I went to Seattle this weekend. Loved the city! It reminded me of San Francisco, Boston and Pittsburgh, all at once. Like SF, the people are very liberal, and very diverse. The papers were debating legalizing gay marriage, with the Governor in support of the proposal (with Schwarzenegger leading California, this might happen sooner than the sunny state). Like Boston, the town is young, smart, and professional. And like Pittsburgh, the city is hilly and the weather sucks (overcast 300 days of the year).
I went to the Pike Market (a tourist trap, but nice stuff there, especially the fresh flowers), Pioneer Square, Seattle Center (didn’t climb the needle, not on this trip :), and of course, downtown. Stayed at the
W (a ritzy, expensive) hotel in the middle of downtown. It was understated, not garishly fancy like Vegas hotels, or huge-but-characterless, like a Hilton or a Renaissance. The whole hotel felt like a club – lounge, restaurant and rooms included. My only peeve is that they did not have a swimming pool.
I was in Seattle for a job interview – with Amazon. I spent 2 weeks getting ready for it – behavioral questions, business cases, technical questions – I was prepared for it all. Since I have limited short-term memory, I compensate by taking lots of notes. So I have a whole diary full of key talking points: ‘critical life events’ (for “tell me of a time when you compromised your integrity yet were congratulated by your team for your technical skills” type of situational questions that you can’t really think on your feet for), technical mumbo-jumbo (5 stage of SEI CMM certification, McKinsey 7 S framework), brain teasers (“how would you weigh a giraffe while sitting upside down on a 3 legged elephant”) etc.
Absent-minded be-my-name, on the flight to Seattle, I left the notebook on the plane! On reaching the hotel, I called the airline lost-and-found and pleaded with them to go back into the plane and retrieve my not-so-expensive leftover article. Four phone calls later, the sweet lady at the end of the phone said that they did not find anything. I convinced her once again to take a look, this time in the chair-back in front of my seat. Another 4 phone calls later, another “we found nothing”. Being uncharacteristically persistent, I convinced her once more to take a look. She came back (just 10 minutes before closing time) and told me - another 3 phone calls later – that they had found my notebook. Allah be praised, and Hallelujah! Divine intervention saved me from doom!
I roamed the city of Seattle revising my notes (I was never one to sit and read), constantly being distracted by a bevy of gorgeous beauties – it seems Seattle was overrun with hot women (and boys, but who was paying attention to them), wearing fancy corporate clothes, and funny blue badges. Showing great concentration, I managed to revise a good 70% of my notes over 2 days, bravely fighting these distractions :)
The interviews (there were 6) went ___ well, you can never say with interviews. I’ll tell you tomorrow. The nice thing about Amazon – they decide quickly. I won’t have to wait days in anticipation…
