Stormy Interview Results

Stormy, because I'm watching a strong thunderstorm approach from the West, over Utah Lake. Just beautiful...

Interview results, because, well, the results from the interview are back. Let me explain the whole situation.

First, read Angie's blog from last night.

Good. Now, here's how it all went down. We showed up there a few minutes early, a little flustered because our printer decided to only be "half there," printing only half a line (like the bottom half, not the top), so we had to stop by campus to print our resumes there. The building is one of those beautiful stone and brick office buildings on North University Avenue before Riverwoods. We walked up the stairs to the 3rd floor (forget the elevator - we needed to get rid of nerves) and meet some guy at the front desk of the suite. Something seemed a little odd at first. He's wearing a polo (nice one, but still a polo), and jeans. "Hmm..." I think. "Relaxed kind of guy."

Then he greets us and asks Angie to wait in a side room while I'm interviewed. He takes me back, starts the small talk, then asks me who I know that works here. Suddenly I begin to think that maybe, just maybe, this isn't the interview I thought it was. As my palms began to sweat I looked up at him with a completely natural face and explained that with all the phone calls we made and resumes we sent out, I can't really remember who it was that referred his company to us. (Meanwhile I'm wracking my brain - "This isn't the Costco guy! Who is it?!?")

At this point I realize that my Heavenly Father really does love me. Just as I'm about to spill the beans and announce that, in reality, I have no idea what company this is that I'm interviewing for, he says, "Why don't I explain a little what we do." I bit my tongue. "We're a customer service call center..." I shook my head as if it was an expected comment, while internally I was screaming out of relief and thanking my Father in Heaven for His obvious hand in keeping me from stuffing my foot in my mouth.

He went on, but for the minute or so afterward I was sort of lost, wondering how on earth I could have mixed up the interviewers and how I was going to tell Angie before she stuck her foot in her mouth. I quickly rerouted my Interviewing Strategy from Finance stuff to phone calls/customer service/sales, which took a few seconds to jive in my head, then began to proceed with the interview as if it was completely planned. We were interrupted for a moment when an employee knocked and needed his signature on a document, during which time I stealthily snuck out my phone and texted Angie "this is the call center".

Anyways, to make a long(er) story short, this was the call center my sister's friend works at and gave me the number to, since they hire for the summer and expect everyone to quit once school starts again. Which is what we're gonna do anyways, minus the school starting thing.

He wants to hire me (he can't hire both of us because the company doesn't allow family members to work together) full-time, 9-5 M-F, and I said yes.

To thicken the plot...

20 minutes after I shook Mr. Call Center's hand, the Costco guy called. We have interviews tomorrow at 11am... Oh dear...

Currently Unemployed

Well, it definitely has been awhile and we're definitely back in Provo. Not just from the Singers tour (we've been home from that since May 26) but from family trips to Texas and Las Vegas. Devan and Bekah both graduated from High School so we had to be there to celebrate! It was great to see family, relax and not really have to worry about the real world.

But as I told you before... we're back in Provo, which is as close to the real world as we get. Anthony and I both had jobs on BYU campus and because of our recent graduation in April, we're no longer qualified to get paid by the university. So where does that leave us? The "currently unemployed" status. We're not really students anymore but we're not really full-time job material either. We're only in Provo until the middle of August which gives us a less than 7 weeks of working time. Every morning for the past week and a half we've checked craigslist.com, monster.com, the Daily Universe and even the Daily Herald for job openings. I'm even guilty of creating a profile on a few babysitting websites in hopes of some income.

So all of you who have had the intimidating task of job hunting probably understand our frustrations. We've also had quite a bit of free time, so we've gotten into the habit of window shopping (more like browsing around stores because we have nothing else better to do.) Costco has been one of our favorites. Mostly because they have so many free samples! :)

This past Wednesday, we were browsing through the kitchen aisle in Costco and I spotted a very nice set of bamboo utensils. As I was having an internal struggle of whether to buy them or not (we really do need a wooden spoon) a man started eyeing the same set. I wasn't really paying any attention to him, but then he started to ask me questions about the set. (tangent: Honestly, when strangers start talking to me, I try and give the shortest answers I can. I don't start conversations, and I don't really like sharing personal information. You probably think that sounds rude, but I just have a hard time making small talk with someone that I don't know and probably won't ever see again.) Anyway, after asking me about the wooden utensil set, he asked us if we were planning on buying anything. Odd question, but I guess it is small talk and we are in a store. Anthony is much better at talking to strangers than I am, so he answered him by saying we were just browsing, but mostly wishing for things we couldn't have. The man then asked us if we were wishing because of space restraints or because of the lack of income. Another odd question, but Anthony just went along and replied that it's really for both reasons; our apartment is the size of a cardboard box and we both have no income at all.

Then the man's personal interest in us all made sense as he started to tell us that HIS financial office was hiring part-time employees right now. What are the odds? :) We told him that we would be leaving in August but he said the company is nationwide, so there's no reason to worry. He nicely asked for our names and phone number and said that he would be contacting us soon for interviews. Not too bad.

So after all of this job hunting on the internet, we finally found an opportunity in the kitchen aisle of Costco. Weird. He called us earlier today and both Anthony and I have interviews Friday at 3:30pm. This guy we met (I don't even know his name) said that he mostly helps older people plan for the retirement, but the website said that it's a mortgage home loan company. By tomorrow, we'll see what we're actually getting ourselves into.

So for right now, we have one possibility and we're really hoping that it works out. So be sure to send us some good vibes tomorrow around 3:30pm. :)