It’s weird to look back a week ago and think about how much has changed since then. For those of you who don’t know, I recently made the decision to leave T&S and join the ColorfulStudio crew.

Recently I have been considering whether or not T&S is the right company for me. I love the people that work there and the environment of the company, don’t get me wrong, but when you are thinking about your career and where you want it to go in the future you have to take a step back every once in a while and look at what your goals are for yourself and if you will be able to achieve them at your current job.

Since I started at T&S as a Programming Intern I have learned a great deal about being a web programmer. Relearning HTML was easy although it had been a while since I had last dabbled in it. Tables use to be the only way you did anything, but now they are looked down upon greatly unless they are absolutely necessary. Another thing that changed a lot is styling HTML. When I was in high school, and learning about styling HTML for the first time, the only way to do it was with in-line styles. It is vastly more efficient to do it now with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). While at T&S I have also been able to learn a bit about PHP which is the backbone of WordPress, and jQuery.

With the knowledge that I had attained from working at T&S I put together this site with the intention of writing down some of my thoughts, documenting and displaying some projects I have worked on, and putting myself out there for other people and companies to see what I can do. When I did so I had no idea that anything would actually come of it. Sure I had hoped that people would look at my site but to actually get an offer for an interview? I was pretty shocked to tell you the truth.

The Email

Last Saturday, February 12th, was a normal Saturday for me. I had stayed up late the night before because my sleep schedule has been messed up for the last couple of weeks. Once I woke up and finally rolled out of bed at around 11:00am I hopped on my computer and caught up on a couple of shows on Hulu, ate lunch, and then played some Dragon Age before starting on my homework.

Around 4:00pm I got an email with the subject of “Web developer intern position available” and opened it expecting it to be junk mail or a scam. What I found was quite the opposite. It was a legitimate offer, to me directly, for the chance to interview at ColorfulStudio a web development company in Moore, OK. ColorfulStudio emailed me! I have never had this happen before, and I hope that everyone has this happen to them at least once in their life. It’s really flattering when a company in your industry seeks you out because they think you have what it takes to help them succeed.

I went ahead and scheduled the interview for the following Tuesday morning with the mindset of just seeing what the company was about, since I already had a job.

The Interview

I felt more relaxed for this interview than any other interview I have ever had. More than likely because I have never had an interview when I already had a job. I was very nervous, just because thats how I am, but I found it pretty easy to calm down once I started talking to Derek, David, and Keith. The interview went really well and it felt like I was getting along with them. I liked the plans that they had for their new office that they are moving into early next month. The main thing that I got out of meeting with them was that they were doing things that were more along the lines of what I wanted to do at my job. I left with a really great feeling of accomplishment and confidence.

There was one thing that made me embarrassed and nervous about whether they would want me or not though. During the interview we talked about their company needing people that have a high attention to detail, and I mentioned that I am a perfectionist so I would fit in very well in that regard. Later, when we got up and they showed me where their new office was going to be, I realized that I had left my belt on my desk and didn’t have it on. I couldn’t believe that I had done that but I guess it was just something that slipped my mind as I was preparing for the interview. I kind of panicked on the inside but told myself to hold it together. Maybe they didn’t notice, I sure wasn’t going to bring it up just in case they hadn’t. As of this writing I still don’t know if any of them noticed me not wearing a belt.

Other than that one thing, I knew I had done all that I could to have a good interview and to give them the best impression of me possible. The ball was in their court and I was just along for the ride.

The Offer

So after the interview I went about my day like I normally would. Went to chapel, did a Biology lab that I missed because I was sick (worst migraine I have ever had by the way), went to bible, and then worked from 4 to 6:30pm. I hadn’t been checking my personal email from work like I normally do periodically. After work I had to go to a club meeting so I went straight there. Once I got there I opened up my laptop with the intention of writing an email thanking ColorfulStudio for taking the time to interview me and even consider me for the position they were trying to fill. Man was I surprised to see that ColorfulStudio had already sent me an email with a job offer for their Web Developer I position.

Once I read the whole email I couldn’t concentrate on anything that was happening in the meeting. What really stunk is that I couldn’t show my excitement at all because a fellow employee at T&S is also in my club and I hadn’t told anyone about the interview or anything. So there I sat, trying to figure out what I should do. I really wanted to take the job right then but I didn’t feel right accepting the offer until I had talked to my boss, Tim, first. The next day, Wednesday, I told Tim about the whole situation and that I intended to accept the offer. He didn’t seem happy about it because the timing wasn’t the best, but honestly when is it ever a good time for an employer to get the news that one of its employees is going to be leaving the company. Especially with small businesses. After I got off work that night I emailed ColorfulStudio and accepted the offer.

New Beginnings

I turned in my two weeks to T&S and my last day there as a Programming Intern will be Friday, March 4th. I will then start working for ColorfulStudio in their new office on Monday, March 7th as a Web Developer Intern. I am really looking forward to learning the technologies that they are using and helping them complete the projects they have. I will do my best to get on here and update you guys on what I am learning and all the things that are going on.