Ok, lots to cover. I’m writing this while sitting in the airport in Milwaukee in the middle of a two hour layover. I’ll break this into pieces.
The trip. Getting to Madison was split into three legs: Manhattan to KC, KC to Milwaukee, and Milwaukee to Madison. Who knew that Manhattan had three flights in and out everyday? My first experience on a small plane really wasn’t a big deal. Both legs on small jets were a pretty smooth ride, although I have to say I liked the Fairchild 328Jet better than the Beechcraft 1900. On the way back from Madison to Milwaukee, our pilot overshot the airport and we had to circle around again to have a “safer landing.” I thought that was pretty funny. Also humorous were the two short legs (about 25 minutes each) on which the flight attendant would announce that we had reached our “cruising altitude” of 10,000 feet, only to turn around two minutes later and say we had begun our descent. I was hoping to just listen to my iPod for the short legs, but for half a song it hardly seemed worth it.
Madison. I didn’t really get to see much of the city, although when they called for my cab to take me back to the airport this afternoon, I got the feeling that they asked the cab driver to take me through the city (little did they know I would be asleep half the time). I heard some interesting things about the city and found out that it was voted the best place to live in 1996 and it is consistently in the top 10. There’s apparently a lot to do there, and Chicago is only 2 1/2 hours away. The weather should be pretty mild, without too many hot/humid days in the summer. I was told there are lots of sporting activities and plenty of artsy type stuff to do there as well.
Epic. The whole reason for my trip. I really didn’t know what to expect out of this. I took their skills assessment test when I got back to Manhattan after winter break, but other than one phone call since then, I hadn’t spoken to anyone since my phone interview back in November. Everything else had been through email.
The first thing I noticed when I got ready to leave the hotel this morning is that there was a girl around my age also waiting on a cab to take her to Epic Systems. Crap…my competition! But wait…it turned out she was applying for the other position that had a bit more travel than I would want. So we got into the same cab and got to Epic about 20-25 minutes early. Man, was it boring sitting there listening to three receptionists answer the phone “Good morning, Epic” over and over again.
Anyway, eventually someone came out and gave us a little tour of the main building (they have nine). We quickly realized that Epic is not your typical company. I already knew that the dress code is pretty much whatever you feel comfortable in. Apparently their policy manual says something like “the only requirement is that you must wear clothes when customers are present.” Since customers are there everyday, there aren’t many nudists (thank God). They also really like art. There are some of the most random pieces scattered around the hallways, and they like to decorate rooms in themes. We walked into “The Lodge” conference room at one point, and our guide mentioned a space theme and a lake theme as well. They also like fireplaces (a lot).
Here’s a little story to give you an idea of Epic’s growth. At the time the company bought the building we toured today, they had about 65 employees. The building has about 120 offices, so they figured they’d have plenty of room to expand. Little did they know that by the time they were actually able to move in, they had 110 employees and already needed to expand and quickly built a sizable addition that more than doubled the size of the building. As I said earlier, they now lease eight other buildings in Madison and have over 1600 employees (all in about 10 years). They might hire as many as 100 people in a single month. This month it was 60. Because the company is growing so fast, they bought about 300 acres of farmland just outside of Madison and started building their own campus with plenty of space to expand. It’s got a creek running through the center and they are even building a tree house with walls that will block out the distractions of cell phones and wireless computers. I shit you not.
After the tour, we all split into our respective agendas for the rest of the day. First off, I got a chance to talk to someone from Technical Services (the part of the company I would be working for). I learned some interesting things, but they aren’t interesting enough to repeat here. Next, I went into a presentation that gave an overview on Epic’s product suite (this went a little more in depth than I would have cared to get at this point). Then I answered some hypothetical questions and moved on to lunch. That’s always a good thing.
After lunch, I came back for some more questions from Human Resources, and then finally I went on to some programming exercises. I will never again underestimate the power of a computer. Sitting there trying to write code without being able to conveniently go back and insert statements you may have missed is a royal pain in the ass. There were five questions to answer and I think I did alright. I’m sure I overlooked some trivial things because I wasn’t able to actually debug my code or use specific functions. And it’s always possible I misinterpreted the questions in the first place…<
One thing I did learn is that just by being invited to Madison, I am well on my way to being hired. At this point, I'm really impressed with what I've seen from the company, and I'm pretty sure I would accept an offer if one was given to me. I think Technical Services would be a really good fit for me, which is ironic since six months ago I knew absolutely nothing of Epic Systems and was thinking about applying for jobs that are nothing like this one. I'm supposed to hear something in the next two weeks, possibly as early as Monday. It's kind of a scary thought.
Thanks to those who read through this whole post. My true fans! ; )
