Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Whine, Pout, Shout Day

This story starts a few months ago. After we had been accepted to the U in February, we started to make plans as to where we would live, what jobs would be available, and all sorts of fun stuff that happens when you change homes, cities, schools, jobs, and majors... all at the same time. Brett was planning to just transfer State Farm offices to somewhere in Salt Lake City, but after we got accepted, he decided that this may be the right and best time for something new and even perhaps something better. We absolutely have loved State Farm and his agent has just been fabulous to us and has done so much for Brett and I, but we decided it would be a great opportunity to try something new and not get locked into doing insurance the rest of our lives.

We started looking around and my oldest brother talked to Brett about a company he used to work for a few years called MarketStar. The job sounded really interesting to Brett and the potential there was awesome. He applied a few weeks ago after much anticipation and waited patiently. In the mean time, we got SO many offers from people and companies that we didn't even apply for, that wanted Brett! He put is resume on Monster and since then, has gotten several job offers and interested employers. I was pretty impressed with him, but not too surprised.  I picked a good one ;)   He got quite the ego boost and I was a proud wife.

Last weekend, we went to the U for our orientation and during the super exciting and totally not boring 3 hour presentation on harassment and cheating, Brett got a call from MarketStar! They wanted him to start their interview process called “HireVue” which is a series of  video interview questions he would have to record by Monday morning. He would have 30 seconds to read the questions, and 3 minutes to answer. We were SO excited, to say the least.

Earlier that week, we also got an offer from Farmers Insurance (Not State Farm) and they wanted both of us to come to their office that weekend so they could pitch themselves to us. We went and met with them and they wanted Brett to sign on as an actual Agent with Farmers. Right now, he is technically a “producer” for his Agent, so he brings new business into the office and sells policies like crazy. Farmers offered us an incredible compensation plan (read: $$$$$) since he would be his own agent, he would get 100% residuals, commissions, and base hourly pay, whereas right now he earns hourly+minimal commission.  It was appealing, but we have grown a loyalty to State Farm and when they couldn’t explain to us “Why Farmers?” it turned us off quite a bit. You see, State Farm is #1 in the country. You honestly won’t get better customer service, care, and coverage quite like them. We left feeling like it might be an option, but definitely not our first choice.

Well, we left SLC on Sunday night and got back SO late. We were SO tired (both of us were so sick all week and weekend and had such a jam-packed schedule for the weekend) and so we set everything up on the computer and previewed the lighting and did a few practice questions and went to bed past midnight when Brett had his first final the next morning at 9am. Everything was good and ready to go! The next morning, Brett woke up at 5:45am to get this interview done and he came in to sickly, groggy and drooling Sleeping Beauty (me) and said “our internet is out!!!!” We have had little to NO problems with our internet, EVER! And today was the morning that it decided not to work. The router is upstairs since our basement apartment doesn't have the necessary plugs or whatever for it to work, and so we couldn't wake up our neighbors who love us were sleeping at 6am to have them fix the router. So, he got all the computer stuff together and went to the school at 6am because the ELC is open 24/7 during finals week and I think the library opens early too.

Is it weird I always think our library looks like a cut egg roll?
He gets to the school and the doors are locked. The rooms are locked. The library isn’t open. AHHH! We are panicking. We were told that their panel would be viewing all the videos that morning, and he was running out of time. Brett called me from the school explaining the situation and I was just freaking out a little. I felt so bad. Finally, the library opened and he was let in. He got a study room and set up the computer to start the interview. Then, THE MIC DIDN’T WORK! 

Are you for real?

Yes.

Our Monday in a nutshell
At this point, I was thinking that maybe these were very not so subtle signs that this was NOT the right thing and God was being very obvious about it. I started to get discouraged. Brett ended up doing the interview with horrible lighting and set up through his phone camera. At least it gets pretty good resolution. He finished the interview and then straight to his final. We were told that the videos from all the candidates would be viewed that morning and would be notified by the afternoon if they qualified for the second round of face to face interviews. So, we waited.

The hours passed. No phone call.

“Has anyone from MarketStar called you yet??”

“No :(”

":("

Conversations like this took place all morning, afternoon, and late afternoon.

I picked  Brett up from work and he just looked defeated. We were so confident and I know Brett interviews fabulously since he’s just fabulous anyways and really shines in front of a crowd. I was so confused and just felt horrible.


Thus, Whine Pout Shout Day was created.

I told Brett it was his special “Whine, Pout, Shout” day and we could do anything he wanted. I snuggled him on the couch as he laid, crushed. We went and got a movie, got his favorite pizza, his favorite ice cream, and favorite chips. The early-death fear-er in me cringed, but the loving wife won this round and we enjoyed a comfort meal for Brett. I told him he wasn't allowed to smile- only whine, pout, and shout. For some reason, he only did the opposite of these things when I told him to do them! What the heck?! Oh well, I guess smiling and being happy works too;)

We didn’t get a call back. And it stunk.

The next day (today) was not a happy morning. We both took 7am and 9am finals and I could tell Brett was still just so sad about the job. We were at home eating lunch before work and I was on the computer when we got an email… from MarketStar!

Long story short, the email said that he had made it to the second round of interviews, but since they wanted Brett to focus on his finals and school, they would just use his dumb phone camera interview as his 2nd round interview. We were a little bummed about that, but it was ok. The email asked him to call them in a few hours. So, after his call, we found out…

HE GOT THE JOB!

The recruiter was showing the videos to the head honcho who makes the executive decision, and she said that after watching 5 minutes of the video, he told her to hire Brett!

No more Whine & Pout- HOORAY AND SHOUT! 

We are thrilled and I am SO proud. I am so grateful. Since this job will be a HUGE blessing financially to us, I won’t have to work at all and I will be able to put all my energy into school. I found out this weekend that I could finish in 3 semesters, 4 if I can pass the language test and place in a higher level Japanese course to minor in Japanese! I am SO excited for this new chapter of our lives and for all the amazing people who have helped us get here. Now, Brett wants to get a motorcycle so he can look cool while commuting to his cool new job;) That’ll be another post. For now, the Childs Kazoku are celebrating!

2 comments:

  1. Wahoo!!! Oh my heck, I'm SO happy for you two! Way to go, Brett! :)

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  2. For some reason this new blog wasn't on my blog roll, so I'm just catching up. Yay for Brett!!! This is a couple of months old, but I'm assuming he took the job. Hopefully he loves it!

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