Here's what you know already: I got fired from Yahoo! in February, rejected by Google in April (what, you think you could do better?) and today I started working for Amazon in Seattle. Not to take anything away from Amazon: they're an amazing company, they hire some of the most brilliant software developers in the world, and I'm both honored and humbled to have been chosen. That said, Seattle is a far cry from NYC, and what better means of humorously pointing out those differences than a blog? This will be the new "White People Are Different From Black People".
I will also tell stories.
So, I'm a day behind on this whole blog thing. I actually flew out Saturday evening; the flight was delayed on the runway for two+ hours due to inclement weather (near Newark, though - and don't think I'd hesitate to jump all over this if it was Seattle's fault). The delay meant I was going to miss dinner unless I could find something near my new place that was open late, but I held out hope (because I was starving, and when you're starving, hope is pretty much all you have). I finally arrived in Seattle close to 1AM with instructions from the housing company to go to the door of my apartment, where I would find a lockbox. They also had given me a secret code that, when typed into the lockbox, would produce a key. I will not lie, I was very excited for this. Straight out of a spy movie, the only way they could have made it better was if they had used a retina scanner instead.
Problem 1: getting into the apartment building required a key fob, which I did not have because it was presumably inside the lockbox on the apartment door.
And I had to pee.
I waited for a few minutes outside the door before someone else who lived there showed up and went inside. This really didn't take long at all, but the night was far from over.
Upon arriving at my apartment door, you can probably imagine the amalgam of emotion that swept over me when I saw there was in fact no lockbox on the door. Disappointment, panic, exasperation, hunger.
And I still had to pee.
Luckily, I had remembered to write down the emergency contact number given to me by the housing company. Unluckily, my phone was dead. Luckily, there happened to be an outlet in the hallway, and I had packed my phone's charger. Unluckily, it was buried somewhere in my suitcase.
Ok, I was desperate. I opened up the suitcase in the hallway and dug around until I found the charger. Made the call, told them what happened, they said they'd call me back. I really had to go at this point. They called back and told me that they had gotten in touch with the building's management, and if I went down to the lobby (previously empty upon my arrival), I could find the security guard who would then let me in. This was all true, but they did not say I was going to find a grizzled old man who was not fully capable of forming words and who was none too pleased about going up to the 17th floor to unlock an apartment for a guy with a bunch of suitcases who may or may not actually live in the building.
And yet he did. And finally I could relieve myself, which was by far the best part of the night. But even this victory was bittersweet, for the guard would not actually give me a key. So now my situation was only somewhat improved: I was inside my apartment, but I couldn't leave. I called the Oakwood people for what seemed like the 19th time that night and told them of my dilemma. The woman's reaction was priceless: "Do you NEED to leave?"
The eventual resolution was that I would have to go down to their offices in the morning and pick up my keys there. They were nice and got me a cab, and overall the customer service was great, offsetting all the ways the people who were actually supposed to implement this had fucked up. I suppose it could have been a lot worse: I might not have gotten into the building at all, or I might not have found an outlet to charge my phone, and then I'd have had to spend the night on the street.
I don't know how to end this entry. I will work on conclusions for the future.
Oh wait, I got it.
The end.
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