Blake Embrey

Had a Jane Street interview in 2014 End of round 5. Interviewer says "round 6 will find you." Three weeks. Nothing. I'm in line at the Trader Joe's on 14th. Line snakes past the frozen aisle, the way it always does. I'm holding a bag of orange chicken and a four-pack of cold brew concentrate. Guy in front of me is in a Patagonia vest over a quarter-zip. Not turning around. Inching his cart forward every 30 seconds. Picks a box of something out of his own cart. Holds it up over his shoulder without turning around. "Ant on a corner of this box. Walks to the opposite corner along edges. How many shortest paths." "Six." "Now in 4 dimensions." I think. Tesseract. One edge per dimension, any order. "4!. Twenty-four." "Confidence." "0.85." "Correct on both counts." Offer Monday. $69k base (which I'm told is a 'cultural fit discount'). No bonus. No equity. No relocation. They will, however, allow me to name one (1) colocated server in their NY4 cage. I take my time. This is the only thing I'm being given. I submit "Steve." Already a Steve. I submit "Steve2." Discouraged naming pattern. I submit "Steven." Confusing with Steve. I submit "Big Steve." Big Steve exists in NY5. I submit "my Steve." Approved. Two weeks into onboarding, IT pings the eng channel: "my Steve is down." Three engineers respond at once asking which Steve. The thread spirals. Someone clarifies: "it's named 'my Steve.'" Someone replies "yes but whose." A VP joins the thread: "is this a possessive or a proper noun." Nobody knows. A meeting is called. The meeting is titled "re: my Steve." Nine engineers attend. The first ten minutes are spent establishing whether the meeting title refers to the server or to a Steve belonging to the meeting organizer. The meeting organizer is named Devesh. Devesh does not know a Steve. Offer rescinded Friday. Reason listed in the email as: "Introduced ambiguity into production naming taxonomy. Unrecoverable." I'm no longer allowed in the building. I am also, somehow, no longer allowed in the Trader Joe's on 14th. The doors don't open for me. I have tested this six times. The orange chicken is still in there. Three bags deep on the shelf, frozen, waiting. I think about it every day.