Yesterday was the meeting with my friend’s company leaders and it turned out to be a job interview after all. I dressed up smart although not in a suit, but I did spend about 30 minutes on that war-paint that other people call make-up. I am not wearing make-up regularly – well, does once a year count as regular? – so it always takes me ages. As everybody present was thankfully quite young, I hope my outfit was not too far off their expectations.
I was rather nervous before the meeting. Imagine that: In my age, after having changed jobs almost every couple of years for the last ten years, this was only my third job interview – and one of the other one was a video call on skype. I felt reasonably comfortable after a while though, so in the end I went away with a good feeling. However, Japanese people are masters in hiding their thoughts and feelings, so I don’t know what to expect at all. My friend says he has no clue either, but… if they were not talking about me at all after I had left, that is not a good sign is it?
I will not tell any details about the interview, but there is one small incident I’d like to share: I was going there as algorithms designer, and I was explaining to the CEO (not a nerd, he has a finance background) what I’m doing, and at some point he exclaimed: “But, that is very creative!” This surprised and impressed me deeply – many people, even those with an understanding of computer science, do not realize how much creativity lies in this line of work.
Anyway, for now all I can do is sit and wait. I hate waiting for emails that are not coming, so I went for a very long walk today. It was a very nice spring day with about 20 degrees and lots of sun (which I can still feel, ouch), but I can also tell that hanami will still take a week or two. Very few cherry trees are blooming at this point, and those that do have throngs of people around them, taking photos… Nice to see that I’m not the only one without patience 😉