So continuing our events… The girls were done with their interviews and now it was time for the guys to do their interviews. We got up and at 9:30 we were ready to head out. The first interview was with Philip Iglehart, who along with his wife Tracy Hetzel work as graphic designers from there home. How cool is that? We got there on time, and had a really good interview.
They worked together in a corporation before going into their own business. At first they had to prove how good they were to get work, but now they get people contacting them all the time. They don’t even need to go looking for work; their name gets passed on by word of mouth.
One of the most interesting things is that Philip doesn’t have a degree. However, he did say that one would help a lot. For me at least, being interested in graphic design, I really liked how they were able to do the things they liked while staying at home and working with a bunch of different companies and people.
After this interview, we went back to the hotel and packed up our belongings. The cleaning guys kept talking to us and seemed to be pretty anxious for us to leave so they could clean the room. Finally we had everything ready and checked out. Then we went back to the Inner Harbor area, and ended up traveling around until we found a pretty nice diner and had lunch.
I just want to say, as the driver of the car, that I don’t enjoy driving in the city. All the one way streets make missing a turn quite a hassle. So missing one turn to get back to the highway means 10 minutes of trying to find a one way street going the right direction so you can go around the block again.
That happened a couple of times on our way out of Baltimore, so we got the next interviews a few minutes late. Gavin and I interviewed a Help Desk Engineer and a Network Engineer for Dataprise Inc. They both had a lot of good stuff to say, although I think that being a Network Engineer would be more fun than working at a desk helping people’s computer problems. The networking is more specific but seems more interesting.
Both of the Engineers seemed to be pretty laid back guys who enjoyed their work. They both stressed the importance of experience instead of, say, book knowledge. Degrees are very helpful, but there is no substitute for hands on experience.
Then came the 5 hour drive to the cabin. Boy that was long. After already driving a couple hours, driving 5 more while it got dark was quite the experience. Gavin and Rachel slept in the back seats for a while, and then were grumpy since they were so packed in. After a few pee stops and lots of complaining, we made it to the cabin.
It was about 8:45 and it didn’t look like anyone was in the office, but thankfully they left us our keys. Whew. So we settled in, relaxed, and realized that our interviews were over. To celebrate we watched 300. Contrary to Erika, Gavin and my beliefs, Rachel liked it. So we can all agree on a movie!
Things were just about settled down when Erika and Rachel decided it would be a great idea to tickle me. So after I almost beat them both, Gavin joined them and the three of them managed to beat me. Then it was just a matter of time before each of the rest was attacked by the other 3. Finally we went to sleep and it was soooooo nice.
