No Screw You Letter?

Several weeks ago I applied for a job in Indianapolis. After several successful phone interviews, they decided they wanted to interview me, in person, at their "Corporate Headquarters" outside of Detroit. So, two weeks ago, I took a day off and flew to Detroit. The rental car lots are all off site, so I had to take a shuttle from the airport to get my rental. As soon as I got on the shuttle, I realized that the driver was a bit touched in the head. He handed me a printed weather report and commenced a 15 minute lecture about Detroit weather. Every so often, I'd interject with comments like, "Are you going to stop for the red light?" and "We just passed the car lot." As I got off of the van, he was still babbling on about average windchills or some such silliness.

I got the car and drove to the company. Before I even parked, I knew I didn't want to work there. This was compounded by the fact that the job was really in Detroit, not Indianapolis, as advertised. I'd sooner rent out my posterior as a Habitrail, then live in Detroit. The engineering manager turned out to be an arrogant assclown, who acted like they were building lunar rockets. In actuality, just about everything I saw was obsolete and generally shitty. He talked about using Visual Basic and Java like it was some kind of distant dream. In fact, the only redeeming quality of the company was that their benefit plan seemed to cover breast augmentation on a generous scale, but it just wasn't enough.

Although I couldn't get out of there fast enough, I acted impressed with their company. While they were talking about my prospective duties, I was mentally booking myself standby on the next plane back to Baltimore. Finally, the nightmare was over and the HR manager gave me her card, while telling me she'd call later in the week. I hauled ass back to the rental car lot and, sure enough, my buddy was still driving the shuttle. This time, we had the following conversation:

Goofball: What do you do?
Me: I'm an engineer. I work in automation.
Goofball: Like PLC programming?
Me: (astonished): Just like PLC programming.
Goofball: I have a friend who is a PLC programmer. I'm teaching myself Visual Basic. After that I'm going to learn SQL and Java.
Me: How far along are you in VB?
Goofball: I've been learning it for 3 months. I'm just finishing the different types of variables. (In other words, not too far along. This guy had about the same chance of success in programming that I have in sensitivity coaching.)
Me: Perfect. I just went to a job interview at Assclown Industries. They said that they were looking for people who know VB. Here are the HR manager's and engineering manager's cards. I won't be needing them. You should give them a call because they could really use someone like you.
Goofball: Thanks. I'll call them when I get off at 3.
Me: Good thinking.

It's almost unheard of for a company to not send a "Thanks, but no thanks" letter to candidates that are interviewed but not hired. It's been over two weeks with no letter, so I'm guessing that my new friend made a real impression on the HR manager.