My alarm went off at 6:30am and I got right up.  I took a shower, got dressed, brewed some coffee and made a shake for my breakfast.  Then I put on the rest of my suit and left the house later than I wanted at 8:13am.  Fortunately, the morning rush hour was over and I made it over to Redmond with a little extra time.  That extra time was lost however, when I parked in front of and walked into the wrong building.  I still made it on time.  I had time to use the bathroom before beginning this marathon.

My first interview was with Gary, the network guy and James, the server guy.  They both asked me some tricky technical questions, two of which had me stumped but I felt pretty comfortable with them and the hour actually went by fast.  Next I was interviewed by Kevin, one of the other Helpdesk Technicians and Rob who is another server guy who works under James.  They were not as warm as the first two guys.  They also asked many technical questions.  That second hour seemed to drag on.  Then I was brought in to meet the IT manager, Mike who I liked right away.  There was another guy there in the room with us who I found very hard to read.  Everybody was surprising me with technical questions that I had difficulty answering.  They said it was not whether I figured it out or not but they were interested in what troubleshooting steps I would take.  I always think of myself as someone who can figure out just about anything – bring it on! – but these marathon sessions were eroding my self-confidence.

I was finally given a break at noon and brought into another conference room where a lunch was provided for me.  It was a box lunch that I had ordered ahead of time through email and they got it right!  After my lunch, I was brought in to see Susan, the HR person.  I did not expect that she would be asking me some of the toughest questions yet!  These questions were not technical and I drew a blank many times.  Walking to my car and driving away and later at home I could think of how I should have answered those questions but I don't feel I answered them well at the time.  Of course I have no idea how I compared to the other candidates they were interviewing.

The marathon interview session was finally over at 1pm.  I drove over to Don's to drop off a CD and we talked about our job hunting and such.  Then I left and drove home.  When I got home, I couldn't wait to get out of my suit.  Everything was tight on me - especially my shoes!  Sue was getting ready for work.  She was acting grumpy - probably because she has to go back to work and face all her enemies again.  I felt pretty dazed.

Later, when I was working in front of the computer, I got a phone call from Bob saying that rehearsal would be cancelled today.  I was relieved.  I watched the Simpsons and Monster Garage on TV but I don't remember what else I did.