Today was a fun one. LoL!
So there wasn’t a whole lot, today, but I suppose I’ve still got a whole lot to talk about. The day started off in the morning taking my wife to work. Got home and I did some work around the house to prepare for my interview.
I got into the interview early. Weirdly enough they had the Zoom configured where I couldn’t turn my camera on before joining. However, upon joining I was quickly snapped at and told it was required to have my camera on. Immediately I’m like “Okay, but you didn’t have it set to allow me to turn it on before joining, cuz I tried.” Soon as I turned it on, it freaking defaulted to my SpellCam! Thank goodness I didn’t have anything inappropriate on the playmat that they’d see! I just had my Switch, SteamDeck, and GPi 2 cuz they all had to get taken off the chargers during yesterday’s storm. So I had to scramble to correct that and get it on the webcam, instead. The moderator didn’t really give me time to correct it though, they just threw me into the breakout room with my interviewer.
In the breakout room I was on cam and solo for some time. I asked ‘Hello’ a few times, and got nothing, so I muted my mic and cam for a moment, figuring the interviewer would join and turn on their cam. They didn’t, though. So I turned my cam and mic on, and then was ready to start interviewing. The person asked a few questions, while off cam, and I answered promptly. After a few questions though, I simply asked the interviewer “I noticed you’ve yet to appear on camera. The moderator did make mention that appearing on camera was required, but was that just for interviewees?” After he turned his camera on he asked me, “There, is that good?” to which I replied, “Nice to see you!” Following that, he responded with “Now that we can get started with the interview.” which kind of made me have a bit of a shocked look on my face. Sorry, didn’t realize I was holding up the process by just asking a question. I’d kind of feel more comfortable having the person interviewing me on camera, as well.
That being said, I brushed that off and allowed him to proceed. When we discussed the pay, it was pretty acceptable. Additionally, even the drive would’ve been fine. It would have me commuting, but my wife and I could actually commute with her starting her new/old job again. LoL.
Then came the talk of the schedule. Mr. Interviewer explained that training has 2 schedules, either ending at 6 PM or ending at 11 PM. You apparently don’t get to choose, they throw you in whatever. Sure, fine, whatever. Training is training and I can put up with classes in the evening for a while.
Then he explained about the schedule. That one was where he kind of burned me.
It would’ve been evenings required. At first, I could’ve handled that, for a time. But I didn’t think I had agreed to evenings, cuz I try to leave evenings open for my wife, my hobbies, etc. However, the current job market doesn’t really give me much of the opportunity to be awfully picky about jobs.
That being said I would have been very happy to engage in discussions, however when I tried explaining about my evening duties, he interrupted me a few times simply stating “You don’t get a choice.” Which shocked me even more. This dude was just so nasty that he gave me horrible vibes. The whole time it just felt like he had this huge chip on his shoulder and that all I was doing was just inconveniencing him by hoping to find a role with his organization. It was immediately at that moment that I chose to prove him wrong on the statement he had just previously made. I immediately responded that this just didn’t feel like a fit for me.
To be honest though, I probably could have even tolerated the evening schedule for a little bit. However, the multiple accounts that made me feel unsettled just made me think if I wanted to inconvenience myself with a terrible schedule, plus a 20+ mile commute, dealing with this guy, AND be working a schedule that would require I return home after 11 PM every night, meaning I would be most likely asleep every morning my wife leaves for her job and unable to do much to visit with my wife in the evening cuz she’s an early to bed kind of gal. As soon as I had connected all those dots, I said “Fuck this, I’m out.”
After the interview I started to heat up lunch and get ready to head out to Nellis Auctions to pick up my and Josh’s prizes. While I was getting ready I chatted with a few of my professional colleagues that I keep in contact with. I was thankful to get feedback from several of them, as well as my wife and my brother, all agreeing that they felt I dodged a huge bullet with this role.
While preparing my lunch I decided to follow the advice of one of my colleagues, and try to contact their recruiting department to see if there was a way I could issue feedback about my experience. So I hung out on hold while getting my salad ready and heating up a slice of pizza in the toaster. (We don’t have a toaster oven and so the toaster on its side is a great alternative for small slices of pizza.)
I was on the call for almost 15 minutes with the hold music, with frequent automated check-ins reminding me that all reps are with someone, and I could press 1 for a callback. I figured ‘fuck it’ cuz I had nothing better to do, so I was gonna wait thinking it couldn’t take that long. After about 10 minutes of hold music, suddenly the music stopped and all it was, was just the same recorded message asking me to ‘Press 1 for a callback.’ over and over again. So finally I replied to the IVR system with “When are you going to realize, I don’t have anything better to do than to hold. Put the music back on.” IMMEDIATELY after I said that, the IVR’s recording changed from the simple ‘Press 1 for a callback’ to ‘PLEASE ENTER THE TEN DIGIT NUMBER FOR US TO CALL YOU BACK ON.’ in the most stern of voices I’d heard. It was nuts. And then it said ‘YOU HAVE ENTERED AN INVALID NUMBER.’ and then repeated the former statement. Immediately I was taken aback thinking aloud ‘Is the IVR system now getting aggressive with me, too?!’
After that, I was certain that I didn’t need that level of aggression in my life.
Finally I hit to road to Nellis and got back in time to head back to be able to go through most of the items. Before getting home I stopped at a mechanic and asked to check the brake rotors that Josh got for Mimi’s car for practically a steal, at $20. They said they were in perfect condition, so then I hit the road back home.
At home I sorted through the rest of the stuff. I got this badass lamp that is for an Architect’s desk with really improved the lighting on the SpellCam. I made a short clip demonstrating it in a test table, check it out!
Of the rest of the stuff I got, I got this portable Android Auto device. I wanted to really like it, too, but the audio output was so poor that I couldn’t even improve it with the stereo equalizer. It was just far too tinny of sound, so it’s going back. In addition to that i got this planner, but it wound up being an academic planner, so it ends this August. LoL! Then I got a phone microscope device that clips over the the camera and is supposed to magnify up to 200x.. I couldn’t quite get it to line up with the camera, but I’ll tinker more with it.
The other great thing I got, though, was $20 for a $100 pair of MammyGol rollerblades! They’re not the greatest quality boot, compared to my old K2 Catalysts I miss, from High School, but they remind me quite a bit of the entry-level pair that was my favorite childhood birthday gift. That first pair of skates practically lived on my feet. It was my main source of cardio growing up, and kept me extremely on into college for some time. I actually have begun to quite miss it, and can’t wait to get pads and begin practicing to get back into the routine.
I then headed to pick Cecily up from work. After our adjustment we came back home and she cooked dinner while I headed out to Smoke Station, a nearby smoke shop, to see about some part time help, as well as possibly helping them with their site.
They didn’t need help, but they did mention that my friends and I could hang out at the shop and play Magic on Fridays, once they got a table in, unless I can find one to bring. They’ll also have regular snacks at some point, too, so it could be a cool spot to hang on the occasional Fridays with friends and my brother playing Magic for a bit.
I came home to pasta and salmon for dinner and we hung out for a little bit, but Ces was pretty tired so we wound up passing out on the couch during ‘Chopped’ so after the episode was over she went to bed and I decided to chill on the computer for a bit and watched some more ‘Evil’.