The Demon Werx

I have been in my current position for over a year, I have been patiently and impatiently, at times, waiting for a position that is attractive, high profile, and actually important.

The position that I decided to go for was not in Server Ops or Network Ops, its actually a business position that handles the communication between the departments in restorting services (any system or process that affects the business or customers) if something happens to them. It’s a really cool position because its on the business side of the IT division that in a sense “wields” the powers of the IT division to get things Done! (this is not the official position nor is it how I will perform the job if I got it).

So I got the first, second, and third interview for this position and I have a feeling I am still in the running even though they have not made a decision officially about the position yet.

All in all it has been a great experience and something that got me in front of managers and a director in the IT division, and my first real intense and serious interview. I have interviewed for a number of roles in this company but none on this magnitude.

Interviewing tips for myself and others when going to a high profile interview:

1. Pay attention to the persons asking you the question and do the absolute best you can to understand the question. Answer these questions as honestly and openly as possible.
2. Relax, its an interview be composed and collected.
3. Before you go make sure you have a number of experiences that you can share demonstrating characteristics of your strong and weak points. (I will explain the weak parts in a second).
4. Focus on your strengths, don’t get conceited but don’t give them a doubt that you are the person for the position.
5. When they ask about your weaknesses or mistakes you’ve made share ones that you learned and improved from, it is impossible to not make mistakes it is not acceptable to make the same mistake repeatedly.
6. Prepare 2 or 3 questions about the position, don’t make them easy, but ask serious questions that will get you detailed responses.
7. Relax and be yourself, life is not based on this interview.

Yeah, so I have yet to find out if I have it… I will let ya know.

~Paul

We buy our house and get a land line…

Our first land line received numerous and very annoying calls exteremly late at night, I called my phone provider and they changed my number.

Recently we started receiving calls from Sprint attempting to contact the previous owner of my phone number because they owe money. I don’t like recieving calls when I am trying to sleep, so I decided to be pro-active before my big interview and nip this problem in the bud… it didn’t work.

I called Sprints phone number from their ‘contact us’ page and ended up talking to sales. I explained my issue and they transfered me to the finance department. I explained my issue to finance and they transfered me to customer care. I talked to customer care they sent me to another department, finally I ended up in “collections” that turned out to be finance again. After speaking to an agent in Finance who was told by her supervisor to tell me to unplug my phone at night and deal with it I asked to speak to her supervisor. The supervisor “Chris”, Supervisor of Finance, listened to me for about 7 to 15 seconds and hung up.

I called back and spoke to another person (sales) who sent me to customer care again and this time they gave me the Sprint Corporate phone number. This number connected me to corporate alright, however it was more corporate security. I spoke to a gentleman there who sent me to the regional security officer Mike (I won’t put his last name in here). Mike was trying to be helpful, at first, and then said it would take to much work looking for my phone number as the land line is “not a required field” and that even though he asked for my phone number there was nothing he could do. Mike recommended that I unplug my phone because Sprint had sold the account to a collector and cannot (will not) do anything to help somebody in my position.

Sprint may have won this round… but they suck, their customer support is horrible, their supervisors hang up on people without notice or good reason. They will never get my business out of this.

Looks like I will be changing my phone number again, oh great… the gambit begins again.

~Paul