Cultural experience

Yesterday morning, I had an interview at a large internet company in the South Bay. I trekked down to 24th and Mission at the ungodly but designated time for its shuttle. There was a mob of young men in leather jackets, jeans, and new canvas laptop cases; so, I figured they must be my people. But I hung back to get on the shuttle last. It filled up, and ultimately a young man gave up his seat to let me ride to my interview.

The bus was really crowded, and they had turned 2 people away (including the guy who gave up his seat for me to make it to my interview). Since the job I interviewed for included running the shuttle service, I could see that I had my work cut out for me. I kept elbowing the guy next to me, and he kept nudging me. I wanted to believe he was hitting on me (he was pretty cute) but I was also aware of the reality of the situation.

The bus had wifi, and I noticed that everyone on the bus was using the email of a competing internet company. I thought that was rather odd.

The first stop was a full 20 minutes earlier than my stop was supposed to be, and I asked the guy next to me how many stops there are:
Him: 4, I think
Me: the schedule they gave me only included 2
Him: some are new, I think.
Me: I’m trying to get to X business park. What city are we in?
Him (shrugging): this is the main campus.
The 3 other women on the bus got off together, looking rather eccentric, and walked together towards one of the buildings. Most everyone else (young men in leather jackets) had a different stop – a stop clearly for the competing internet company. At the last stop, one guy asked me: do you know where you’re going?
Me: No
Him: Did they give you a building number?
I mentioned the company name…. well, it turned out I had gotten on the wrong company’s bus. I guess I thought multiple companies might share buses.

The person interviewing me later clarified that there are actually 4 companies with shuttles from SF to their South Bay campus: eBay, Genetech, Google, and Yahoo!. The shuttle driver dropped me at another shuttle stop where that shuttle arrived shortly and took me to the Caltrain station. Then, another shuttle took me from the Caltrain station to the proper campus. I was only 30 minutes late. I wonder if I could have walked.

So, basically, I toured the South Bay by public transit, and the dot com thing still happening there. The person interviewing me wanted to know all about the other company’s shuttle facilities: what kind of transponder did they have? Yeah, I checked that right after I got on the bus. (Not.) But I was a bit of a company spy already having had that experience. She said they’d had some turnover in the position managing the shuttle which might explain the inadequate capacity.

Who knows what will happen, but I’m kind of excited about trying an entirely different sector of the economy. The obvious jobs for me I already know have undesirable aspects. I’m less excited about the commute, but it got to feeling almost romantic to me on that bus ride down, like we were these people who do this crazy thing and it’s like meditation – something that you do that you don’t really understand but is fun anyway. I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore. Someone please kiss me to shut me up.