To say my October was an interesting one would be like saying that the sun is hot or that I'm sick and tired of hearing about Twilight. There were numerous things that made it interesting, from my going to the Tulsa State Fair to sitting teaching myself HTML 5. However, the highlight of that month was my trip to San Francisco to interview with Digg.

Somewhere towards the beginning of the month I had gotten an e-mail from Jobvite about a new Digg position as I am wont to do. The difference between this e-mail and the others was that I was actually qualified for the job in question. Without hesitating, I fired out my resume and cover letter but didn't really expect anything to come of it. After all, we're talking about one of the most visited websites in the world and certainly they'd want somebody with real working experience (of which I really did not have).

But, to make a long story short, I got a call from the recruiter (while I was at aforementioned fair) and that interview went well. I was then setup to talk to one of the developers and interview with him. That interview also went well. Then began the week of craziness.

I had received an e-mail from the recruiter saying "We'd like to bring you out here for more interviews." I was, of course, more than a little excited at this proposition. I e-mailed back asking when so I could get tickets lined up and got a reply saying "Oh, I forgot you were in Oklahoma. Well, we'll shoot for this date and time."

So. after a quick trip to Expedia, I had my tickets and hotel lined up shortly after which I received another e-mail stating that "I need to get approval first." A dashing blow to be sure, but luckily this was brought to light fast enough that I could cancel my tickets without incurring any fees.

The next day or so dragged on as I waited to hear again about whether or not I would be interviewing. The answer was yes, a date was set and again I had my tickets ready to do. Then came a call saying "Oh, hey. There's a developer meeting on the day you're having your interview. How about the day after?"

Now, if this were any other company than Digg I may have said "Really? If you can't get it together I'm not going to bother." But, this was Digg and this was a dream job, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and cancelled/repurchased my tickets. Yes, I'm at seven paragraphs and I've yet to set foot on a plane.

Luckily, this was the end of the planning Hell and in a couple days I was on the plane flying out to the City by the Bay. I was excited to finally be moving forward with this. My plane left Tulsa at 6am cdt and arrived in San Fran at 11:40pdt, the entire time dressed in my interviewing clothes.

Now, on this last set of tickets I passed on both a car and hotel as these tickets were much more expensive due to the short notice. So, I hitched a ride on the train to some street close to the Digg offices and hiked the rest of the way. Initially, it took a while to get pointed in the right direction as everybody I asked on the street around the train station did not seem to know where any street was. Eventually, I did get there (after about a mile of walking in the San Francisco heat) and just in time. I entered the building with a bunch of developers who were coming off lunch and entered the Digg lobby.

The lobby is pretty much what I expected: trendy and slick. There were two couches with little digg pillows on them and a big digg sign on the wall. I checked in, signed an NDA, and began the actual interview. And a whirlwind that was.

Over the four hours of interviews I had I think I learned more than in my entire time at Full Sail. I was thrown all sorts of questions ranging from how to avoid duplicate entires in a database caused by two users submitting the same thing at the exact same time, to how to get paid even amounts of gold for a job over the course of seven days without cutting said bar more than two times. In the end, I was neutral about the interview as a whole; some went well some not so well. I didn't know what to expect as I exited the building.

The trip home was long as I had to stay overnight in the San Francisco smelling like sweat due to all the walking I had done that day. It was not pleasant to say the least and I apologize to any passenger who had the misfortune of sitting next to me. But, I figured if I got a job at Digg it would all be worth it.

Fast forward to last week where I finally received an e-mail from the recruiter saying that they had passed up on hiring anybody for the position at all. I'm not too angry or disappointed as I am now employed with Griffin New Media and I did get an experience I'll remember for a good many years to come. Perhaps in the future I'll have the opportunity again and maybe will have a little more luck then.