Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The Latest Adventure of Note

This entry is a bit complicated, and could be a bit long winded (for me). Monday began as many have, combing through recommended job openings and looking for new ones. I hit a particularly productive streak, where the jobs I applied for were similar enough to ones I'd previously prepared my resume for that I didn't need any more preparation for them. within 40 minutes, I had completed applications and submitted different resumes for 8 separate jobs, and was feeling pretty good about myself.

I spent the rest of the morning looking for others and took a break in the afternoon, entertaining the idea of repurposing my brother-in-law's old iPhone as an iPod touch. I was happy to see this could be done, just not with my current SIM card.

Not long after, I got a phone call by somebody who was looking at my resume. I was elated to have such a phone call not started by myself. The guy was calling about one of the eight positions mentioned earlier, an MDT Technician.
For those of your who don't know, and MDT is a Mobile Data Terminal, and can be used for any number of data collection/availability activities. Any time you sign for a package from UPS or FedEx, it's on an MDT. Many retail stores use them as well for tracking merchandise. They come in many sizes and shapes, so there's no telling exactly what it is in this case.
The gentleman wanted to bring me in for an interview THE NEXT DAY, which of course I agreed to. That day would also be the first day of school in Ohio for the kids. No big deal, right? He wanted to meet at 3:00pm (ummm... Bye, kids!), and started trying to give me directions for roads I had no familiarity with. I tried to cut to the chase and asked for the address. He didn't have the address for the particular building he was in, but gave me the address for their corporate headquarters, saying they were located across the highway from there.

I thanked him kindly for the appointment, said goodbye, and set out to look the place up. I hadn't been able to quite make out his name or the name of the company, but the address was sure to be of help. Allison and I set out to track down some information, along with figuring out what we were going to do the next day. We found out the address belonged to what was originally a local delivery company, now claiming to be among the premeire LTL carriers around (I didn't know what that meant, either). The company listing the job appeared to be unrelated, so we figured they were merely a placement agency, but even more curious, looking through the job listings for the trucking company we were unable to find any relevant openings!

After Allison got off the phone from telling her mom the news, she told me Lisa had offered to pick up the kids from their bus stop. This would allow Allison to go with me to the interview, which I was very happy for. I had never been to the city of Wilmington before.  There was  much discussion of which route to take to get there. I was happy to leave it in the hands of the experts.

***

Tuesday came along, and we walked the kids to the bus stop for their first day of school. After seeing them off on the bus, we delivered their school supplies to the school, shmoozed with their teachers, and caught them at the door to take them to their classrooms. Allison took me to the barber, as I was begining to be in need of a haircut once again.

We got back home to prepare for the trip to Wilmington, and found a cute little flag in our yard, indicating that our gas had been turned off for maintenance. Oh, really? We both took care of showering and such without running out of ot water, which at least felt like some kind of victory. After carefully selecting my wardrobe for the day, it was decided I needed a new tie. We left for Meijer to look for one on the way out to Wilmington.

Guess what? Meijer doesn't have ties in stock for "the season" yet. They just got their dress shirts in. Hmmm... T.J. Maxx had what we needed, and so we were off to Wilmington.

We found the company headquarters after a fairly pleasant drive out to the "country." The place was impressive, with a well tended water feature out in front. I walked through the revolving door into the lobby to ask for which way to their Tech Center, and was very politely given the proper directions. The place was easily found and we had about two hours to spare, but it was getting close to lunchtime.

We had lunch at the local convention center. Yes. The hotel had a convention center and a Max & Erma's built in. Our server was nice and we had fun eating our food and wasting time. Eventually the bad cable news became too overpowering and we had to leave. We found a parking spot at our destination and Allison and I discussed a few interviewey things.

When I got around to making my way to the building, I still had about 10 minutes before the appointment. I called the extention for my contact at the door and he came out to meet me, took me to a conference room, then left me with a job application while he finished up a meeting. He came back about 15 minutes later, with a few coworkers and the interview began.

We discussed where I had been, why I was in Ohio, why I wasn't with Intel any more, all kinds of different things they were looking for and how well I could fit those functions. I'm happy to say I believe I exceeded everything they threw at me, and I we all shook hands with smiles when the interview was over. After that I got to tour their shop and ask questions, which was also a lot of fun.

I left with a great feeling, which I'm still carrying with me the next day. Even if I they don't hire me, I'm rooting for them from the stands. They have a small operation, but they are quick and agile because of it, and they work with all kinds of gadgets all the time.

When we got back on the road. Allison heard from her mom that there had been some severe school bus snafus, and the kids were very late getting home. This gave me an idea for what could be done to make it simple for parents to find out where their kids were, or at least how long until the bus arrived at the stop, using technology simliar to that being built by the company I just interviewed for. Hmmmmm...

In any case, it was all very exciting and I had great fun! I hope I get the called back with an offer, as I would LOVE to work there.
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