Mr. Chi-City

Title: Steven goes to Chicago or how I learned to stop worrying and love the interview

Chapter One: in which Steven takes a plane to Chicago

My flight was at 3:40 and I ended up waiting at the airport for 2 hours. Me and Brian would always complain when my dad when this on our family vacations. I told my dad I was 2 hours early in an email and he replied "You can laugh at your parents and make fun of the way they do things, but in my experience it is hard to avoid doing things the way they taught you." hmmm, too true.

I made the mistake of not checking in for my flight online ahead of time. Because of this I ended up in the last group of people to get on the plane. As such I was stuck in a middle seat. I really dislike open seating for airplanes. What's the point? It's good at splitting up families. Also there was an announcement that unaccompanied children between the ages of 5 and 11 could board early. Wtf, would anyone let their 5 year old fly alone?

Chapter 2: in which Steven eats dinner with some guy.

I arrived at Midway and met up with the other Cognizant candidates and we took a paid for ride to our hotel. Most of the other candidates disappeared after check-in but one was in the room across hotel from me and we decided to grab dinner.

Now this guy wasn't weird in the conventional sense. He was just one of those people you just think is kinda off and can't put your finger on it. He makes fun of himself for being short several times and mentions how he often has to buy kids clothing. He brings up middle school and how he hates it and it's pointless. I don't know what happened to this guy in middle school but he sounds pretty upset about it.

Dinner was Italian food and since I kept the receipt it's all on Cognizant. Having not eaten all day it was pretty much the best food ever.

Chapter 3: in which Steven tries to sleep but ends up listening to Staind all night
10:00
I felt lucky to be tired at 10pm that night. Having spent all week staying up until 4:30 I was worried falling asleep was going to be an issue but I nodded off at about 10:30.

12:00
I wake up. There's a lot of shouting in the hallway and there's obviously some drunkeness going on. Sounds like there was some sort of party. Ok whatever, I've been drunk in a hotel before and I'm sure I've woken people up too, no big deal. I fall back asleep in about 30 minutes.

2:00
I wake up. There's music. What? Why is there music? So the party animals turned out to be in the room immediately adjacent to mine. Apparently this party had moved to the hotel room. though the wall I can hear Staind playing. The Chorus comes and the bros sing along. "NOW THAT WE'RE HEEEEERE, SO FAR AWAAAAAAAAY." This is just getting silly, but I'm a patient man and this party's gotta be winding down since it's already late. I ignore the shitty tunes and fall back asleep.

?:??
I wake up. What time is it? There's music still pumping through the walls. Ugh, enough is enough, I pick up the phone to dial the front desk. I have trouble finding the button, it seems like the phone changed since last night.
"Hello this is the front desk"
"Yeah I'm in room 709 and there's music playing."
"Ok, hold on"
I wait in my bed, still up because of the music. There's a knock at my door, I guess they want to check in on me before they go over there. I answer the door and they turn on the light.
"Hey thanks for calling, take this" I'm handed a battery operated device that shoots knock-out pills. "You might need that in case they try to come in here while I kick them out."
"Can't I just keep my door closed."
"No we need you"
He also gets the guy across the hall to do the same thing. Maybe he called in too?
There's an altercation in the hall but slowly the people file out the room. I guess security was successful. However one guy remains and waltzes into my room. I fire a pill at him but miss and he ignores it and smirks.
"Hey, sorry about the music" He says sarcastically. "Can I have some of your candy?" He gestures towards my big cardboard box of candy.
"uhhhh, sure" I don't want any of that candy and I'm not even sure where it came from anyways.
My musical friend leaves my room.

4:00
I wake up. Ugh those surreal dreams always get me. But the idea to call the front desk is pretty good as music is still coming through the walls. I call down and they send security up to deal with it. Through the wall I hear them being kicked out of the room. I feel a little bad about it since I just wanted them to shut up not get kicked out. Oh well, that's what he gets for eating my candy.

Chapter 4 in which Steven has an interview.
The interview's from 8am till 12pm. I arrive on the dot and eat the breakfast they've provided for us. We have a video conference with the Chief technology officer then head to different rooms to be interviewed. I guess I'm last in line and they only have so many people. So I spend 40 minutes on my droid before anyone comes in.

The first interview is the technology interview. I mess up a bit here, I didn't answer his questions about classes the exact way he wanted. I don't know if I would have come up with words like encapsulation. These are all easy concepts, but the words to describe them are a little more complicated for me. Oh well, I rebound a little bit later in the interview we at least get a report going on and it ends out ok.

The second interview is all premade questions about business type situations. For example "Name a time you disagreed with a policy and what did you do about it." I think I nailed these questions. I think I had something relevant to talk about at every question and at least fairly interesting. He seemed to like the answers well enough too.

Overall one really good interview and one ok interview. I'm hoping that's enough, the main recruiters also seem to like me. I should find out monday if I have a job.

Chapter 5 in which Steven returns to AA
We leave immediately after the interviews. The guy I ate with dinner was in the car to airport along with two others. He brings up how he hates middle school again, hmmm.

The airport has a store called "Nuts on Steve." I keep my distance.

Again the plane has open seating and I'm stuck in the middle seat. Damn you southwest. The actual plane ride is short though at 1 hour and I feel glad when I arrive back in Detroit.

After I make my way through the airport It feels good to be driving back to AA. "Raise Your Glass" is on the radio. It's no "I gotta feeling" but it'll do.