My State of the Union Story

The State of the Union Address is tonight, and that has reminded me of my State of the Union story.

When I was in my senior year of college in 1991/1992, the prospects of getting a job after graduation were rather grim. The country was in a recession, with unemployment over 7%. Many of my classmates were applying to graduate schools, not because of any desire for more education, but as a way to wait out the recession. Still, some companies were viable enough that they were actually sending recruiters to campus. One of these was Electric Boat.

I was fortunate enough to get selected for an interview by the Electric Boat recruiter. I don’t recall any specifics about the interview, except that it was in December or early January. I do believe, though, that this photo is of me getting ready for it.

I still have that tie!

I wasn’t very hopeful about getting the job. I was just thankful to get “interview experience”, AKA bullshit the people in the placement office tell students in order to keep their spirits up when there aren’t nearly enough jobs to go around.

My outlook changed sometime that January, though, when I got a call from Electric Boat telling me they wanted me to come to Groton for a second interview. This was good news, but I needed more information. How many people were they bringing in for a second interview? Over the next few days I polled my classmates and found only one other person who got a call back. This was great because I had it on good authority believable hearsay that Electric Boat hired two structural engineering graduates from my school every year.

This was completely unexpected. I had previously not imagined this sort of career path for myself. From the time that I decided to study engineering, I had only wanted to design bridges. This was completely different. And awesome! I was going to be building submarines! How badass is that? And yes, in my mind that job was in the bag. Two call-backs for two spots? Even I’m not incompetent enough to blow that kind of opportunity.

My interview was scheduled for early February.

On January 28, President Bush gave his State of the Union Address. In that address he announced significant defense cuts. Although he did not specifically mention it in the speech as one of the programs on the chopping block, his  administration made it known that their proposed defense budget, to be released the next day, would include the cancellation of the Seawolf submarine program, which was the big program at Electric Boat at the time.

The day after the Address, I received a call from Electric Boat telling me that in light of the President’s speech they were cancelling all interviews.

I didn’t get an engineering job for another 18 months.

But now I’m designing bridges! How badass is that?

14 Notes/ Hide

  1. coyotesqrl said: That sucks, but in retrospect wouldn’t you rather have been on the *Airwolf* design team? (You’re welcome for the earworm.)
  2. cwj posted this