Subconsciously... my deep personal thoughts.: March 2007

The Trip (Long Version)

Monday Morning:

I really felt bad about leaving Apollo at home by himself. I didn’t want to shut the door, with my bags in hand, headed off to the San Luis airport. It pains me to even think about it right now – Apollo is probably expecting me to return in 3, maybe as long as 5 or 6 hours… but I won’t be, not until almost 48 hours later. I can’t believe how much I’ve become attached to him. He’ll be a good boy, I’m sure of it.

I sometimes wonder how everything might’ve turned out if I had gone with one gut instinct over another. This morning, as I drove towards the airport I had the inclination of stopping off at the Starbucks that was in route to the airport. However, I decided not to because of two reasons: first, I didn’t know exactly where it was located and whether it was open or not; secondly I had sort of missed the turn and could’ve only made it if I was pre-determined to go (which I wasn’t this morning). I got to the airport, pretty much at exactly the right time to check-in my bag, walk through security, and board the plane with everyone else who had shown up earlier and had been waiting – except I didn’t wait, and I felt that there wasn’t any time to lose at all.

Imagine if I had stopped for coffee and taken that extra 10-15 minutes. What would’ve happened?

San Luis to LAX wasn’t anything bad at all. Small plane, but I had the window seat which also happened to be a single isle. We were there in less than 40 minutes, with minimum delay. As I got off the plane I was worried about 2 things: first, what’s going on with the bag I checked in? Secondly, where the heck was I supposed to go to find my gate? The lady had announced it over the loudspeaker – with as heavy of a Hispanic accent as you can get – and I had missed it. However I went with the flow, and took the shuttle to the American Airlines gates. Upon arriving at the main terminal, I found my flight, and quickly dispersed my first worry (about the bags) by asking someone at the counter. My mind was settled as I was comforted with the fact that it was checked to go to Raleigh, so I breathed a sigh of relief and continued about waiting in line for 10 minutes for a cup of Starbucks.

LAX is busy… people everything, going every which way about their own business.

This second plane was completely full to capacity, and I was stuck in the middle of a 3 person row (of which was about 3 rows from the very back of the plane). I slept the first hour or so, followed by reading up more on Cisco and attempting some SuDoKus. I started feeling nauseous as we were about to lane, and then even claustrophobic as our plane was delayed a good 10-15 minutes from docking at the proper gate.

Through these flights, I have still yet to see any Cal Poly students who are attending this interview event – what’s more, I haven’t seen any college looking person, period, who might be headed my way. I wonder how many people will be there? I sure hope my bag will arrive there as well, otherwise I won’t have anything to wear…

Austin is somewhat warm.

So I finally board the plane, and the size of the aircraft was about the same as that of the one I got on at San Luis. I now know exactly how many passengers it sits, because I was stuck at the very last row (#13), but at least I got the single-window-seat out of the row of 3 again (thus 13 x 3 = 39 passengers). The plane ride itself was okay and I didn’t feel as nauseous as I did during the 2nd plane. We landed about 10 minutes behind schedule, but I got out and retrieved my bag which had arrived safe and sound and awaited the shuttle to take us to the Hilton. As I was waiting for the shuttle I met a couple of guys who were here for the Cisco thing as well. So we get to the hotel, we check in, and I had just enough time to walk into the room and unpack a bit, hang up some shirts, call mom, get dressed, and it was off to the social event.

The food itself was pretty decent (I just now realized that I didn’t get a chance to try out the pasta or the dessert table), and the setting was kind of weird because they had no chairs, and only about 4 or 5 small circular tables about chest-height for people to set their food down on and eat off of – I think I made a good assumption later on, that it was to encourage people to move around and not too settled into one spot. We just chit-chatted among all of our potential SE’s, and got to talk to a manager who answered as many questions as we could think of. It was pretty much like that for about 2 hours, of which in the middle the lady who was in charge of the logistics of the whole event went over the itinerary for tomorrow and had the 4 or 5 managers introduce themselves.

I’m a bit nervous about tomorrow… I mean, I’m sure everyone is but I am more nervous now than I was originally.

The demographics of all the potential SE’s that are here really didn’t match what I was expecting. There are surprisingly more black people than I thought, but I think that has to do with the fact that I’ve been at San Luis and there is next to none there. Also, there is a wide array of majors here… well that’s not completely true because while there is the weird ones (math, physics) there are also a lot of those weird technical names that you just didn’t hear at Cal Poly. Majors that all sounded blended together like “computer-network-systems-analyst-administrator-technology-information-engineer-with-a-BS-in-computer-science”. Next, the locations of the people: there were surprisingly about 50% of the people were local (from North Carolina). And lastly, there were A LOT of older people. Quite a few people with/studying for/graduated with their masters and a small handful of older folks too. Oh and did I mention there is NO ONE from Cal Poly here? As a matter of fact, I think there was about 3 or 4 people from California altogether.

You can’t be nervous, you can keep saying that to yourself right now and you WILL be nervous tomorrow, but just say that you aren’t nervous. Relax, you’ll be fine – even if you aren’t, at least tell yourself that you’ll be fine.

I really don’t know what to do about the white papers. I’ll read them again before I go to sleep, but that’s all that I can do. I need to get my clothes ready too, I still don’t know which shirt I’m going to wear… and I’ll need to re-pack so I can check out before all the events start tomorrow. Oh yeah, I “get to” register tomorrow too, but I won’t get the chance to because I’ll be busy all day… I really hope I do well. Based on the way some of these people introduced themselves, I think I have an advantage at least in the public speaking part. Oh yeah, and I hope it’s not a panel interview – I really hope it’s one on one.

Remember, don’t speak too fast but project your voice. Think about what you’re going to say, and say it with confidence. This is no big deal… YOU are a big deal, remember that.

Tuesday Morning

The schedule we had received on Monday is as below (along with my own added items):

6:15AM Alarm #1
6:30AM Alarm #2
6:15AM – 7:00AM Shower, dress, pack, go over white papers again, check-out at front lobby and check bags at counter
7:30AM – 8:00AM Breakfast and registration
8:00AM – 8:30AM Welcome & overview of the day
8:30AM – 11:30AM Interviews & presentations
11:30AM – 12:30PM Lunch
12:30PM – 4:30PM Sales simulation & group activity

The night’s sleep was NOT all that comfortable… don’t get me wrong, the bed itself was VERY comfortable, so were the pillows, and the room’s temperature was set to a nice 70 degrees – everyone was much better than at home. I finally managed to fall asleep, and I awoke the next morning with a sense of extreme confusion, followed by horror as I looked at my “alarm clock” cell phone:

7:38AM

As I now recall this morning’s incident, I am reminded of a Seinfeld episode, but I’ll save that for another time.

It couldn’t be, it just couldn’t be! I DID NOT JUST OVERSLEEP ON MY INTERVIEW DAY! Deny it all you want Glen, but the current time is staring you in the face – and you’ve overslept and are late.

In my massive state of panic and confusion, I jump out of bed and ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. I threw on my clothes, tied my tie, put my shoes on, grabbed everything from the bathroom and dumped it into my bag (not before brushing my teeth at the speed of light with just water), wet my hair, grabbed all my other clothes and shoes and dumped those in to my luggage, cleared the desk of all my paperwork, all in about 5 minutes. I run down the hallway, and thankfully the check-in table was about 50 feet from my room (I was on the first floor of the hotel by the way).

Kristi – the lady in charge of the whole assessment center and checking in – told me to breathe, and that I was okay. I looked at the time:

7:52AM

I stopped and thought about it, and with the reassurance of the 2 (maybe 3, I can’t remember back to that state of panic) ladies, I realized that all I did indeed miss was breakfast. There was another guy, Michael, who didn’t seem to be in as big of a rush/panic as I had been but was just then picking up his nametag too. I learned (as we walked to the front counter to check out) that he had overslept too. To this minute right now as I’m writing this (on the plane from Memphis to LA) I honestly am not sure what happened that made me late. My two alarms were set, I had checked them the night before and double checked the time for AM/PM discrepancies. When I woke up this morning the 6:15AM alarm had gone off, and had been turned off somehow. I can justify by believing the room to be too comfortable (and the jetlag) that I simply slept through the whole thing. However, my 6:30AM backup alarm DID NOT go off, as it was still active and absolutely intact, as if it had just passed it by. My phone WAS active and in a ringing mode. I’m dumbfounded.

My head was still spinning as I sat down in the Orchid Room and awaited the day to start. There was a presentation, and then it was off to my first of 3 evaluated events that day. This first one was an interview… with how many people? I did not know. Was it going to be technical? I did not know. I walked in expecting the worse, but ended up getting the best. It turned out to be a 1 on 1 interview with a Senior Systems Engineer Manager named Tom, who was super cool. We barely talked about my resume, and we really just “shot the shit” for about 20 minutes after I told him what a great fit within Cisco I would be, why I wanted to work for the company, and all my leadership/teamwork/sales skills I had. He even gave me “insider” tips to another interview event later on that day (the simulation) and told me that he only tells about 5 people and that I should keep quiet about what he told me. What a guy.

This was as great of a start as I could’ve gotten, minus that part about sleeping in. I’m on my way to becoming the next Cisco employee.

I went back to the Orchid Room after that and listened in on the presentation regarding the simulation. It wasn’t very helpful, but we did get a handout with more information about the logistics of the whole thing. It was about this time that I thought about my luggage and whether or not I got everything out of the room in my mad state of panic this morning. I got another key from the front desk and checked – and indeed I had left a dress shirt (which was what prompted me to go back in the first place) as well as my Cal Poly sweatshirt. I looked around in the living room and my bed, and my other pair of GLASSES caught my eyes. This was the pair I had worn to bed and taken off and put next to my pillow. Boy, it was a good thing I went back.

We had lunch, then it was time for my sales simulation. It was short (they kept it within 15 minutes) and I honestly thought I did a good job with it. One of the main things that got every candidate worked up was the fact that there was probably going to be more than 1 person there, and this is where we were supposed to implement all the knowledge that we were supposed to have extracted from the white papers. I had my “hints,” and afterwards I asked the Manager, Patrick, who I interviewed with (yes, there was only 1 person again… I lucked out) for feedback. He basically said I should’ve asked more questions and talked less… let him talk and tell me about his company/institution as well as himself. I knew I was supposed to do that going in, but I didn’t. However I had good points, such as an agenda.

Okay, that went pretty well and definitely could’ve been worse… but at the same time you knew about asking a ton of questions and making them talk. Stupid. Your flawless interview run today is over, but the door hasn’t shut yet.

The last part of the assessment that was left was supposed to be a mystery for those candidates who haven’t gone yet. It was a group exercise, but that’s all we knew. It turned out to be a really weird situation in which a group of 5 of us candidates had to get together, and create a paper airplane as a group – all the while a panel of 5 Cisco managers looked on about our teamwork skills. We had to then take what we built, and was told that it was to be made into a real plane for Cisco executives to fly on… and we had to create a sales pitch to those evaluating us. After that time limit was up (I was given a hint by a fellow friend/candidate that time was an issue so I voluntarily acted as the official timekeeper for our group and moved everyone along) we had to give a 5 minute presentation in which we all had to speak for 1 minute. My 1 minute was probably more like 30 seconds of stumbling around with an aspect of the plane that I had no idea what to say about. However, I did the introduction of the team and somewhat of a conclusion before Q&A – which by the way, our team was GRILLED and had to come up with some BS answers. Unless they found positive things about my teamwork other than the fact I kept time and kept the team on track, didn’t dominate any type of decision making, and wasn’t a loner or stubborn teammate – I most likely received an average/poor on my presentation. Teamwork wise, it’s a toss up.

I don’t feel confident anymore. The feeling I have right now feels a bit alike that of the one I had as I got last quarter when I finished my case-study interview with Deloitte (except that time I knew I had bombed) – but the feeling is comparable. It’s like, well you did excellent in 1 aspect of the day, but you did only average or maybe screwed up altogether on the other parts.

I’m probably not getting this job. (SIGH).......

The ½ Mile Airport Madness Run

So after the last assessment event, I grab my bags and head for the hotel shuttle and proceed to the airport with about an hour’s worth of time to catch my plane. I get to the United Airlines counter, and performed a little e-check-in thing at the machine and come face to face with this message:

Your flight has been delayed. The next available flight will be available at 6:50AM, Wednesday February 28th. Would you like to make this change to your itinerary?

Oh my fucking god. Are you kidding me? The answer was “no,” this was not a joke – it’s for real. I reluctantly made the change on the screen and wrote down the information.

So there you have it folks. I’m stuck in North Carolina for another night. I guess I’ll go join John Mark back at the hotel where we’ll eat the food of the 2nd group of 60 potential SE candidates in the social mingling I went through last night, spend a second night at the Hilton.

I suddenly recognized Emily, a girl I had met the first night at the reception. I told her about my situation, and she said that I ought to give the booking agency a call. I figured, what the hell, it’s worth a shot. I called, got a machine message, left a voicemail, and then called Kristi. She said she would forward an e-mail to the department and get someone on the phone for me hopefully. I didn’t want to miss the hotel shuttle back to the Hilton, so I walk downstairs and start waiting for the shuttle. Then my phone rings and it’s a lady for the travel agency and she reroutes my ticket. However, I was on the wrong side of the airport terminal and the new airline was across the street, through the parking lot, and across another street. I begin a fast paced walk, and was ½ jogging and a bit out of breath by the time I got to the counter. The lady at this new airline’s counter (North-western) gives me an “are you retarded look” as I told her in short breaths that I had to make a plane and I was rerouted to their airline. She looks me up in the computer and doesn’t find anything. I call the lady at the agency and tell her that they don’t have me in the computer. She was just about to give me a confirmation number to give to the lady at the check-in, when my phone goes dead because the battery came loose and I reached down to grab a pen from my backpack.

Is there really some type of god or omnipotent being that hates me this much and wants me to suffer?

I manage to get my phone back up in a couple of minutes, call the lady back, and got my boarding pass. At this point, I figured as long as I get to the gate I’m home free. I proceed through security and as I stepped through the metal detector and awaited my bags on the other side, the guy operating the X-ray says “we’ll have to look at this bag.” Okay fine, I ain’t got nothing inside, and I’d like to see you pull out something that didn’t belong. The guy checking bags then proceeds to take what seemed like 10 minutes with the guy before me, and finally he gets to me and pulls out my 2 bottles of sealed soda I had snagged from the night before. Oh fuck you. “You can have them,” I said as I took my bag and was on my way to the gate. Okay, Gate 15 is what I’m looking for. I see a sign that says “Gates 15-27” and pointed to the right around a corner. Okay cool, I should be one of the first gates. I look at the first gate around the corner, and it reads “Gate 1”.

Oh my fucking god. My gate is about ¼ of the mile down this damn hall.

I start into a full jog with my bag on me, and I kid you not – it was about a ¼ of a fucking mile before I got all the way down that fucking hall and got to the gate. By the time I got there, the guy was checking in what looked like the last of the passengers. I hand him my boarding pass, and he seemed to know who I was and said “there’s been a seat change” and gives me this new boarding pass (with my name on it) with a different seat. I guess he had been waiting for me. I was probably the 2nd to the last person to board the plane, and as I sat down I was sweaty and out of breath. The plane took off about 5 minutes after I sat down in my seat.

I really hope this shit is over. Haha, I just realized that I have my black dress socks on my feet, under my jeans and in my running shoes – this was due to my quick change out of my business attire at the airport before the whole rerouting process.

That plane ride was pretty uncomfortable, but I suppose that if I had known what I had to do in order to make this plane (and the corresponding connections afterwards) to get back to SLO by Tuesday night, I would’ve done it. The guy who sat beside me was a big guy, but it wasn’t that long before I got to Memphis. I boarded the plane at Memphis in route to LA, and this plane was relatively empty, as I’m sitting here now in a row of 3 (I got the aisle seat) and there is a lady next to the window but no one in-between us. I bought a box of snacks for $5 as this was a pretty long flight (the longest out of this entire trip) and I won’t have anywhere or anytime to get dinner.

Little did I know, that between the end of the last paragraph and the beginning of this sentence (…dinner. ______ Little…) will I experience something for the first time in my life, of which may not mean anything at all to some people in this world, but I felt was somewhat life changing and was a little piece of the puzzle in my life that fell into place.

The Stranger… correction… FRIEND on the Plane

On the flight from Memphis to LA, I sat in row 8, seat B (the middle seat of a 3 seat row). It seemed to be a pretty empty flight, as I realized that people stopped coming onto the plane and that the seat to my right (seat C) and the seat to my life (seat A) were both still empty. I smiled a sigh of relief to myself (after being crunched like a sardine in the previous flight), but just as soon as I did that I saw one last passenger sneak onto the plane. She had a carry-on bag, a plastic bag (of which I later learned was her dinner, a salad no less), and a cell phone in hand – she looked maybe in her mid to late 30’s. She walked up to my row, and pointed to the window seat (seat A) and said that was her. I got up to let her in, and decided to take seat C instead right as she said “they said I was the last one,” and I replied with “good thing you made it!” Being the person I am, I immediately passed judgment on her as she continued to talk on her cell phone even though the plane was taking off soon. The stewardess had to eventually come and tell her to turn it off, and I thought to myself, about time. The plane took off and I went about my business of typing up the ENTIRE story of Day 2. I then had my food, and did a couple of SuDoKus. I don’t remember how exactly we started talking, but I do recall that she was the one who initiated the conversation and somehow drew me in by asking me quite a few open-ended questions about my major. I’m not going to go into detail on everything that we spoke about, but topics ranged from our (potential) careers, everything I did at Cal Poly, a bit on our personal lives, education (philosophy, anthropology, even electrical engineering) and my most favorite topic of the night – our dogs. She was… okay I won’t call her she anymore, her name was Darian Corley… such a nice and easy person to talk to, and a very good listener too. I know that sounds stupid but you can usually tell when someone is just nodding their head like a bobble-head and listening to you go on and on about something they don’t really care about. It was so strange, because I felt that we connected on so many levels that it was a bit shocking to me that someone that I met, out of the blue, on an airplane, could carry on such an intense and interesting conversation for over 2 hours. It feels even weirder to say this, but not really because I felt it, that had she been my age I would’ve believed she was my soul mate or something. I know, I know… cheesy and so very stereotypical and movie-like. But like I said to her, I’m the kind of person who’s fairly easy to talk to and would definitely take more of these chances in talking to strangers if even 1 out of every 5 turned out to be like Darian. I was almost kind of sad when the pilot announced that we were going to touch down in LA, but I made sure that it would not be the last time that we ever speak (or at least communicate) with each other. I gave her one of my ambassador business cards and she left her cell phone # and e-mail as well. After arriving at the gate, we gave each other a hug and departed on our separate ways.

One more stop to go…and I’ll be home free. I wonder if my bag will get there okay? I wonder whether my car is okay too…?

LAX is such a big airport. After I asked a guy how to get to my last flight, I took the airport shuttle across the entire airport to get to the right terminals. I checked-in using this electronic passport scanner thing (yet something else new I’ve learned on this trip) and then had to go through security for the 3rd and final time on this entire round-trip. We eventually board the small plane, and suddenly I realized that I’ve gone from being at the very end of the flights that took me to North Carolina to the first 8 rows of each of these planes going back to San Luis. My seat this time was 1C, the window seat on the very first row. I felt privileged until the plane started, and that’s when the giant propellers of the right win’s engine started spinning and creating a huge vibration that would drive anyone insane. It really did suck and I would’ve traded my seat for one at the end of the plane just to get away from the noise – but I decided to just grit my teeth and take it, it was only 30 minutes after all. We touched down in San Luis at about 11:30PM.

I made it. My bag made it. My car’s still here. Now let’s get home and catch Apollo leaping happily into my arms.

Subconsciously... my deep personal thoughts.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

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