Interview, check.

I survived my interview experience. It was stressful. They always are, but manuevering through the whole thing in German was another story. I was sort of hoping to begin in German and then morph into English. No go. It was all German all the time. 40 minutes with the head of Research and Development and a woman from HR, then 40 minutes with another guy from R&D. I managed with the German, but it was far from elegant.

Good points:

• I could ride the bus there practically in a straight shot.
• Everybody in the department, except the chair, switched their computer settings to English somehow even though they still have a German keyboard. This means I wouldn't have to re-learn how to use Excel in German (horrors!).
• Nearly all the communications from the office are in English.
• The woman currently working in the position has her own private office with a door and huge window. I think it overlooks forest and grassy hillside and part of another building. So maybe I'd get the office if they hire me??? That would be beyond cool!
• Everybody seemed nice, normal, and friendly. Good first impressions.
• It's a job I'm 99% sure I could do well. (after learning curve of course)
  

Points to ponder:

• It's a high level secretary job supporting the top 4 people in R&D, which is the head of R&D for all of Europe, and basically the main R&D for the entire international company = Pressure.
• The whole supporting 4 people thing is no fun. I already know that. Everybody wants everything yesterday, so there would have to be a clear hierarchy and regular communications to make this work well. If they already have a good system for this, then good, but if they don't it's going to be messy.
  
• The woman working there now is only leaving because she's retiring and has been there for 20 years, meaning there are HUGE shoes to fill.
• There's a really scary and complicated internal program I would have to learn that everybody hates and finds confusing, and of course it's also in German. At least they acknowledge it's terrible, but I would need really good training on that.
• All inter-office communications are in German, and, I'm guessing, in short form with lots of weird acronyms that have lots of z's in them. German office lingo and basic vocab = must learn fast if I'm hired.
• That whole secretary thing is something I was hoping to move away from. I mean, it seems like a nice place to work and all, but I'd like to have my own secretary, y'know? I was hoping it would turn out to be a job that was more technical-writer oriented or something. But since I don't have any specific training there, or, for that matter, any German certificates or Ausbildungen, then I pretty much have to take what's out there. It would be nice to be able to work back in my own field someday, but we need the money, so I have to at least try for the job. One day I tell you, one day!
  

Anyhow, they said they would be in touch within the next 2 weeks. They seem to need to decide soon since this woman is retiring. I would hope she would be the one doing the training, but who knows these days? I really think the job hangs on what they think of my German. I feel confident that if it were all in English I'd be great at it, but the reality is that you have to be really good in both languages and I don't know if my German cuts it just now. We shall see. Thanks for praying. I was only really nervous for the first 15 minutes or so!

P.S. - We have a friend's laptop until Saturday/Sunday and are hoping to buy a laptop of our own next week. But it will likely be a German one and take some more getting used to for me!