One (Long) Fine Day

Ok, so here's what happened during and since my Arizona trip last Thursday. To recap a little, I had two interviews scheduled until the day before, when another company (Vcommerce) replied to the resume I sent them. We had a phone interview and then set up for me to meet with them on Thursday morning.

I got up at 3:52 am, put on my best suit, and was out the door by 4:30. My flight left on time at 7:15, fortunately before the snows came in and left a few inches over Utah. I arrived in Phoenix, picked up my rental car, and headed to Scottsdale to meet with Vcommerce. They had a nice office space, and I met with the manager over Production Support in the "Star Wars" room (there was a life-size "Han Solo in carbonate" sitting in there). He also brought in an engineer who was recently on the same team to "talk tech" with me. I think the interviews went well. The position, for those interested or confused by the title, is basically to make sure the servers and programs running their money-making software stays up and running. And, if something goes wrong (or I notice something is going to go wrong soon), then we dive in and find out what it is and let the developers know how to fix it. You have possibly used the company's software before without even knowing it. They handle online transactions for Target, Overstock.com, MTV, newegg.com, and others. They have a piece of software that customers see when they shop at those websites, and a back-end piece that makes sure the orders are processed correctly between the suppliers, shipping, and customers. Anyway, we had a good chat and I think I'll hear from them with whatever their next step is this coming week, maybe by Wednesday.

Next I grabbed lunch and headed for GoDaddy.com. I was probably most excited going into this interview, and most deflated leaving it. I tend to judge a company on their website, and GoDaddy's website is a bit chaotic, but I think they are a pretty stable company. Well, the chaos continued on the inside. The inside of the office was pretty sloppy for a business, for my taste. I noticed the carpet probably wasn't the cleanest, and the walls needed to be repainted. The office space seemed a little like a labyrinth, and the security desk at the front reminded me a little of the pillboxes in the banks in Guatemala. My interview didn't go at all as I thought it would. It seems they were looking at me for a different position, and had some preconceived notions about me based on where I was coming from. I felt a little attacked by one of the interviewers, but not at all about my qualifications for the position I was there for. They seemed to want me to prove why I wanted to work there, rather than see if I was qualified and show my why it would be great to work there. Needless to say, I don't really expect to hear from them, and don't anticipate accepting an offer from them if one did come.

The GoDaddy interview got over early, partly because one of the people they wanted me to interview with was out with the flu, so I raced over to Mesa and stopped for about 5 minutes with my Grandma-ma and Grandpa, and then another 2 minutes with Mom, Amy, and Baby Rock (Brock, Amy's 5-week old). Then I raced back to Scottsdale and made it to CareFX just in time and had about a 2-1/2 hour interview. Their office was also very clean like Vcommerce. This company creates web portals for physicians to use to see hospital patient lab results (or other information) from anywhere. My dad and Cassi said this is pretty cool technology. I interviewed with a handful of different people, each quizzing me about different areas of my technology knowledge. I think the interview went pretty well overall, and should hear something from them before next Friday.

After that interview I fought through traffic to go return the car, where I met up with Dad, and we went over to the airport and ate dinner at a Chili's they have there. We got to talk about the interviews and stuff for about an hour and a half or so. It was fun to hang out there with him. Then I went through security, to my plane, and went back home, arriving in Springville around midnight. Somehow I made it through the day without spilling anything on my suit. Don't ever say miracles don't happen in these latter days! :)

I feel like I should call this last part the epilogue. Our story continues to Friday when I got back to work at Novell. I met up with my manager and some coworkers in the hall and we talked about what had happened the day before at Novell. Then someone asked how my day was the day before. I said it was fine. My manager asked if I was in Arizona, and I said yes, and that I had been interviewing (I don't try to rub in anything with Novell as to my plans for departure - I've tried to let my manager have as much information as he wants me to give him). He invited me to come to his office. When I got there, he said he and his manager were talking about opening a requisition to replace me during the day before's staff meeting. Someone in the group asked if they thought I could work remotely, and long-story a little shorter, they have informally offered for me to work remotely from Arizona. It seems I can have the best of both worlds. I can continue to work for a manager and with a team I have really enjoyed, but also I can move to Arizona and enjoy that experience as well. Nothing is official, and I still have these two companies out there possibly preparing offers for me, but it was a great surprise for me. I've thought before about working remotely from Arizona, but never thought it would be an option for me. I don't know yet what will happen from here, but I'm excited about my current prospects, and I'm thankful to be valued so highly by my manager. I have to say that I feel we're being blessed right now as a family. This is a crazy time for us, and a huge decision, but one we're trying to make carefully and prayerfully. Cassi and I both got to go to the Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting this past Saturday, and I really enjoyed all the counsel given. A lot of it spoke between the lines to me. I think I'll have to put that into a separate post. I'm thankful for inspired leaders and the help of the Spirit. Your continued prayers on our behalf are deeply appreciated. And of course, any comments on which job you think sounds the best (or anything else) would be fun to read and consider.

Oh, one more thing. Our house officially went on the market (as Katelyn says, "our house is on sale!") last Tuesday morning. You can see our listing here.