Go Sooners? Part I: A New Hope

Sitting in the Austin-Bergstrom airport at the mo.

So I might as well admit it to the world: I'm heading to a job interview.

You heard me correctly. I'm trying to get a job out of state. Not that I want to leave Texas. For Jeebus' sake, I was raised in a briar patch. And I always vowed that if I were to ever leave Austin it would only be to move overseas.

So I lied. Sue me.

I won't get into the many reasons why I want to leave my current employer, but for many reasons I'm D.U.N. with them. The reason I ended up here all started back in January, and I was (to put it bluntly) pissed off. I mean slamming doors, opening up a text document for the sole purpose of seeing how many different curse words I can type in, going outside to chain smoke kind of pissed. So mad that I called D. D (I'll come up with a pseudonym later) was a guy I had worked with for years. Different company, but a lot of communication. We've worked really well together and last year he even tried to recruit me. I said no at the time since I had just gotten a recent promotion and I didn't feel like leaving Austin, much less Texas. We talked for a while, and that's when I discovered that my company has a less-than-stellar reputation in the industry. I asked him if the offer was still open. Unfortunately there wasn't a spot open, but he know a place (another company I work with rather often), and it was still in Texas. So in Feb I went up and interviewed. That's a story for another time.


Fast forward to a month ago.

The Drama Llama in my office had just just given birth to a whole litter of little dramas. And they were breeding. Fast.

I think they were part tribble.

I got a call from D out of the blue. He wanted to know if I was still interested.

I tried everything in my power to not scream out, "FUCK YES! Can I start tomorrow?"

Now don't misunderstand me. This wasn't just an opportunity to get out of my Reality show current job. I really respect D and the company is in the Forbes 100 best companies to work for third year running. Plus opportunity for growth, they'll pay for me to go back to school, stock grants, bonuses, awesome benefits, etc etc. Plus D would be my boss, and he's so kickass I'm surprised the company doesn't freeze solid from his awesomeness on a daily basis.

In all fairness, my current company has a potluck in the conference room at Christmas.

Hard choice, I know.

Anyway, he told me that he was making a presentation to his Sr Veep to get a position created on his team, and he wanted my resume and salary requirements. Read that again. He was soliciting me for a job that hasn't even been created yet.

After the presentation, the position was approved and we worked out a date for me to come up for an interview, complete with flight/hotel/rental car/gold-plated bacon...

I know, it was very wow.

I took a half-day today and all day tomorrow for the interview (8am tomorrow). Of course as I was leaving, I was handed a metric assload of work that needed to be done before I left. Of course like any respectable, hard-working individual such as myself, I promptly set the pile on my desk for Monday and left.

I left skid marks.

The ride to the airport was uneventful. I managed to drop Murphy off this time and get checked in. The DHS screeners weren't even douches this time.

Fast forward to now. The flight was scheduled for 4:10, and it's currently 5:40. That's right, all the biblical storms that had been razing Oklahoma City had now moved to D/FW, where my connecting flight was. Current update: flight is now delayed to 6:20.

Did I not mention it? The job is in Oklahoma City. Theeeeeeeeeeeere's the only real issue. The perfect place for a tree-hugging, agnostic bleeding heart liberal democrat such as myself. But if this job is as great as I imagine then I can deal. I lived in Denver for Jeebus' sake.

New update: It's now 6:45 and the flight time has been pushed to 7:40.
New new update: 7:55, flight time is moved to 9:05

I figure I'll get in about 12:30 now, which will give me a chance to get about 5ish hours sleep. Plenty of time for an insomniac such as myself.

New new new update: 9:35, and we're finally boarding.

To be continued...