Another interview and fun with Raymond

[thrihyrne]

Yesterday I had a follow-up interview with the company I'd gone to see last Friday, the one that was disappointing in that there were 6 of us and basically it was an overview of things, but did give them a chance to put a face to a name and a personality to the resume. Which apparently was enough to bring me in a second time for a more in-depth get-together with the two staff members I interacted with. I have a really good feeling about this, given the kind of verbiage they were using. I should mention this is a young company, only about two years old, and it appears that the other few customer service reps are *quite* young. In fact, the training assistant, who was the first person I met with, indicated that they were looking to hire a person who had a bit more experience— and it was implied would be less likely to gossip in an area that has lots of women. Neither of these things are really PC necessarily (since they shouldn't hire based on age or tendency to be chatty or lack thereof), but frankly I don't care. I think I'd really enjoy being there, despite the commute. The hours would be 10-7, and I would have 90% inbound calls from agents who have sold a health insurance package and I would then go through the application with the person, filling it out and double-checking information the agent put in. Now, that could sound a bit repetitive, but frankly, the idea of going somewhere, interacting with different people every day but getting a chance to become quite masterful of a new software (something I've always grooved on), and then leaving it all at the office and going home sounds fabulous. In the background of all of this is the conditional offer I've had for two weeks, the one that will allow me to work from home. The only reason that I've kept on with my job search as diligently and aggressively as I have was 1) in case the offer fell through for some reason 2) they couldn't start training for several weeks. I still don't know the salary offering for the health insurance position — they've been unnecessarily coy about that — but the HR person asked what I'd been making as a kind of ballpark, I suppose, so I gave her the 3 most recent. We'll see. Of course I'll keep you all posted!!

Raymond is Julia's (my roommate) brother who arrived late Monday afternoon from southern California and will leave early tomorrow morning. Julia's mom visited before, and I really enjoyed her company (she's 100% German and a hoot), and I must say that having Raymond around has also been a lot of fun. He tosses off random funny sentences and also happens to be a pretty good cook, so we've been eating quite well during his stay. Any time he and Julia have gone out he's made mention of the beach and not forgetting sunblock: it's been in the 40s and 50s and rained every day here, as is quite expected for Portland this time of year. Then there was the first morning he was here, and he'd programmed my phone number into his phone in case he got lost going to the closest grocery store. So he left, I sat back at my computer, and a few minutes later my phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number, so I answered as I normally would in that situation, "This is [Thev]," and then hear, "Do you miss me yet?" I'd thought perhaps it was a recruiter, but it was Raymond, still in Julia's older Volvo outside of the house, trying to get it to start. :) My BF Jen will be coming Friday evening on the late side and staying through the afternoon on Sunday, which will be great but too short of a trip for my taste. *sniff* But now that she's up across the river in Vancouver, WA, I can go up there on the bus and spend several days visiting her sometime next month. It's all good!

Oh, and my wireless router from Amazon was successfully installed and I was able to have a short, weeknight video chat with my NZ guy. So exciting! He looks just like his pictures. ;) And I'll never tire of that accent…