks and servers, so hopefully that was good enough. Jeff also had me find a few things on a Windows 7 laptop. I told him from the start I'm more familiar with XP, and mentioned in the process that the laptop wasn't set up the way mine is at home. For instance, I have the Run command under the start menu. Luckily, Windows always has several ways you can do anything. I did find everything he asked for, though I did have a misclick or two along the way.

I should have an answer "within a week or two," and Jeff didn't know if they take the time to tell people who weren't chosen. I call Lindsay if I have any questions.

I drove from the interview to my Mom's. I'd ruined her coffee table in all the furniture moving around to paint the living room. In my defense, it was already severely damaged. Regardless, it had to go out on the lawn for the garbage men, who happen to be coming in the morning. I planned to do some other work there today, but was simply too tired. It's exhausting to be "on" over the course of several hours, especially for an introvert like me. I'll be at Mom's tomorrow for the better part of the day, getting everything all pretty and everything.

Next interview: Thursday morning.