So here I am, working away trying to pull the fleece over employers eyes, trying to convince them to hire me, and then it happened. I got a response from someone that wasn't a small, one page letter saying:
Dear applicant,
Thank you for your interest. Unfortuantely, due to the large response and quality of applicants we have not given you the job but we will keep your records on file and if something should come up in the future we'll give you a call. Now go fuck off and don't come back.
Sincerely,
Cockblocking assholes.
or something along those lines. So I finally got a response from someone. Well, that's a bit of a missrepresentation because it wasn't just someone, it was McLaren. Who you might ask? Oh wait, they're a Formula One team, yeah, that's right, one of the most successful teams out there, the one thats also made the McLaren F1 supercar and the McLaren Mercedes SLR, oh and hang haven't they been in the news lately? That's right, one of their employees was being supplied top secret information from a Ferrari employee and they got busted for cheating with the biggest fine in history ($100 million) and kicked out of the constructors championships. Well that last bit isn't so flattering but I won't go into that, there's already plenty of crap on the internet discussing that and it really doesn't bother me too much in my quest for a job. They are a fantasitc company and dspite the actions of a few bad apples they will fight on a continue to be a top F1 team.
So I got a response (did I mention it was from McLaren, you know F1, anyway) it was just a nibble at first. They wanted a phone interview for a control job I applied for. I had also applied for a vehicle dynamics job with them which is more my specialty, but never mind I did some controls as well so lets go. The phone interview went well and I was pretty happy with my performance. Then I got another nibble. They wanted a phone interview, and I was going to be interviewed by the same two people. Now This wasn't what I expected. In the first phone interview I had mentioned I had also applied for a VD job (vehicle dynamics you dirty minded bastards). They said that was fine, it was a different group but they talked. So when I had a second phone interview with the same people it didn't make much sense. So I asked the HR person if it was for ths VD job and she said yes it was. Ok what ever. So I was dilligently waiting by the phone, waiting for my second phone interview ... just waiting ... by my phone. Time was ticking by and I wasn't getting a call. Not the most reassuring feeling, not a good feeling at all. Then twenty minutes after the interview was scheduled I got a call,. Hey, a bit late but no big deal, feeling good now. However, it wasn't the people who were supposed to interview me, it was the HR person, which sent the feeelings down again. Damn this job hunt thing is a rollercoaster (if only I knew about the following week). Anyway, I figured I should heart out what the HR girl had to say. Wait, what was that, there wasn't any point in conducting two phone interviews so why don't you come down for a proper interview at the McLaren factory (which I was to learn wasn't a factory at all. It was the McLaren Technology Centre and it is a thing of wonder and amazment). So the nibble had turned into a good bite and I was on my way down to Woking for an interview, no more bad thoughts, just high spirits.
So it was that I found myself on the train down south, reading through some things, trying to study up on some control stuff and the VD stuff as well. just getting my mind in the right frame for the interview. I got down to Woking and grabbed a cab to teh McLaren Technology Centre. Now I should say that it is absolutely phenomenal, I was completely blown away by it. Now keep in mind I have already visited the Renault F1 Factory, which was amazing but this place, wow, it's just on a different level all together. We got to the security gate and the security shack was no shack at all. It was a circular glass building that wouldn't look out of place in a comtempory design gallery. So I signed in. The guard gave me a pass card and one for the cab. He told me to be dropped off at Rotunda B/C, go inside and down the steps, along the corridor, up the lift to Level 1+ and go to the racing reception. Ok, no problem so I got back in the cab and gave the driver his card and the directions. He dropped me off at Rotunda B/C, which was just a small circular glass building at the back of the main building. Oh did I mention, all the transporter trucks where parked right between me and the main building. They had jsut come back from the Belgium GP at Spa, pretty cool. Anyway, I wasn't there for the sightseeing so I swiped my card by the door and went in. There wasn't anyone there. Here I was, inside a top F1 facility belonging to a team just convicted of a major cheating afair, and they just give you a pass card and let you loose. Well not entirely I had a stair case in front of me. So I went down the stairs and got ready to "go along the corridor to the lift" like the guard at the gate told me. But this was no ordinary corridor. It was a gleaming, white 200m of perfect, underground corridor. It looked like it was out of a spaceship, maybe from 2001. It was fantastic. There were some doors but they were flush with the wall so you didn't even notice them. I was impressed toi say the least. But no time to dilly dally, I didn't want to get caught gobsmacked when I was here trying convince them I actually belonged there. So I wandered along, quite casually I thought, to the other end of the corridor, which just had a circular white pillar in the middle of the circular room. The lift entrance was around the back. So I got in the lift, but it was really disorienting. It was a glass lift but in a black chamber so it was all super reflective and you couldn't see anything. It took a little while to find the buttons to hit 1+. Before I did though, I looked up. Through the black hole was a white light at the top. I hit the button and started to move towards the light. I came up out of the floor and moved up to Level 1+. Now Level 1+ was a floating level, or at least the part I was on was. I had been brought up straight out of the ground and up to these floating walkways. I got out of the lift and looked around. How about right, oh there are a bunch of race cars that Bruce McLaren raced back in the day, including his first ever race car. Oh and check that out, there are a bunch of McLaren F1 super cars and behind them there's the work shop where they make the McLaren Mercedes SLR. Not too shabby. How about we look right. Oh, a bunch of F1 cars and whats the name on the side, just Ayrton Senna, no big deal. And beyond them, just the current F1 cars in various states of build. And guess what, there's not a single drop of oil anywhere. Everything was pristene and perfect. Did I say this place was absolutely phenominal yet? So I managed to get my feet moving and looked for anythign that could be Racing Reception. I saw a floating circle with a desk in the middle with a lady. I went over there and it turned out to be Racing Reception. Result, I had made it. It was a good thing I was a few minute early because that let me calm down and get used to the place. By the time I got called for the interview I felt pretty good and relaxed, which is good because that feeling wasn't going to last through the end of the day.
So I met the guy interviewing me and he briefly showed me around before we headed into the interview proper. Everything went nicely to begin with. There were two people interviewing me and they were nice and friendly. They started off giving me a run down of what they did and the job they had open, which was actually three positions and a bunch of work that needed to be done. After that we got into some more technical stuff, but that was fine because we started out just talking about my research and what I had done. This went well and I was quite happy and comfortable talking about it. But they certainly looked at it all with an eye for the control stuff and I got caught a little bit here and there trying to explain the control stuff in the terms they were familiar with. So not entirely smooth sailing but no big drama, yet. We ended up getting caught up with one thing in particular, sliding mode control, which I had trouble understanding myself and with an eight month break I was having trouble understanding it again and trouble explaining it again (as you might imagine if you don't remember it yourself). So we moved on. Maybe not the best if you can't fully explain work that you claim to have done. But like I said not a big deal, just a little slip. So we moved on, like I said. Fine, I was quite happy to no longer be interrogated about my own work, and fail to explain it properly, or thats what I thought.
"So I'm going to give you an example problem and just see how you do it. If we have a valve here and the flow rate is proportional to ... blah blah blah ... (stuff that's not really interesting to 99.999% of the people reading this)"
As he was saying all this he was drawing out a diagram of a hydraulic system. I hadn't even looked at a hydraulic system since my undergraduate days, about eight years ago. Ok don't panic, it's really not that complicated, actually it's about as simple a system as you could create. Even if I can't remember anything I should be able to at least just think logically and think my through this.
"... blah blah blah ... so what's the relationship between the current and the position of the piston, x?"
Ok, don't panic. Just think this one through ... right so we've got i, Q, x ... I need A so I'll introduce that ... then there's this ... oh wait not sure I need that ... how about if I do this ... hang on, this isn't going well ... ok, stop, this isn't that hard, just think, you can do this ... nope not getting it ... come on Nick!!!! ... right start again ... ok so you've got ...
And it just didn't get better. My brain froze up and I may as well have been sitting there drooling on myself, scratching my balls and farting. After some proding and a little help I fumbled my way through it, very poorly.
"Ok, so now whats the response of this system to a step input?"
Ok, put the last failure behind you and, wait, don't say failure, we need positive thoughts. Put that behind you and crack on with this ... ok, so its a first order system ... erm ... um ...
So once again I was fumbling around, and with a little guidance I managed to get to what could have been the right answer. I'm not sure if it actually was the right answer because they never really gave me any positive reassurance to that effect. Well shit. I was sitting there in a pool of dispair. I was embarassed by my performance, it was humiliating. It's not like they had asked me a really tough question or posed a problem with a tricky aspect to try and catch me out. They had given a problem that was about as siple as possible that was a direct representation of the work I would potentially be doing, or not as teh case was beginning to look like. Anyway, they had beaten me, or maybe they hadn't beaten me, but rather I had beaten myself up over my complete incompetence. Well they moved on and we had a few HR type questions, whats your salary expectation? when can you start work? etc. Things got a bit better and I did manage to move on from the previous suicide attempt and get back in the grove of talking confidently again. It did end with a more positive feeling. I asked about the jobs available and it did seem like they were suggesting things that I could do, and that they were thinking of were I might fit in. But in any case I had already committed suicide and the job was gone. I left the interview and walked out with my head down and my tail between my legs. If I was them I wouldn't hire me, in fact I would wonder how I had managed to graduate from university let alone got a PhD. I left the promised land ashamed and thoroughly dejected.
I headed back to London and was staying with Jules for the night. He tried his best to cheer me up. We all know you are your own harshest critic and maybe it didn't go that badly? No, I'm pretty sure it was that bad. Well, who knows what the other applicants are like? Good point but if they have a pulse they'll probably get the job over me. I suppose maybe I was being harsh on myself. First, everything went well until the final part of the interview, my resume/CV and therefore my qualifications got me the phone interview. So they must have liked the PhD and thought I was a good candidate. The phone interview went well and I did present myself well (until it all went wrong). I wasn't a control engineer, I was a VD engineer that did controls and I did bring this up. I never had any formal controls education. I had just taught myself what I needed to know for the PhD and it was a very well received piece of work. The fact is that no matter what job I end up with I'm going to have a steep learning curve, but just like my PhD, I'll get stuck in, learn what I need and get the job done, I just need some one to give me a chance to show what I am capable of. On top of this is that it was a controls job, not the VD job. The VD people would contact me separately about that job if they wanted to. So the VD stuff is my specialty and what I want to do, but the controls stuff is still very interesting and it has a much broader scope. It can be applied to almost anything so it would give me more opportunities in the future, unlike the VD stuff which would be more limited to the automotive industry. So maybe I would have a tough time getting going with the controls job but it would still be an amazing job. It just sucks that my first interview, which you always tend to fuck up since you have no idea what to expect, was with a company and job that what I've been dreaming about for years, its the whole reason I'm here now. And it killed me to fuck up the interview so badly when it was all actually easy stuff that I shoul dhave been able to do. The other crappy thing is that I thought I was also interviewing for the VD job. If I had know it was only the control job I was interviewing for I would have tried to sneak an interview with the VD guys while I was already down there. Oh well, they only told me that after the interview. Not much you can do about it at that point. I just hope that any negative feedback from this interview doesn't work against me for the VD job. So maybe it wasn't all bad, just 99% bad. Well Jules was trying to cheer me up. Needless to say we hit the pub and ended talking to a bunch of people I really didn't want to deal with when I felt so shitty.
Well I woke up the next day, feeling shit from the booze and feeling shit from teh interview. I didn't really think that a night getting drunk would make me feel any better about royally fucking the interview but it worth a try. Actually, the hang over probably made me feel worse about everything, which is generally the case. Anyway, I got up and moved out. I jumped on a train, not back up to Leeds, no not yet, I was heading out to Salisbury. Why might you ask? To visit Kirsty. She had broken her back at the start of summer and being down south and so near, it would be criminal not to visit. In any case I wanted to go down and visit, see how she was doing and try and brighten up her day. She had an incomplete spinal which means that its not complete paralysis. She can feel everything down to her knees and then after that she still has sensation but its a bit strange. She is recovering well and generally cruises around in a wheel chair but I was around when she had some physio work. She managed to walk around the building, about 100m, very slowly and with walking sticks. For someone with a massive spinal injury this was amazing. She is having to teach herself to walk again and it's amazing how well she is recovering. We also headed into town and got some lunch and a drink. It was awesome to hang out with her and jsut chill. We were sitting in the pub and it was like there was nothing different for when I saw her last. But then when we left and she wheeled away instead of walking it brought it back again. But she's fighting hard and I have no doubt that she's going to keep improving and getting better and she will walk again. It was a good day and I'm really glad I took the time to go and see her. It did put a few thigns in perspective. Here I was moaning about doing poorly in an interview, which really did mean a lot to me, but here was a really good friend and what she was going through just put all my trails and tribulations to nothing. So my job hunt (or cunt) isn't going too well, but I don't really know, maybe they will offer me the job. If they don't, there are more jobs out there and I'll get one sooner or later. I'm just thankful that I have a sound body and mind (at least for now) and that I have all the opportunities open to me because things could be very different, there are many people out there without the opportunities that I have and they are fighting on with more strength than I could ever hope to have.
So I potentially didn't get a dream job with an F1 team but come on, I've really got nothing to complain about. I'll let you know how it goes when I hear back and till the next nibble or bite on the job front I wish everyone well and I hope in particular that both Kirsty and Marco have speady and full recoverys, my thoughts are with you.
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