Early the next week I found myself again on the phone with Ryan. Briefly he told me that I would be interviewing downtown at one of the government buildings, He said I would meet with a woman named Jesse, a ***** System employee who would prep me for the interview with someone else. While I was still trying to piece together what exactly was going on I decide to get my interview gear together. First I gathered my newly bought interview suit, I took my laptop messenger bag to carry some paperwork in.
The next day I rode the metro downtown, and went to the building, where I was to a minor degree interrogated by the security folks, after they saw my drivers License, and I gave them my social security number I walked through the metal detector, they asked me who I was here to see. I reached in my pocket for the information I had printed out. I had directions to the location, Directions to the second location, where I would discuss benefits with Ryan, but for whatever reason I did not have Jesses last name or phone number. I was even fumbling to remember her name. Was it Jesse, or Jerry, or Sherry? I had no Idea.
In my attempt to grasp at last straws I called Marjee. “Could you look up my email and find the name of the woman I am supposed to meet down here?” I franticly asked. Marjee, who is by now as accustom as one can become to my frantic ‘I lost everything- please make it better’ calls said she would look it up in five minuets when she got to work.
As some of the slowest ten minuets of my life pass before my eyes I think ‘what am I doing here’ several times. As my phone rings, the ring tone associated with marjee’s phone, the thought passes and after poorly directing marjee around my cluttered email box I have her name, which will be able to get me her number from security. The guards now give me her number, and as I triumphantly call, no more than two minuets late…. I get her answering machine.
Burned.
I leave her a message; tell her I am in the lobby. And return to the bench in the lobby, waiting. After about half an hour, I ask one of the guards for her number again, to leave a second message. As I tell him her name he says. “Oh, She is right there” A woman had just come around the corner and announced “Oh, Hi you must be Trevor. Come with me, these guys know me this is all ok.” I followed her outside. After introducing herself to me she told me I would be meeting with Sandy, who would interview me. Sandy apparently is in charge of the division I will work for. She is not a ***** System’s employee, she works for the government. Jesse apologizes for being late; she has apparently just gotten there. She informs me that Sandy is also running late, and will not be there for half an hour. So we wait for her to come in.
Eventually Sandy shows up, and we get to the interview. I regale them with my finely crafted “I got a bad grade on a paper and then I got a good one” story, and a few other yarns and they seem to like me. The interview wraps up and Sandy has to get back to work. Jesse tells me that I will most likely have an offer very soon, and thanks me for coming down.
As I left the office and walked over to the **** systems office I found myself wondering at how bizarre and convoluted it all seemed. I thought ‘well that other job is probably about to come through, so this is just a back up, I can handle that.” But alas I never heard from the other job and after a compelling discussion of their benefits package I started to think this could be a good deal after all.