I did my phone interview with 2K Sports on Wednesday and I would consider it a total flop. I’ve basically been sitting around waiting for an email from them that says something along the lines of “We’re no longer interesting in pursuing a position at our company for you”. I mean, come on, my brain melted down and I couldn’t tell them what a dot product is used for. The worst part is, I started to give the correct answer, second guessed myself and said I couldn’t remember. So I’ve been fuming the last few days over my own stupidity until finally Friday comes around and I was told I’d hear from them again by the end of the week. And what was their response?
Nice job on your interview! We would like to fly you in to our offices to interview you if you’re interested. Please let me know.
This’ll just be a quick update because it’s late, but I wanted to add some developer blogs I’ve been discovering and reading lately before I forget. I’ve tried to pick some of those that update reasonably regularly and that I’ve found exceedingly interesting to read. It also helps if they don’t read like advertisements for the games they’ve been working on very often. Anyways, they’re there, they’re interesting, read ‘em. Maybe I’ll get to work with some of them someday. Certainly if you have a suggestion for one that I’ve missed, let me know. Most of these are just links from Japanmanship that I’ve been reading for a while now, so I’m sure there are more.
I finished Big Huge’s programming test earlier today with about 15 minutes to spare after I tinkered around a little bit making sure I had some decent comments and I actually answered the questions they posed at the top of each file. Immediately after, I discover I have another interview scheduled with 2K Sports next Wednesday, which is good in that it means they haven’t lost interest in me yet, but is also maddening because this is the third interview I’ll be doing with them and also the first time I’ll actually be talking with people who might actually say “We like this kid, hire him”. This seems to be taking a lot longer to get to the people that make decisions than it has for some of my friends from school. I hate all of you that already have jobs. Ok, not really, but you guys know me and should realize that already. I’m just starting to feel like this is some kind of crazy delusion, or perhaps I’m the victim of an awful new reality show where every place you apply for a job strings you along endlessly until finally at the end of the season they reveal that you’ve been tricked and everyone has a good laugh at your expense. Yes, it’s all in good fun, but I’m starting to get impatient and restless. I want to get something done and start working so I can be a good little consumer and surround myself with all the things that I want, but don’t need. The waiting drives me positively batty!
Ok, so somebody in an IRC channel I hang out in just gave everybody this link that is just way too sweet for anybody that likes crazy gadget type science things, so I couldn’t help but post it. The guy who made it calls it a Time Fountain and it creates the illusion that you can stop or slow down time on some drops of water. You can play with the water drops and it really looks a lot like they are frozen in time. I’ve posted the same video the guy has on his website below as an example, but he’s got directions for making one of these crazy things on his website, so if you find it interesting, you could have one of your own.
I guess I didn’t do as terribly as I was starting to think, as about an hour after the interview Big Huge sent me an email asking when I could do a programming test. I guess this whole thing just illustrates the old saying that you are always your worst critic. So I have that scheduled for tomorrow, and they told me it would be a three hour test with five problems to solve. I’ll have to remember to treat it like I used to with timed tests in school and deal with the easy ones that I know I can answer quickly first in case it is designed so that you can’t finish the whole thing in the allotted time. I’m pretty confident in my coding abilities, so hopefully it won’t be too tough.
I also have another interview with 2K Sports later today, which, judging by the time they picked to do it at and the times I said would be easiest for me, could easily be a quick interview to make sure I’m not a complete jerk and then an invitation to come out and see them. Or they could just be telling me they found someone for the position already, but you’d think they would just email me if that were the case. So I’m pretty hopeful about this one, too. I’d like to at least have a job by the time the rest of my friends graduate from school just to avoid the inevitable trash talking that is sure to ensue if I don’t. Of course, I’d also like to be able to help them get jobs assuming there’s something available.
