The Interviews: Part 2

For California, the contact has been very clever and had faxed me a long list of things I had to fill out with required paperwork. This had included a Californian deficiency letter, (if you recall I had already got a Florida one)- but to get an intern license in California they required far more information, and most specifically they required a finger print analysis to be taken. The interviewer had also told me WHERE the job related to, so my wife and I had done a thorough investigation of that town too. The way the trip worked out, I had landed at LA on Saturday night, got in a hire car and driven directly to Las Vegas (thank God for Satellite Navigation). And then after 3 nights there I left Las Vegas at exactly 7am on the Wednesday morning and drove directly to the town where we had been told the job offer was for so I could have a good nose around - which i arrived at around 10.30am. In this town I went for a little drive. Got some realtor leaflets, got a coffee, and then sneaked in to the pharmacy store itself. I asked if I could speak to the pharmacist but she was busy, so I spoke with the intern there, which was actually better. I told her that I was looking to be a foreign graduate intern for the company and asked if she thought they were they a good company to work for, did they train her, did they offer benefits, and a hundred other questions that I could only really ask her and not ask in an interview. Should she by any chance read this, I would like to thank her for her kind and very useful assistance. I then went to the local UPS store where you can get your fingerprints taken, and they send the info directly off to the Pharmacy Board which ticked off the last box on my California intern/deficiency application. I then went shopping, drove to my hotel, had some dinner, watched an excellent episode of "Family Guy" and went to bed having ordered a 6am wake up call. Up at 6am, shower and get out the suit and tie, and head downstairs to the lobby to meet and greet. As it happens there is free coffee so I pour myself one whilst I'm waiting. Sip, sip, sip. (You know that horrible feeling when you experienced something before....!). About 7.05am and a thin young chap ask if I am me, which I am glad to say I am, and he introduces himself as my interviewer. Decision number 1: Do I take the coffee with me? No. Decision number 2: Do I just leave it on the table? hmmm...Yes. Sod it. I get my resume and Blackberry *everyone should have a Blackberry* and we go round the corner where it is quieter. Again we go through my resume and again I think I am impressing him. Then somehow, after about 45 minutes the subject drifts on to how much the pay is, what the benefits are, how many hours per week, how many days off per year, how many unpaid days off, minimum hours to maintain benefits, and although I'm learning a great deal I am sensing I am asking too many questions about the wrong thing here. Then he says to me that he is interviewing a lot of people for just one post, although there may be positions available nearby. If I were interviewing someone and I told them I had a lot more people to interview it would be my way of letting them know politely they hadn't got the job. We shook hands and parted company. Bollocks. Where had it all gone wrong? I had thought we were having a great interview for the best part of an hour, and then suddenly in the last ten minutes I felt I lost it. Well, nothing I could do now, but email the wife and post the license application just in case. So I check out of the hotel, and stop off on the way to the airport to have a cashiers check made out to the California State Board of Pharmacy for $65.00 as it very clearly says on the form I had downloaded and had with me, and attached the check to the paperwork and closed the envelope and drove to the airport. Apparently, since 9/11, there are no longer any mail boxes at airports, so the application form came back to England with me. I finally posted it on the first week of February 2008, even though I didn't feel it was likely that I was going to get any joy from my Californian adventure. But I did have a REALLY great time in Las Vegas, although it was much more expensive than it had been 8 years ago when I was last there. Next up: The good goes bad, the bad goes good, and the whole thing turns upside down! Farmacyst