goofyballer goes to San Francisco: A Trip Report

goofyballer · #1 03-13-2007, 03:15 AM

So I'd been talking with this software company in Silicon Valley and they were like "yo goofy you should head up this weekend and we'll give you an interview" and I was like "aight mang!"

So, Thursday night after I get out of class (7pm or so) I drive up to my hotel, where this company generously put me 4 FREE!!!11 Check this out:

They know how to treat a VIP. The hotel even had a free breakfast buffet! They had real, fresh food, like eggs and sausages and a wafflemaker and biscuits and all kinds of good stuff. At the Econo Lodge I stayed at when my apartment lease didn't start till the 2nd week of school they only had store-bought pastries, so this was a nice step up. Beat: The previous night the hiring managers took the interviewees out to dinner at Macaroni Grill, but I missed out because I had late class.

Anyway, so early next morning I wake up and put on my finest attire:

YEA THIS KID IS BALLIN U KNOW U'D HIRE DAT

Beat: I discover that the Bay Area has copious amounts of traffic at probably all hours of the day. I thought rush hour in Marin was bad growing up, but I think I was wrong.

Anyway, so I arrive at the company and do the interview. It seems like a pretty chill place, I ended up talking to 5 diff managers about varying stuff. Some of them grilled me on programming type questions, others talked about more behavioral type stuff. I didn't really feel like I did too great on some of the questions; for example, I was asked whether I would use a binary search tree versus a hash table to store something like an address book on a PDA, and I couldn't really come up with a good answer because I didn't remember the exact weaknesses of a data structure I last used 4 years ago (I know, it's not an excuse). I nailed some questions and in others I floundered, but I think generally I'm pretty good at presenting myself as a pretty intelligent and well-spoken dude so I was basically hoping I got that across well enough.

So after that they turned us loose to hang out in a break area for a bit, and then the managers came back and grabbed us one by one; I wasn't really sure what was going on and didn't expect any kind of decision on their part to come so quickly. However, they pulled me in and said they not only wanted to offer me a position, but that it was one of the most ballin positions they were offering and I'd get to do a lot of cool lower-level programming that I'd mentioned I like. So, that seemed pretty sweet; I left the company feeling pretty good and headed up to San Francisco.

I was immediately hit with a wave of traffic (obv) and it took me about an hour to get to the city, from like 5:30 to 6:30pm; standard? Driving in San Francisco has always scared the crap out of me from a young age, because there's nowhere to park and I hate parallel parking and there are never any signs and it's confusing and yeah, but I managed to make it to my buddy's place on Lincoln just south of Golden Gate Park. I went to high school with this guy and he's one of the only people I've maintained friendship with since then, so I figured I'd drop by and hang out while I was in the area for my interview.

It's kinda funny how our paths diverged; I think in high school we were really similar, but he didn't really like his choice of college so he ended up back at a community college back home, got a smoking hot girlfriend, and apparently it did wonders for his confidence + game because he now seems to have a new girlfriend pretty much every time I talk to him...in stark contrast w/ me, obviously. He just graduated from a pretty good university a couple months ago and is starting a job doing something finance-related (none of that stuff makes sense to me) this week. Anyway, we meet up with his new girlfriend who's pretty smart/hot but apparently didn't have any single friends that could tag along, so I played fifth wheel as we met up with her coworker + coworker's boyfriend and went to a little Irish pub nearby. It was still pretty fun though, they're all cool people and most of all I loved that we were able to just walk around that night and the following morning and have tons of awesome restaurants within walking distance; I guess that's something you get in a big city? It certainly made me think about living in the city if I take this job even if the commute would make me want to gouge my eyes out.

The following afternoon I peace out and head to DJ Sensei's apartment. The parking situation is really dismal for blocks around his place, and after driving around for like 5 minutes I finally found a tiny spot which I fit my Honda Accord into after about 7 tries. [censored] parallel parking. DJ has a pretty sweet apartment, I'm not sure if he'd want me to go into details though. Looking at the neighborhood both around his place and my friend's place I get the impression like city life is pretty sweet for a young professional like me compared to living in a suburb somewhere. Anyway, we soon head to Lucky Chances for some pokar.

The game there is super weird; I've never played NL in the Bay Area before, but apparently all the games are like this. Anyway, it's a $2-$3-$5 spread limit game where the 3/5 blinds are SB/BB and the button posts a live $2 blind. The max bet or raise on any street is $200. In addition, it costs $10 to limp. The list was kinda long for that game so we sat at a 1-1-2 spread limit game (limp = $4) to start with.

Only one notable hand for me in the 1-1-2 game: I have T9cc in the BB, someone raises to like $10, two people call, DJ calls in small blind, I call, lots of people see an ace-high 2-club flop. I check-call the flop and turn getting good odds and brick both streets; A6 for two pair ends up taking it down. After the hand I learn that DJ had the K-high flush draw and that I should be really happy a club didn't hit. Soon after they started a new 2-3-5 game so we went to go play, with me down $60 or so.

This first table had 2 HUGE fish on it, and a third guy started playing pretty fishy after he had a couple beers. One fish was a dude that open-raised all kinds of weak hands (he showed down KJo once for a $30 raise UTG) or limp-called trashier stuff and never wanted to fold a pair. Another was a LAGgy Asian dude that fired every street until someone raised him and always bluffed when checked to. There was one other semi-decent player at the table but he seemed to be pretty predictable as far as betting most any pot in position and raising preflop + cbetting and then shutting down when called.

I'm being a nit and folding most everything until I get 77 in EP. I open-limp, huge fish #1 raises to $30, aforementioned decent player calls in blinds, I call. Flop K-7-3r. Checked around (this was the first time I hadn't seen huge fish cbet [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]) Turn 7 giving me quads; decent player checks, I bet $50, both players fold. Meh.

I get AQs, raise to $45 behind a limp or two, everyone folds.

This being a must-move game, the two fish and DJ eventually get moved; finally, I join them. More hands:

77 in LP; I open to $30, folded to a LAG in SB who calls. HU to flop of 965cc. He check-calls $45. Turn is beautiful 8h; he leads $100. There's about $450 behind and I figure if he has any kind of hand I need to raise to be able to get stacks in on the river, so I tank for ~15 seconds and put in $300. This may have been ill-advised as he can also easily have air there, but if he's semi-bluffing a flush draw then flat calling puts me in a difficult spot on a club river and might make me miss value against some hands since I can't raise in that situation. Anyway, he thinks for ~10 seconds and folds.

AQo in MP; I open to $45 behind Asian donk's limp, same LAG calls in position, donk calls. Flop is 766dd, I check-fold to LAG's bet...I probably could have put up a fight but I'm weak-tight when playing higher than normal and I didn't want to get into a difficult spot OOP. It sucks that I basically knew he was gonna bet when I checked to him but I think he'll float pretty frequently. I would probably start playing back if I got into this situation again.

Red AA in EP; huge Asian donk from table #1 limps, I make it $45, same LAG from last hand calls in LP and donk calls as well. Flop is KJT with two diamonds; donk checks, I bet $80, both players call. Turn is a black 7; donk checks, I think about checking versus check-raising versus check-calling and eventually decide I don't want to risk a freebie and put $200 out. LAG folds, donk calls. River is a gross 9; donk checks, I flip AA, he flips KTo. [censored].

Eventually we head out; I'll let DJ talk about his experience if he wants, but basically we both need to have a little more of our bankrolls in cash next time we play there I think.

We head back to DJ's place a couple hours before Cal Poly's epic battle against the Long Beach State 49ers in the Big West Championship game; Cal Poly has never been to the NCAA tourney before and hadn't played in the championship since my freshman year in 2003, so I was pretty stoked for the game! We went to DJ's friend's place to cook some flank steaks + mashed potatoes (they did most of the cooking, but I did an excellent job of updating them on the game progress after it started. Brag: food was good) and cheer on Cal Poly as they turned in a pretty pathetic performance in the 2nd half to once again fall short of NCAA Tournament glory. Meh.

We head back to DJ's place and play some FIFA 07 and a card game his roommate taught me to wind down the night. Brag: I wiped the floor w/ DJ the first two times I've ever played FIFA 07; first game was a 3-1 rape, second game I scored 2 goals almost instanteously with Ronaldinho (who is a ridiculous exploit in that game, he can dribble circles around anyone) before he gets sent off with a TOTAL BS red card!!!! However, I managed to survive the rest of the match a man down to pull off a 3-2 victory.

Next afternoon I drive back to school, stopping for a tasty In-n-Out burger on the way in Gilroy. After class today I got a call from a manager at the company where I interviewed; he asked if I was sitting down before telling me the specifics of my job offer. I'm glad I was, because he said they want to pay me, goofyballer, $81,000 per year to work at their company! A lot of you higher stakes guys probably aren't really impressed...

goofyballer (7:45:43 PM): software company wants to pay me $81k per year for my services
AJFenix (7:45:54 PM): is that good?
goofyballer (7:45:54 PM): yeah
AJFenix (7:45:58 PM): i guess so?
goofyballer (7:46:01 PM): straight out of college that's a pretty ridic salary
AJFenix (7:46:07 PM): [censored] not even 6 figs
AJFenix (7:46:10 PM): and after tax
AJFenix (7:46:12 PM): its like 50?
goofyballer (7:46:25 PM): yeah I should know better than to tell my poker friends
AJFenix (7:46:30 PM): and a FUCKLOAD of works
AJFenix (7:46:32 PM): work*
AJFenix (7:46:33 PM): yeah
AJFenix (7:46:37 PM): tell your drooler friends

...but to a small-stakes guy like me, I'm pretty sure that's a ridiculous amount of money to be making right as a programmer after I graduate. So yeah, that is like ++++++BRAG.

WHAT IT DO BBV