Flashback to October 2002. I am at my co-op job at Make Technologies in Yaletown, and have walked into a meeting room for a company meeting. The CEO announces that due to cashflow problems there will be layoffs effective immediately. Yours truly has been canned.
Over the next month I apply to various open co-op positions. The dot com bubble has burst, so there aren't that many jobs for software developers. It comes down to two companies: MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) and Creo Inc. My first interview is at MDA. I show up at 10:30am thinking my interview is at 11:00am. Not wanting to wait too long in the lobby, I sit in my car until about 10:45. At 11, I am met in the lobby by an engineer and brought to his office. As we are walking, he asks "so, what happened?" Confused, I reply "what do you mean?" "Well, your interview was supposed to be at 10!" Ooops. I hadn't written down the time, but I swear to this day that the HR lady told me 11. Obviously, I didn't get the job.
The other interview was at Creo. I first interviewed with Marlene Jan from HR, and then I was brought to Kel and Sam's office. They bombarded me with questions. I tried to gauge their reactions to my answers, and it didn't look good. Then, Kel wrapped it up with "when should you use inheritence in your code?" I gave the textbook answer, but they kept grilling me to clarify.
Well I guess my answer was good enough because they gave me the job. And the rest is history. Had I not been laid off, and had I showed up on time to my interview, I would very likely not worked at Creo / Kodak. These two events, relatively insignificant at the time, had a very significant impact on my career.
Goodbye team lunch at Cactus Club
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