Findings, unknowns and afterthoughts — part I

Interview 1 — the first dream job

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Quickly after being put on furlough I secured my first interview with a company that could offer me the dream lifestyle as an employee — fully remote and fully flexible working hours. Why this? Because of my former lifestyle as a musician, when I learned that there is a law behind being productive and efficient. If respected, nothing else besides success follows it.

A phone call from a lady came around, in a random afternoon. She told me I could earn even more than I thought I could in my career early stages. That was wow. I was told she also happened to meet the other one, a colleague who had already been made redundant by the same company I was employed by . He has a job now, by the way, already… She told me all these and she secured the initial conversation with the man that made me believe.

Tuesday, 2pm and there it was — a video call about myself and the company. A small company that was about to become… all went well and I was invited to the technical interview. Happy days.

Wednesday, probably the following week, one could find me in front of the computer trying to relearn everything about Typescript.

Thursday, around 2pm, if I remember correctly — the second video call. I was stunned. The interviewer told me we would go through a coding exercise for around 1 hour. ‘Have you heard about the Game of Life?, he asked. I said no. I had no idea what to do. I knew I had to talk through what was happening in my mind and I froze. I know I cannot talk and think at the same time, or at least this is what I know about myself.

It was all a mess, but some things did make sense to me. He told me that, as frameworks come and go, there was no point in him testing me on that.

I was too happy about the opportunity to have the work lifestyle that I wanted. I told him that and that I enjoyed so much the exercise, that I would continue working on it. Too genuine I guess.

I did continue working on the exercise and I noticed that all I mentioned the interviewer about how I would test the implementation was a lie. There was so much more I could have done and I eventually did. Yes, I did not know to tell what was not already planned and foreseen. I was just talking and making random assumption.

I felt sad. I wanted to thank him for the opportunity to work on that exercise. Eventually I did write him, giving him also the opportunity to tell me I was not what he was looking for — too young and immature.