And yes Donny, we’ll stop by the In
and Out Burger
So yeah, I was in
San Jose to interview with a big company who shall remain nameless,
but you could probably find them with some sort of Internet search
engine. To answer all questions, here’s a quick running diary (in the
style of The Sports Guy of espn.com)…
Thursday morning
Stuff is all packed in B-lo, eating breakfast and watching TV, when I
find Wayne Brady interviewing William Shattner about paint ball. Read
that sentence again. Comic gold, I hope the rest of the weekend goes
this well.
Thursday
afternoon
Traveling to San Jose with a quick stop in O’Hare. The only notable
thing so far is my $15 sandwich and beer lunch at O’hare (fuckers)
and the fact that 4 kids under 5 sat behind me on the 4.5 hour plane
ride of Chicage-San Jose, and were incredibly well behaved.
Thursday
evening, Hertz rent a car
Desk guy: “Allright Mr. Jay, we have you’re rental all set, how
does a hardtop mustang sound?”
Me: uhhh, yes that will be acceptable (score! And note, do not buy
hertz stock, because if they think giving a 22 year old kid a rental
sports car is a good idea they shouldn’t be invested in).
This was followed by me heading to my sweet hotel (pics up soon).
King sized bed, pool view, free Internet, free hot breakfast, mint on
pillow, certainly not the HoJo. After settling in, I give Donna
(friend who graduated RIT and was in the fraternity), who currently
does PhD work at Stanford. Donna was the man (so to speak) as she
took it upon herself to show me around town. We hit up a nice Italian
restaurant by Stanford, then on to the local dive bar, which shall be
remembered for good beer and free peanuts which are shelled to the
floor. Unfortunately, I had to leave around midnight (which my body
took as 3am) so I could be ready for…
Friday morning
The big day! I awoke around 7am, leaving me 6 hours to panic and
prepare for the interviews that started at 1pm. I studied, showered,
studied, ate, panicked, studied, paced, panicked, studies, watched
crappy TV, studied… see a pattern? I left way too much time to
think about this interview. Finally it’s time to put on the suit…
Friday
afternoon
You know, for something I’ve been preparing weeks for, this whole
section of the day is a blur. Beautiful office buildings in an
otherwise non-descrept office park, free water, juice, soda, a cool
rec room for employees, and one small interview room I spent 3 hours
in. Lots of tough questions, but I think I came through very well.
Add in a final half hour talk with a nice guy from HR (if I keep
meeting nice HR people I may have to change my opinions, but thats a
story for another time), and I was on my way. It really felt like
the whole thing took 5 minutes. I honestly only remember parts. The
rest of the day was simply winding down. I drove around the area, and
eventually came back to eat Thai around Stanford, which was just too
much for me, being physically and emotionally exausted. I sleep at
11pm.
Saturday
The whole day to myself to explore! After scarfing another
complimentary breakfast, I see more of the area. Nvidia, Intel, Sun,
Network Associates all are in a half mile of each other, kinda
trippy. From there I hopped on 101 and went into the south end of
San Jose, to the Santana district. Lots of cool clothing shops and
cafe’s, which although looked intriguing, doesn’t really fit in with
a single guy, so I just window shopped.
After hopping back in the mustang, I look at the map and realize I
have a straight shot of highway to the ocean, down rte. 17 to Santa
Cruz. Here I shall tangent: How the hell does The south bay not have
a single east-west highway? Its like everyone in San Jose has no
desire to have a quick 20 minute, 20 mile drive to the ocean, they’d
rather loop back and forth on North-South highways at angles. So
anyway, I start driving 17, which seems nice enough, then I see a
nice flashing sign “Curvy highway,next 8 miles”. The
mustang is now scared, it can sense what will happen next. The
following ten minutes was some of my finest driving (topped only an
hour later on the drive back, when it got even better). Santa Cruz
itself was nice, but it seemed odd that ocean front property would be
so ghetto.
Now here is the hardest question I had to face in the weekend,
including the interview. Within a quarter mile of my hotel there was
both and In and Out burger (best fast food burgers on the planet, and
prominently featured in The Big Lebowski), and a Chipotle, the best
fast food buritos, which I’m only able to have once a year when I go
to Maryland. Being that I went to Maryland the previous weekend, I&O
burger won out, and it was delicious. I also mistakenly opened the
door to a mustang that looked just like mine, setting off quite a
loud alarm (who has an alarm then doesn’t lock their doors?!).
Saturday Night
Myself and Donna drove up to San Francisco to meet up with Teddy (who
was a fashionable 2 hours late) and friends for dinner. Dinner was
in a hip little restaurant, with conversation taking the debate of
weather a certain person working was a waiter or waitress (either
way, it had a great rack). Dinner was followed by drinks at a few
local holes. For those who drink in Rochester and think big city bars
are somehow better/more classy, they’re not. Your just paying $3 more
a drink to watch the same group of 20 somethings drink and dance to
the pop 40 stuff. Still fun though, me and Donna kicked ass in
fooseball. Somehow I was awake enough to make the drive back to San
Jose at 3am. The 2:30am pizza must have helped.
Sunday
Typical long day of travel, with bonus points for “wearing the
same clothes a last night” and “going cross country on
three hours of sleep” and “running across O’Hard because
you didn’t realize your connection was delayed along with your first
flight”
And now I’m back in buffalo looking for a new car, because my old one
is dead.
Thanks for reading.