Personal stories of how we came to be part of this community.

Like everyone else, I took the test, got my “A”, and interviewed with Lawrence Hall. But I was not hired.

I interviewed a second time; I was not hired.

Prior to the third interview, I was told that the position was for the Office of Accounting. I went to the library, checked out six books about accounting, and read them all. I did not UNDERSTAND it all, but I read them all.

When I came in for my interview with Lawrence, I brought my accounting books with me, put them on his desk, and told him what I had done. He must have liked my persistence, because he passed me on to interview with Sheila Ochner, who at that time was the head of the programmers at the Office of Accounting.

I can't say I really remember the interview; I think I was too nervous to remember much of anything. But Sheila told me later that she had asked me ONE question, and that I then proceeded to talk … for 45 minutes.

At the end of the interview, she told me, “Just so you know, in our position, it's important that we LISTEN to our customers.”

But she gave me a chance.

That was 23 years ago. And I have loved every minute of it since.

My husband and I were living in Baltimore in 1998, but his family was from Austin so we decided to move down here. Since I was working at Johns Hopkins University as a grants administrator, I decided to apply to UT Austin to see if I could get a similar job. I applied using the HR web site*, completing all the necessary KSA's (so many KSA's!). When I clicked submit, a box with a lighthouse popped up, informing me that I might be interested in the Information Analyst Trainee position. After reading about it, I was interested so I called Keith Knippa to schedule a date on a Wednesday in mid-May to take the test.

Since I was coming in only for a few days, Keith agreed to score the test immediately for me, and if I got an A, he would interview me the next day. Happily, I did get an A. After my interview with Keith, I met with Zack Bennett, who offered me the position. I thought about it for one evening and accepted it on Friday morning. At the time, I thought Keith had just liked that I took three pages of notes during his talk prior to the test, but I soon that I was also part of a surge of new hires brought on to replace people lured away to consultants for Y2K remediation.

The most difficult problem was my start date; Keith wanted me to start within 2 weeks, but I needed time to give notice at my old job and move down here. We negotiated a June 15 start date. My last day at JHU was June 10; we closed on our house on June 11 and started the drive down to Texas with 2 cars, 2 babies, and a dog; we arrived at 3:30 PM on June 14 to record 108 degree heat; and I started at 8 AM on June 15. Needless to say, that first week of work is a blur!

* Side note about the HR web site - at that period of time, the HR area had an overnight batch process that automatically matched candidates to positions based on the KSA's (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities) the candidate identified. The matching process also generated a letter to the candidate for each matched position. For two months in 1998, I received anywhere from 1 to 6 first class letters a day from UT Austin, each letting me know I had been matched to another position. And yet I never received a follow up call or email from any of the hiring managers for those positions. I cannot imagine what the postage bill for HR was during 1998!

One of the things I remember about my interview with Lawrence Hall was that he would ask a question, I would answer it, and he would take his time writing on his yellow pad as we sat in silence. I know he was testing me with that silence to see what I would do. It's never been easy for me to keep my mouth shut, but I must have passed.