Taffy

It was a little more than a year ago when I first applied to work at Stretch Internet.  As someone who spent a pair of summers broadcasting summer collegiate baseball and was coming off of four years as a student broadcaster at THE Pepperdine University, I understood the importance and value of providing regular broadcast coverage of an athletic program or organization.  After reading the job posting for a position with Stretch, I was immediately intrigued.  Their primary goal was something I always desired as a broadcaster: Support.  I can recall numerous instances while preparing for, or even worse, DURING a game, a technical issue would hinder the broadcast production.  There was nothing more frustrating than putting in the research, enduring the 5-hour bus ride, setting up the broadcast equipment in a sweaty press box, and then ultimately not making it on the air.  If Stretch was a company committed to alleviating that concern amongst SIDs and broadcasters, that was a company I wanted to be a part of. So I fired an application and waited for the phone to ring.  A couple days later, it did.

After “passing” a preliminary interview with J.D. and Jordan, I was invited to a second interview.  I met Ryan and was given the tour of the Stretch offices.  Soon after, we went to lunch, and as the conversation went along, my excitement about the prospect of working for Stretch grew.  It sounded like Ryan and the rest of the company were even more passionate providing top of the line support than I had originally thought, and on top of that, Stretch had some great plans for the future.  As the interview concluded and the discussion turned towards the current state of our respective golf games, my confidence began to grow.  I had survived all of the interview jargon about my personal work history and “why I feel I’d be a good fit at Stretch,” and had moved on to talking about where the best courses in the greater Phoenix area were located.  We might as well have been talking about apartment leases and gym memberships.  I had this thing in the bag.

Ryan told me he would have to finish conducting interviews with other candidates that week and would inform me of their decision the following Monday.  Alright, that makes sense.  It’s a company and there’s a protocol they want to follow.  They have to interview some other people just to say they did.  It takes time to draft a contract and figure out how lucrative of a signing bonus to offer someone like me.  Take your time, Ryan.  You’ve got my number.  Talk to you soon.  When I received the call on Monday I had my acceptance speech prepared.  I did not have a rejection speech prepared.  I should have.

After the reality set in that I had not gotten the job and that I would not be spending my free time exploring the golf landscape of the Arizona desert, I traveled east to live with a pair of friends in New Orleans.  During my time in “The Big Easy”,  I perfected my golf stroke by day and explored Bourbon Street by night.  As the year went by I continued my job search.  As I scoured various job boards, I found myself comparing every posting to the opportunity I had missed out on last summer.  Anytime I became intrigued by a specific posting, I’d think of how it couldn’t measure up to the job I’d been so close to having with Stretch.

After about nine months had gone by, and with the collegiate athletic season wrapping up, I decided to shoot Ryan an e-mail to see how things were going with the company and to see what their “plans were for the coming year.”  Translation: “Is there any chance you have another job opening?”  The answer was yes.  And after going through another round of interviews with J.D., Jordan, and Ryan, I found myself staring at an offer to join Stretch.

I didn’t take long to accept.  I quickly packed up my car and made my way back to Arizona.  After three weeks with the company, all of my initial instincts regarding Stretch have been confirmed.  From the top down, it is a company that practices what it preaches.  They offer a dynamic streaming service, and more importantly, provide dedicated support.  In my short time here, it has been exciting to see the genuine care and concern that everyone has for the company, the clients, and the support that we provide.  I am thrilled to join Stretch as a Support Specialist and am looking forward to the upcoming year and to a season of seamless streaming.