A lot of Interviews

So I've made several references to a stepping stone job.  I'll go through the whole thing here.

So back in my Hooray for Networking post, I talked about meeting someone through networking.  This manager's company is a fairly large private company around here.  We meet for lunch and he tells me that the job may not be exactly what I want, but I have my spiel and he seems to be OK with that.  Then, I hear back from HR and schedule an on-site interview.  I'm also given the long test described earlier.

OK.  So I'm now at the onsite interview.  The drive wasn't that bad.  I guess it'll be awful when there's snow, but we could probably say that for most commutes when it snows up here.  I proceed to meet 11 people that day and I gave my stepping stone spiel to all of them.  Also, I didn't get out of there until almost two and I didn't get a lunch while I was there.  I just thought that was strange.  I also left thinking that I definitely don't want this job that's beneath me, but I did like some of the people I met. 

So then a day later, I hear back and I'm invited to lunch with three other people.  (Wouldn't it have been better to keep me there all day the day before?)  I thought the lunch went well.  I liked all three of them and there really wasn't any mention of the stepping stone job. 

Now, I can say that I've met 14 people from this company and sent them all thank you letters.  I doubt this is a big deal, but I took care to not mention the stepping stone job title.  I just don't want them imagining me in that role.  I'm encouraged by the fact that I had the extra lunch interview.  Obviously, if the onsite had gone poorly, I wouldn't have gotten that.  During the lunch, I asked if my next interview would be meeting the CEO.  They laughed (phew) and said they heard he wasn't in town.  All I can do now is sit by the phone I guess.