November 16, 1999
I can't really write a coherent entry today, because I'm too nerve-wracked. Keith has a "meeting" at one of the places he interviewed at today, and I think it might be to make him a job offer. I'm really nervous. In fact, I'm probably more nervous than Keith.
I just really really really hope they make him an offer and he takes it.
I can't concentrate. Argh. What if they don't make him a job offer? What if today is just another group interview? What if he comes home and he says they didn't like him and they don't want to hire him now? Argh.
I suppose some background would be in order at this point. When Keith went to the job fair a few weeks ago, he got about four or five calls back from companies, and this was one of them. It's a "knowledge engineering" position which will also require some technical writing. Keith is really uniquely qualified for the "knowledge engineering" part, because what they're engineering is an artificial intelligence construct, and artificial intelligence was Keith's concentration in grad school.
What he's lacking, however, is tech writing experience. So he sent what few writing samples he has to the hiring people, and they called back and were like, "Well, we like you but we really need to see some more in-depth writing samples". Keith didn't have any, so he wrote one. He wrote a 3000-word paper that described what happened at the Chernobyl disaster in layman's terms that anyone can understand -- it really was in layman's terms too, because after I finished reading it I felt like I really understood how a nuclear reactor operates and exactly what went wrong with the one at Chernobyl.
Anyway, after three hellish days of writing and editing this thing, Keith mailed it off, and then on Monday he got a call from the secretary there saying that they wanted to set up a time for him to "come in and meet the group". Keith asked the secretary what that meant and she wasn't exactly sure -- she acted like he ought to know. Hmm.
Then Keith emailed his contact there asking exactly what he should be prepared for at this meeting, and the guy wrote back and said that it was just an opportunity for Keith to get to meet the people there and look around and stuff. Well, he probably didn't say "and stuff".
So Keith is on his way there now, for this "meeting" which may or may not be to offer him a job. I'm on pins and needles here, I told him to call me when he gets back but heck, that might not be til after five PM, what with traffic and the fact he took the bus.
Argh! This is worse than when I was waiting for my college acceptance letters to come in!
I can't concentrate, I'll write more later to let you all know how it went.