Post-Interview

It was hard waiting until 3pm for Jesse's job interview on Monday!  He initially scheduled it for the afternoon because he was thinking that Melinda had school in the morning... but it is Spring Break this week, so he totally could have gone in the morning.

Oh well.  He did need to pick up his suit Monday morning, anyway (it had to be altered at the store).  He did some more thinking preparation and printing off of references (and tried calling a couple to forewarn them), etc.  Then we just had to wait for a little while.

He finally ended up leaving the same time I did, at 2pm.  Yes, it was early.  The kids and I were walking over to a friend's house to play while it was sunny and oh-so-warm (too warm, at times...).  Jesse drove off in the van.  It was a 20-minute drive, and then he sat in the van until it was time to go in.

By the way, doesn't he look very handsome in his new suit?  It's a dark gray, and it's got a stripe to it, if you can't tell in the picture.  The stripes alternate a blue and yellow color, actually.

Jesse finally called me, on his way home, at almost 5pm.  He was in that interview for almost 2 hours!!  He was sort of expecting a somewhat casual phone-interview type of meeting (in person, since he's local).  What he got was a 2-hour interview with the whole engineering team (at once!), and with a company only 13 people big, that included a VP, CTO, etc. 

He says it went pretty well.  Not "knock their socks off!" sort of great, but nothing to complain about.  He could tell that they might be a little concerned about his lack of design experience, but he's confident he can do it anyway.  He's done design (including CAD) in college, and had played around with various CAD programs since then.  The program they would use is what he considers the easiest and most intuitive.  And Jesse just has a way with being able to imagine things in 3 dimensions, anyway.  Half the time I don't think I'd be able to wrap my head around sewing projects without his help figuring out how the shapes need to fit together, and he just always does a really great job at taking that same ability to figure out how mechanical parts need to fit together.  That was the only thing he personally felt concerned about in the interview, but he's sure that if they call his references (and we already sent off thank-you letter - which gave me a headache trying to help him compose! - which encouraged them to do exactly that), because his references are about 100 times better at talking up all of Jesse's great points than Jesse is himself.  In fact, Jesse tells me that his most recent boss, Frank, seems to think that Jesse is capable of anything. Doesn't that say a lot, coming from a boss you directly reported to?

Anyway.  It was long and exhausting for him, but went well enough.  Unfortunately, this company just got some brand new funding and are having to decide their moving-forward path.  They plan to double the size of the company this year, but they really have to nail down exactly what they want and need, so it's going to be a whole 3 weeks before we hear from them.  Urgh.  Not a fun wait.  The good news is that they're looking to replace their mechanical engineer first, as their current one is heading out to pursue robotics.  So if they do want Jesse, we'll know it sooner rather than later.

In the meantime, we keep plugging along!  Trying to get the most fun out of our Spring Break as possible.  Which is challenging.... because we had snow Friday night.  By Sunday it was melting pretty good.  Monday was sunny, as I said earlier, and a little too warm at times.  Today?  It's a blizzard out there!  We went swimming this morning, and it was fine and dry outside.  Partly sunny even.  At 3pm we started chore time, and it was starting to snow.  At 4pm I went to the grocery store, and it was sticking to the grass, but the roads and pavement were still just wet.  At 5pm when I got out of the grocery store, there was a good 2 inches of snow plus slush on the ground of the parking lot, and I had to sweep off the car before I could drive away.  Heavy, wet snow.  Windshield wipers didn't like a big pile of it too much!  And then we had the missionaries over for dinner, and when Jesse drove them home at 7pm, he said it looked like there was probably already 7 inches of snow!  Looks like we might get anywhere between 1-2 feet before it all stops tomorrow.  In the middle of our spring break.  But you know, it'll all melt within a few days, I bet.  It'll be back up to 50's/60's and sunny in just a few more days.  But you know... it's Spring Break for crying out loud!  Let us have some nice days to enjoy!

All whining aside, I really do get a kick out of this yo-yo sort of spring weather.  Never knowing quite what to expect... and it definitely makes me appreciate the warm, beautiful days more fully.  But I think if I live here for any big chunk of years, I can see myself getting sick of it and just wanting it to stop.  For now, I'm still happy to enjoy it, and laugh about it.

And that's where we're at!  We hope you'll keep thinking of Jesse's job search, and praying for him.  And we'll certainly keep you posted with any new information!