February 13, 2008Day 17

I'd been planning on using this week to recover from the disappointment of the first two weeks.

No responses to any of my applications, nothing but frustration and my birthday coming up Wednesday (now today). It seemed like a good time to recharge the batteries.

Then I received an email from an HR director who'd seen my profile on Monster and wanted to discuss my background. Finally! The position looked a bit outside of what I'd been looking for, but interest is interest and I was happy to have it. I responded and set up an interview by phone for 2PM today.

I started the day by attempting to sleep in, but unfortunately The Editor called and woke me up so I could sign for a package she was expecting in the AM. Once up I decided to spend my birthday playing Madden 08 on the Wii. After a couple hours of video game-generated reverie, I was getting close to interview time, so I put down my controller and picked up my computer, ready to look at the websites I'd set up previously to provide work-related anecdotes to the interviewer. This is where things started to go wrong.

My phone rang. I checked the time: 1:55PM. "A little early," I thought.

It was my mother. "Hi! Happy birthday! By the way, we put Toonces down yesterday."

Toonces, my family's cat since I had been in high school, had lived a long and angry life. At 18 years of age, kidneys failing, his time had come. I'm not much for signs, but finding out about Toonces five minutes before my interview didn't seem to bode well (thanks, mom).

After saying goodbye to my mother I received the call I'd been waiting for, and it didn't go well. I believe that I represented myself well, but my area of expertise didn't quite match up with what they wanted (as I'd previously thought). Web developer, as it turns out, means different things to different people.

The call dragged on and at a certain point I lost interest. If I'd pushed, I probably could've gotten an interview onsite, but why bother? She and I both knew it wasn't going to work, so better to cut my losses and look elsewhere.

Happy birthday to me!