Had an interview with a real company today. Basically doing a lot of what I do now for an investment banker dealing with mergers and acquisitions.

It was very little interview and a lot a test. They gave me a test on Word, Excel, PowerPoint and told me it can take 2 hrs, 4 hrs or longer depending on your work speed. I did it I think in just under 2. And I futzed a lot on the first charts to make them look “just right”. I even found an error in their instructions and pointed out that I followed instruction A for this part and instruction B for that part. In other words, I KICKED ASS!!!

I want more of a real interview because I want to find out more about the environment. They are in Embarcadero 4, nice view. I saw someone wearing jeans. I would be in a half cube and the only graphic person on the 9-5 shift. There is a person on swing shift and graveyard shift. When someone is on vacation, there might be overtime and you can say no if you want to. This is a satellite office for the New York firm with other offices in other countries, so work gets passed around. The guy that is leaving is moving to the smaller LA office.

It could be cool, or I could be really lonely. I wouldn’t be able to lean on my co-workers. There wouldn’t be an editor review which I so depend on. At least I wouldn’t be stuck in an office by myself.

If nothing else, this was good practice and good energy to put into the system of getting another job. It did give me outside validation that my MicroSoft skills are as good as I claim.