This post was originally published on August 31, 2011, on my personal blog.

The building had somehow been lost in the skyline every time I had seen Bellevue. Half an hour before my interview, I walked into the lobby with my heart racing — it’s not every day that you land an chance to work at your dream company. A directory was posted by the elevator, but the company I was looking for wasn’t on it. As I searched the walls for some evidence I was in the right place, I heard two men behind me joking about a girl working at Cafe Ladro… and saw that one was wearing a Legend of Zelda T-shirt. I followed him into the elevator, waited for him to push a button, and pretended that I knew where I was going. Several floors later, he stepped out and tapped his keycard against a glass door, laughing at a joke his friend made as they walked in. …