Never say never. Last night, right around the strike of 0000, I was randomly surfing the web in a bored state of mind. I noticed the Slashdot article about jobs.linux.com getting a revamp. I decided to wander over to look at what they had done (also with the distant possibility of employment swimming around the back of my mind).

After reading a few articles, I decided to look in the open jobs section to see if there might be any that happened to be in the Colorado area. Most weren't, but there was one company that was, who was looking for a software developer. It looked interesting, so I checked on the details of the position, went to their web page, did a little looking around. Looked like a decent company, who, amazingly enough, actually had info about what they produced on their web page (lacking at a lot of companies I've looked at lately).

Alas, one of the requirements for the position was a BS degree. Slightly beyond my credentials (I suppose that could be an argument for going back to school). Aw, what the heck. In the dead of night, insanity takes over. Why not? I emailed a copy of my resume, knowing that odds were 999 out of 1000 that it would go straight to /dev/null.

Here's to that last 1.

Today, upon waking up, I had a new email in my box from said company. Not an autogenerated form letter. Not a "thank you for your interest and we'll get back to you." Not a "We're sorry. All the positions have already been filled." Nope. A direct request for an interview, complete with a proposed time and date. And not from some HR drone either. Somehow, it got passed them (or rather, they passed it on. A sign of cluefullness even in the HR department. Attributes of a promising company, if I do say so myself :) ), and I'm going to talk to the manager of software development on Thursday.

WOOHOO!

Let me temper that by saying it's still probably a shot in hell. Not that it doesn't look like a job I couldn't do. It's just... they've probably got a bazillion other candidates (advertising on linux.com? Come on!), and I'm probably just one of the bunch they decided were worth seeing in person. Even still, it's an encouraging sign.

Excuse me while I go gloat, but not too hard. There's an interview to be preparing for.