Reaching for that Golden Ticket – Part 1 - Finding a New Job
I was laid-off at the beginning of January of 1984. I was now without a job or even a prospect of a job for the first time since I graduated from college in 1978. It just so happened that Silicon Valley was in a bit of a downturn and the job opportunities were on the slim side. However, I had enough money to last me for at least 6 months and I had some options. I had some contacts and as a result I was able to find some short term contract work. By short term I mean I was able to contract out and do programming work at various small companies that knew me from previous employments. These contracts were less than a week long and most often just for a day or two. It wasn't enough to keep me busy full time but it did give me a source of income that allowed me to pay my bills without dipping into my savings while I looked for a full time position. As a result, there was no need to hurry into anything and so I was not feeling any urgency to take a job unless it was something good.
I had decided to be a little selective. I thought about what I'd like and came to the conclusion that I would really like was to work on a college campus. At first I started looking at schools in San Francisco, after all, there were a number to look into. There was The University of San Francisco, San Francisco State, City College, and Golden Gate University for starters. I also looked into Cal Berkeley. Not finding much I began to expand my search to Oakland (Holy Names, Mills, Merritt). I also started to look down the peninsula. Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, a small college in Belmont, had been a client of GBS (General Business Systems) where I had worked previously. I contacted them but no luck. I also explored Skyline, Foothill, De Anza and even San Jose State. I soon learned there was a UCSF (University of California San Francisco) medical school across the park from where my apartment was. Not exactly the type of college campus I was looking for but in the neighborhood. They were advertising for an opening in their IT department. It was more of a senior position on computers that I had limited experience with. But it was a college and the first opening I found so I applied anyway. I got an interview. It went well enough and I was called back for a 2nd. They seemed to like me but they couldn't get past that I didn't have the experience they were looking for. They told me if it had been a little less of a senior position they would have hired me. Oh well.
Next I found an opening at San Jose State. I sent in my resume and got called for an interview. The interview consisted of a multi page written questionnaire followed by a formal interview. I walked into the interview room. There was a long table with something like 16 people sitting all around it. They had me sit at one end and the guy, way down the table sitting across from me, explained the process and asked a few preliminary questions. Once he was through, the rest of them started firing questions at me from all different directions. It was all very formal, stiff, and unpleasant, no laughing or even smiling. Yikes! When I was finally released I bumped into their next victim heading into the interview room. He asked how it went. I told him “The job is wide open, it's not for me.” For me, that experience was awful and so uncomfortable. If they are going to torture me in the interview what the heck will they do once I'm working for them? I think they called me back and I politely declined.
Finally a “Golden Ticket” opportunity showed up, an opening at UC Santa Cruz. I loved Santa Cruz (the area) – moving there would be awesome. I was excited. This job was exactly what I wanted. I got an interview. Now, I had never actually been on the Santa Cruz campus. On interview day I got to Santa Cruz almost an hour early. I drove up to campus. For those of you who have never been there the campus is big and by big, I mean farm big, forget that, state big, think Rhode Island or even Iowa! I am pretty sure it takes longer to drive through the Santa Cruz campus than it does to drive through the state of Rhode Island. However that was not my main problem. There's not a lot of parking areas on campus back then. Finding parking within reasonable walking distance (by that I mean say within say a half mile) was not easy. I knew the name of the building for the interview, but there was no parking near by. It seemed to be not too far from the campus bookstore. So, I managed to find a spot near the bookstore. This is where the main problem was. See the campus has these big trees all over. It's like a campus in the woods, in fact the students call it “Uncle Charlie's Summer Camp”. Beautiful, but as a result, you can't see any building other than the one you are currently at. By this time it's about 10 minutes before my interview. I'm now at the bookstore and I think I know which direction the building where I have the interview is. So I head off in a brisk walk in that direction on what looks like a hiking trail. These hiking trails or paths, are not straight, they curve all around, and quickly I have no idea which way I'm going or in what direction the building I am look for is. In fact, at the moment there is no still building of any kind in sight. From the bookstore I thought I had at most a 5 minute walk. But I'm on a friggin' hiking trail! I can't see anything but trees, school is not in session so there's no one around. These trails are not even marked. I've had experience backpacking and I never got lost even once. Here I am on a college campus and I'm lost. Cell phones don't exist yet. Panic begins to set in. I got no water. I got no food. Forget the stupid interview, I don't even know how to get back to my car.
Somehow I finally stumble upon the building where the interview is but now I'm like 20 minutes late. Since I'm there I go in to at least let them know I made the attempt to find them and hope they can direct me back to the bookstore where my car is. I walk in and someone greets me pleasantly. I apologize for being tardy and begin to explain. He interrupts me and assures me everyone is late. It happens all the time. They plan for those not from Santa Cruz to be 30 minutes late. It turned out I was actually 10 minutes early. Of course thinking I'd blown it, I'm a bit stressed. So I take a couple of minutes to calm myself down. I then have a very pleasant conversation with the guy who greeted me and after a few minutes another person joins us. The interview was very pleasant, more like a casual conversation than a formal question answer session. My experience did not quite match up to what they needed, but all in all, it went very well.
After the interview I managed to find my car, with some help and I drove safely back to San Francisco. A week later they called me. It was the old “I like you but not in that way” story, let's just be friends.... They said I did very well on the interview and thanked me for coming in. I had come in second, a place I was familiar with from my days of playing one-on-one basketball with my friend Mark. They indicated they'd keep me in mind for future openings. I was disappointed. I had come so close. I really wanted the “Golden Ticket”!
Time was fleeting so I called my recruiter and asked her get me some interviews. She called me back the next week. She set me up with a company she thought would be a really good fit me. The Company was Consilium. They were a startup company but had a a year or two on them . They had the prestigious Palo Alto name in their address, but it also had an “East” in front of it. I went in for the interview. I did well. I liked what they had to say. They spent some time talking about their stock options. I was more interested in the salary and they seemed surprised about my lack of interest in the options. I explained that I'd been through the stock option thing before. It's nice but they are not worth much unless the company goes public and startups, in general, don't tend to get that far. They were pretty confident they would. I have to say I was happy to hear that as I like positive attitudes. A week or so went by and I had yet to hear anything. I went on a couple of more interviews. One interview was with Varian Associates. They were an old, Silicon Valley, company and a sizable company. That translated as stable to me. A number of the companies I had worked for didn't last so stability was a plus. Three days later I got a call from Varian, well my recruiter did. She said I was offered a position but advised me to sleep on it for a day. I did. I called her back and she informed me that Consilium was going to come in with an offer the next day. I waited another day. While I was waiting I started thinking. This bigger company decided they wanted me in just a couple of days but the small start-up took almost 3 weeks. Was I like their last choice after others turned them down? Are they not very organized? Varian definitely wanted me. A small company taking 3 weeks to make a decision did not seem to bode well for success. I took the Varian job.
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