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Hello from Seattle.
I just thought I would blog my interview experience here for a few reasons. It’s good to let you guys now how I am doing so I can get your support, and as well, if everything works out this blog may be the best way to let TPX know how I’m doing in a far away land. Also this is a good record of how I felt when I’m “young and naive” when I look back in a few years. Lastly, I think if I start blogging about my Microsoft Interview experience, especially if I list some Microsoft PM Interview Questions, TPX may start to get a lot more hits =P. Hehe, especially if I make a post entitled that.

The interview trip did not have the best start. Flight from Toronto to Chicago was delayed because of poor weather (strong winds or something) at Chicago, and the flight from Chicago to Seattle was again delayed. By the time I got out of SEA-TAC Airport it was past 4pm, when my flight was scheduled to arrive at Seattle at 2:25 pm. The flight was also rather bumpy due to the winds in Chicago and the pouring rain in Seattle. (Forecast says rain in Seattle for the upcoming days….it does rain quite a bit in Seattle).

The feeling of the flight was rather different from my previous one to Virginia last week. I didn’t get that feeling I was leaving home for some foreign land… I guess the 4 months when I lived here really made a big difference. When I got off the flight into the Seattle Airport’s terminal, it even felt a bit like going home – in that I know exactly where to go.

So I got my rental car (a Yellow Cobalt) and drove back to the hotel – without using a map even… everything is still so fresh in my mind, I even remember the road names and exit numbers I should be taking. The hotel MS booked for me is actually the same as the one I stayed in last June when I came here for the intern interview, just a different buildling (all under the same Marriott chain).

Now the bad part of the process continues. Since my flight arrived late, I got stuck in traffic and didn’t arrive at Redmond (where the hotel and MS campus is) until 5:00pm. And so I got to the street and started to look for the hotel. I knew where the hotel I stayed at last year was and suspected it was a building beside it, so I drove there first and started to look around… and couldn’t find it. This was around 5:30pm and thanks to daylight savings the sky is all dark and everything. After driving around a few times I finally located the building….

…except it was all dark and no lights were on and I could barely make out the name and street number of the hotel. There were a few cars parked outside and the front doors were open, but otherwise everything is dark inside. I parked my car and looked at the hotel and NONE of the lights were on… it is as if the entire hotel is desserted… and the place is so quiet too (except for the sound of pouring rain). I started to think to myself…OMG what kind of hotel did MS place me in…

I got inside this pitch dark hotel and found the front desk lit by glowsticks and nightlights… apparently power went out (I guess because of the storm) in that block so the entire hotel has no electricity, and hence the darkness. I got the key to my room, which happens to be on the 3rd floor, and was told to take the elevator (?!) to the 3rd floor and is the room at the end… and I asked urrr the elevator still work? Ha, of course not. The receptionist meant the stairs. So I practically felt my way down the corridor and squinting in the dark to find something looking remotely like stairs. I finally found it and had to climb up three flights of stairs in the dark (only light was from the exit signs), and found my room, which was also pitch dark. Not a very welcoming arrival at all.

Anyhow so I went back out and drove off to Microsoft campus to find my friends. I still remember the way around town, but what I don’t remember is the traffic pattern here (I don’t usually drive during rush hour) and actually the traffic seems to have got worse….it took me almost 20 minutes to get across one block. In the end I was able to find my friend in his office, and we also met up with a few other friends/classmates and went out for dinner together.

We were eating and chatting during dinner and I really felt that this was just like my life yesterday. I guess being around people you know makes a huge difference. For some time I even forgot this was an interview for me and a regular day of work for them and felt we were all MS interns having a dinner gathering again.

Anyhow I really do feel like coming home here, guys. It really saddens me to leave Toronto but I guess sooner or later we all have to move on with life right? Even if it is not because of job/career it may be because of relationship/family etc.

But all in all I speak too soon. I don’t have a MS offer with me yet so I still can’t claim this as my home. Need to work hard tomorrow to land this job… and pray to God that I rely on Him and not on my strength to pull through. And most most most most most important of all… be obedient… if this is not the job for me and God intends to put me somewhere else, give me the heart of obedience to follow where He guides me…

Ah by the way, I’m interviewing with Microsoft Office Sharepoint and OSS (Office Shared Services) tomorrow.

And just another random fact, one of my friends is a so-called “Mac developer” at MS. He has 2 Mac minis at his office and is using his boss’ mbp while he is on vacation. Hehe.

I was at a conference workshop today, and the presenting laptop happens to be a mbp. So all the presenters had to load their ppt files onto the mbp to present. The last presenter kept on having trouble starting his presentation or something, and my guess is he kept on hitting F5 (or whatever the function key is to shrink out the current window and see all the active windows, hehe I don’t know how to use mac either) and he got so frustrated… and then someone in the audience sitting beside me was talking amongst themselves…
“What is he doing?”
“He is trying to use the Mac….that’s a Mac function”
“I thought Macs were easy to use”
“Apparently not”

Oh, and the workshop was coming to a close…it was running way over time already and the lights flickered already (I think the janitors or something are trying to hint at us to get out) but these researchers are so freaking talkative (imagine a roomful of talkative profs) and the chair for the panel has such poor organizational skills……she kept on asking “any other last thoughts or comments?” and then one guy on the panel said “Oh one more thing….” (and I laughed) and another guy on the panel said “This better be a finish slide or something”……but apparently not. He went on with some boring talk in a horrible European accent for another 10 minutes before finishing >.< I guess presenters need to be careful with using "one more thing..." eh.

So the reviews started to show up on papers today. 1 week after the show started =_+! Don’t know why….but anyhow. Some interesting reviews…
Toronto Star
Globe and Mail
CANOE

So. I’m heading to loo tomorrow so I thought I’ll load up the 2 sermons jon shared onto my ipod so I can listen to it in my car. Start up iTunes, v7.0.1 is out, so I do the upgrade (what’s with me and upgrading today). Guess what? After the upgrade I can’t sync my ipod to iTunes. Pretty much iTunes freezes somewhere during the sync. Absolutely perfect.

So I tried to downgrade back to iTunes 6, but Apple is too smart for that – it recognizes some library file is created by a newer version so iTunes 6 won’t start. Back to iTunes 7.0.1. Played around with it a bit more, had to hit cancel quickly to stop the auto sync and set my iPod on Manual sync now. I don’t even know how manual sync will work out (eg. how do I delete a song from my iPod) but at least it doesn’t freeze up now. And now iTunes is going through my 2643 songs on my iPod to determine gapless playback information. Taking its sweet time too.

So to summarize the day, GG Microsoft, GG Apple. What’s next, will my GMail fail tomorrow morning or something?