Here Comes the Pride

So, stuff has finally wound down at work. I hit a personal best of a 75 hour week a couple of weeks ago. It was at the 60th hour when I decided being payed a salary over hourly blows. I grew up significantly through the process.

As a reward to myself, I'm going into a third interview with a different company than my current employer. The job is a significant pay cut, but it's the natural next step in a career path. Plus, it's been like 7 years at a job that I took because the benefits were good if I were to start a family. That's no longer an issue. I'm more apt to start a fight than a family at this point.

In preparation for my first real job interview in almost a decade, I've been looking at some articles online (useless). All it's done is psyche me out. On the other hand it has made me remember some interview debacles from early in my career. One of them may have been a million dollar mistake. Literally.

The first one was on a third interview when the interviewer asked a wrap up question of "Do you have any questions for me?" Being young and retarded, I asked her "If Eddie Munster's dad was a Frankenstein and his mom was a vampire? Why was he a werewolf?"

Needless to say I didn't get that job, however I did learn never to do that again.

The big mistake happened at Google in 2002. It was a shitty adsense inside sales job, but the company was still really young. They had headhunted me out of Arthur Andersen after we were indicted for the Enron scandal. I was a little frazzled by the whole ordeal as it was my dream job. I worked as a mailboy at an Andersen Consulting when I was going to junior college and I had made it to the point of getting mail brought to me by one. It was the American dream, but per usual, Lucy yanked the ball at the last second.

Anyway, I go to Google when they had one or two buildings. Nothing like the campus they have now. There were still jelly beans everywhere and roller blades in the hallway, but nowhere near where they are today. I still had to get a name tag, but there was no NDA or anything.

I hit my first three interviews like a rockstar. I was killing it. Witty. Charming. Interesting. Then, this dude that looked like Ted's dad from Bill and Ted's walks in. He was the International sales manager or director or something.

We started off very light and he started prodding my marketing background as it was a sales position. I discussed the similarities and differences between the disciplines and how ultimately there should be a synergy with them both to enjoy success on both sides of the ball.

The next part is where I fucked up bad. He stood up and started talking down about marketing, which I felt very passionate about at the time. I let it go on for about ten minutes and noticed that there were people waiting outside of the conference room. As a chip became evident on his shoulder, his voice started raising. In my head, I start thinking maybe this is one of those tests in the interview process to see if I have a backbone. I stood up and continued the conversation face to face with him. I think he found it a sign of aggression. He must have done some prison time and had an adverse reaction to eye contact.

We wrapped it up as the conference room was clearly belonging to someone else at that point and he left almost pissed off.

The recruiter brought me to my next interview where I met with a guy who I would be working with. He was pretty much telling me that he had heard that I did really well and couldn't wait to work with me. I kinda told him thanks for the compliment, but it wasn't going to happen, most likely.

So, the question I'm left with is: "Was my pride worth possibly a million dollars?"

At this point, no. On the other hand, a million dollars will barely buy you a house around here and to buy pride is nearly impossible. Yeah, a nice car may give you sense of it, but it's not pride.

Moral of the story? Tomorrow, I'll take a beating if it comes to it. I have nothing to lose and can shake any dust off that I pick up if attacked. Also, the Munsters mailman was a werewolf. No need to ask the question.