Traveling Woes

I traveled for an interview this week. The interview was in New Jersey and consisted of two days of activity. I was apart of a group of about 15 candidates, 8 of us from the University of Arkansas, and the rest from various schools on the east coast. The first night in New Jersey we had dinner as a big group. They had employees of the company sitting at the table with us discussing various aspects of the company. It was an interesting way to really understand what a company is all about. They were really honest about their company culture and its impact on its employees. The next morning, we had an all day assessment which consisted of a couple group activities, an interview and a case competition. All in all, the whole experience was kind of fun. That was the good part.

The very, very bad part of the trip were all the traveling woes I experienced. Before this trip, I had never had any problems traveling by plane, but that all changed. Our intital flight from XNA was canceled, which by the time we got that figured out, we eventually ended up in Jersey 2.5 hours past our originally scheduled time, leaving me very little time to get ready for the dinner that night. We got back to the hotel from dinner pretty late, and had to get up very early. It was a constant time crunch.

On our journey home, in the Memphis airport I finally got a chance to relax and little, and was really looking forward to getting home. Well, our gate was changed, twice, and we had to walk clear across the airport (which was no good for me, I had just had the biggest plate of BBQ nachos ever). Once at the new gate, we found out that 20 of the 55 passengers weren't going to be on the new flight, luckily I was one of them. About 20 minutes after that, they announce that the flight is canceled altogether. Now, we are stuck in Memphis at 8:30pm, plus I have to be in Fayetteville in the morning, no exceptions. I only had one choice, rent a car, and drive the 5 hours to Fayetteville, which is what I and another candidate did. I got home around 2:30am, and from all the traveling and interviewing, etc, I was totally and utterly exhausted. It was a really, really long couple days. But, I should find out about the job pretty soon. Fingers crossed.