Montreal Trip

I just got back from Montreal, Canada, yesterday afternoon. I didn't end up taking any pictures on the trip because I thought it would be somewhat tacky running around with a camera while you're interviewing with potential employers, but I did want to write down a few of my thoughts of the area.

First, Montreal is a French speaking province. All the signs, menus, and people speak French. However, I didn't meet anyone that did not speak English to some degree or another. I believe at the production facility I visited 95% of the people speak English. They call English speaker Anglophones. Anyway, if I were to get the job there, I think we would both want to make efforts to learn French. It would just make life a bit easier and the people may warm up to us.

The people in general were all quite nice. Part of that may come from the fact that the production plant is about one hour from Montreal and is quite rural. I would roughly compare it to Southern Idaho, but not so open and more populated, but somewhat of the same relaxed feel. As we drove to the plant we were on a 2-lane highway and there were Snowmobile/ATV crossing signs all over the place. I think the nearest Wal-Mart is about 10 minutes from the plant. It does have some subdivision type neighborhoods, but there is still quite a bit of property there and it doesn't appear to be growing too rapidly.

It is cold in Quebec. The snow just melted there two weeks ago and Spring is in full fling, but they had one of the highest recorded snow level winters in a long time last Winter.
It was still cool (50-60 degrees) and rained part of the day I was there. It was quite green though and a very beautiful place. Lots of water and I think I saw three or four rivers within a few miles of Brownsburg that were as big as the Provo River.

Montreal is a long distance from Utah. The fact that I connected through Las Vegas didn't make it any shorter, but having to go through Customs didn't make the trip any faster. Basically, it takes a whole day to fly there and half a day to fly back. The trip wasn't bad, but I was enroute over 11 hours each way, 7+ hours flight time. My rear end got tired of sitting after that long, though I was able to sleep some on all the flights.

The position is for the Production Planner for the plant. The Planner is in charge of telling the whole production facility what to make based on forecasts, past sales, customer information, and plant capabilities. I think there would be times when the job could be somewhat stressful, but the people I would be working with seemed nice and I think we could work well together as a team.

We'll see if they offer me a position. I'm still waiting to officially get an offer from Sikorsky in CT and I'm heading to Tucson next week to speak with Raytheon. I hope one of these jobs comes through!