Interesting Week

"Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection" (itsalwayssteve)
04/04/2014 at 22:24 • Filed to: Ermahgerd I gert der jerb!

So, It's been an interesting week. I haven't been Oppo-ing much lately because the garden is being built and put together. I've spent more time outside this week than any of the past 20 or so weeks. It feels good. School is going well, and something happened that I didn't expect. Have a picture of a car, for your trouble:

Last Friday night, my wife and I were just sitting around, tired, and hanging out with the dogs. It was a lazy evening because we had spent a good portion of the day running around, putting stuff together, and cleaning the house. It was kind of exhausting. Anyway, at around midnight, she's looking at job listings on the craigslist and said, "Here's something you should apply for."

It was customer service — like I had done for most of my 20s, but not call center. T !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . They do aftermarket leather interior, sunroofs, video player packages, and other stuff that would be called "dealer-installed options." It's not as big as Katzkin, but the shop in Charlotte does pretty well.

So anyway, after some gentle cajoling from my wife, the next day I typed up a cover letter and sent my résumé. Tuesday afternoon, while we were on the way to Lowe's Home Improvement for some composted cow manure and a few bits and pieces to put together our raised vegetable bed, I got a call.

I answered and the guy calling asked for me. He said his name was Steve from Classic Soft Trim and wanted to know when I could talk to him about the job. Well, Wednesday morning came along and I walked in. It was the strangest interview I had ever had. I'm used to the behavioral/test/situational interview that comes from working in a bunch of office settings. This isn't how it worked. We sat around and talked cars, music, and food for about an hour. Interspersed within our bullshitting were some comments about what I'm capable of doing with computers, customers, and so on. He told me the job was a bit of customer service, office management, delivery, and some other stuff. Basically he is looking for a runner who knows how to communicate. I had a good feeling.

Thursday, as I was walking out of class, my phone buzzed. It was an email from Steve at Classic. It just said, "welcome aboard." Today I pissed in a cup and filled out my paperwork. I'm no longer unemployed. I'm starting part-time next week and go full-time when the semester ends in May. I'll be working with car guys all day and going to school at night.

Life is looking pretty good.