Tag Archives: interview

At Least It’s Not a Fruit Cake: A Response to “Résumés – How the French Spell It”

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I sometimes write novel-like comments on blogs that are self contained posts in their own right. I posted this comment as a response to flygirl0’s post on resumes and the process of interviewing. I thought it might be worth sharing it here.

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You’re giving them too much credit if you assume people who are interviewing have any idea the hell they’re doing. I have a lot of very clear “WTF” interview memories, and I haven’t even interviewed in like five years. It’s such an artificial and horrible process, and admittedly, I’m terrible at it.

I get nervous. I feel like the only way I nail interviews is that I accidentally channel some deity/ancestor/alien for the length of it, or I’ve interviewed so much recently that I know what they’re going to ask before they ask it. Manhole cover? Answer that makes even the foremost manhole experts, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, take notes. Stapler? Caught and made into a stunning stapler entree to be judged by the Master Chef celebrities.

At the end of it all, you don’t even know if that was really the job that would have made you happy. Sure, you can assume or expect this or that, but usually jobs are full of that day job work thing. You have to go to meetings about meetings, work on working your work in a more workly way, and design review everything (yes, including the design review process). I’ve always suspected that I’m just not cut out for office life, but I’m doing an okay job pretending. I have an office plant that isn’t dead yet, two monitors, walls, and even a window. I’ve reached so many echelon ladders above cubicle farm monkey that I should be positively ecstatic.

The truth is, it’s okay. I’m not dying here, but I’m not fulfilled by this alone. It’s an office. It’s a job where people tell you what to do and you do it. I know there are people out there working for themselves, but I suspect a lot of them are just monkeys to their clients (still not doing what they really want).

I wish I could close this with some kind of epiphany or inspiration other than, “Yes, I agree,” but that’s all I got. My big consolation is that even if you dodged the stapler, there’s no proof that your life would suddenly be fulfilled, and it probably wouldn’t be. That’s such a horrible consolation. It’s more like a fruit basket for a funeral. At least it’s not a fruit cake, but I’m sorry all the same.

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I’ve posted on this topic before a couple times (probably more than I remember or list here):
Interviewing Tip Toes
Interviewing: The Real Life RTS Game

Why is a Manhole Cover Round? Because Microsoft!

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I’ve had some friends lately go through the interview process (and some who will be soon). What I always try to impress upon people (and myself when I have to do it) is that the interviewer is bumbling around about as much, if not more than you are. I think the interview at my current job was pretty good, but then I remember this gem:

“Why is a manhole cover round?”

At the time I didn’t know that this was an open-ended question. I thought it was a riddle or a logic puzzle. I’m surprisingly good at these. I say surprisingly, but maybe it isn’t all that surprising when I answered:

“Because the hole is round.”

“…”

“Well, is that right?”

“Uh. There wasn’t supposed to be a right answer. It was just an open-ended question.”

“What else would someone even say?”

At the time I thought it was a dumb question, but another way to look at it is that they found out a lot by the way I answered. I work in a job that requires logical reasoning and troubleshooting all day long every day. We quest for the best and most logical answers. I thought I did well.

Still, I don’t know what other people answer this question with, so I thought I’d Google it (about two years after I was asked). Apparently the real reason manhole covers are round is because Microsoft started asking why in their interviews.

I was not the only one who gave the practical, boring answer, but some other answers:

“A round manhole cover cannot fall through its circular opening, whereas a square manhole cover may fall in if it were inserted diagonally in the hole. (A Reuleaux triangle or other curve of constant width would also serve this purpose, but round covers are much easier to manufacture. The existence of a “lip” holding up the lid means that the underlying hole is smaller than the cover, so that other shapes might suffice.)”

Okay, you got me. I’m not an engineer.

“Round tubes are the strongest and most material-efficient shape against the compression of the earth around them, and so it is natural that the cover of a round tube assume a circular shape.”

I’m still not an engineer. This would explain why the internet is so strong, it also being constructed from a series of tubes.

“It’s easier to dig a circular hole and thus the cover is also circular.”

That’s a good point. I spent a lot of my youth in Cape Cod digging holes at the beach and I can’t say any of them were squares or triangles.

“The bearing surfaces of manhole frames and covers are machined to assure flatness and prevent them from becoming dislodged by traffic. Round castings are much easier to machine using a lathe.”

Yet again, these are things I didn’t realize. For all you machinists, score one for you.

“Human beings have a roughly circular cross-section.”

Here are the dumb answers I was looking for! Phew, all of these alternate answers were making me feel inadequate! This one I can totally feel superior to: “We’re kinda (but not really) circle, so they are too!”

“Tradition.”

…and I burst out into song, from Fiddler on the Roof. TRADITION! TRA-DI-TION! TRA-DI-TIOOOOON! To me, this answer is like saying: “Because that’s how God made it.” or just, “Because.” Even traditions have origins, people. I call FAIL on this answer.

Important to note, upon some investigation, not all manhole covers are actually round. Yes. The question itself makes an incorrect assumption. While round is most common, they also come in square and triangle. I think this easily ties into the message I was trying to send here. People who are interviewing currently, and will be soon as you graduate, don’t be too nervous as you interview. Know that the questions you will be asked and the people that ask them are flawed. They make incorrect assumptions, they steal things from Microsoft, and most have no right answer.

Just do the best to show your best, and you’ll do fine.

So, what do you answer if you get asked why is a manhole cover round?

Because Microsoft started asking people why.

Interviewing Tip-Toes

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We saw an overall attitude approach to interviewing in one of my last posts. Some of you agreed and disagreed on this approach…

But, let’s push that aside for now. This post is about the big guns.

White socks.

Apparently they don’t go with dress shoes no matter what you are wearing.

I heard this from a career counselor.

I don’t mean to be a nay-sayer. I am sure this councelor is very good at landing people jobs. BUT- somehow- I got my new job wearing white socks. At the time, I didn’t know any better. Call me lucky. Call me so good it didn’t matter, not even in the follow up interview. I wore them. I didn’t even have any neutral colored socks that weren’t boot socks at the time. I even wore them my first couple weeks of work.

Honestly, I doubt anyone noticed. This may be because I was interviewed by people more interested in skills or attitude. This could be because I was interviewed by men or just people who are too deep to judge a person based on socks. It could be that these people just didn’t look at my feet. They might be secret white sock supporters even.

Sock racism.

Call me crazy, but maybe it is just okay to wear white socks with dress shoes. Maybe it’s not awesome, but I don’t think it looks that bad. I’d hire someone wearing white socks (even after Labor Day).

Fashion police, arrest me. I thought white socks were pretty safe, or at least safer than the ones with the little flying moo-cows on them. Those ones are okay only *after* they hire you.

Parent Pressure Balance or Break

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Warning: contents under pressure. Additional pressure may result in blowing up or petering out: in short, getting absolutely nothing productive done.

 

Painful areas

I know that for many people, a small amount of external stress can be a motivational tool. For people like me, I need very little. I might be slightly allergic. When I get too much I become sluggish, have trouble breathing, and have urges to watch stupid television (even without basic cable). I am naturally instilled with a love of working and learning. As a backup, I also come standard with a guilt complex that makes me do things even when nobody is watching. Get your own Cindy for only x/hr plus vacation days and benefits. She will get what she was supposed to done, do it well, or will lose sleep trying. You need not do anything except occasionally smile at her. Giving her cookies may increase productivity.

 

I’ve heard parents are supposed to know their children the best. They’re supposed to be able to push the buttons that make the child do what they want when they want it. If this is so, most parents (or children) are broken. How do they get busy child to clean her room? Well, they think, let’s treat her like she’s an insolent slob and shame her. Let’s threaten her. Said child goes to start cleaning their room, and then gets treated like an insolent slob or punished. Suddenly, child doesn’t want to clean their room and won’t, where she would have before if you’d just asked. Parent’s take note. If you push too hard in one direction, your children, no matter how far into adult hood they wander, will push the opposite way. Or, the will fall down. The direction does not matter.

 

I recently moved back to the area I’m origionally from. I’ve been gone about five years. In those five years I somehow managed to find a steady stream of interesting work, while I was still a student even. I aimed high managed to not work at fast food chains. Even for the worst of those jobs, I sometimes had to spend weeks looking and not getting the jobs I sometimes felt I was over-qualified for. Sometimes I got it on the first try.

 

Now I’m doing this song and dance again. I have a degree, refrences, and work to show for it. Still I don’t have fifty people breaking down my door asking me to work for them for $60,000 a year. This is no suprise to me, but it’s still a lot of pressure. Additional pressure is not needed at this time. I can read my bank statements and bills. I understand enough math to know how interest works.

 

I know I’m not the only person that is going, or has gone, through this.

 

So this is to all parents out there. If you want us to become productive, independent beings who will take care of you some day, first you have to have confidence that we can do things. Even people who don’t appear to be completely ego ridden and narcissistic are hard enough on themselves when they are trying. We need parents to be on the team cheering for us, especially past childhood, even more since we aren’t even on that team.

 

Show your confidence in us by not telling us what to do. You may think you aren’t, but your disapproving head, shaking suggestions might as well be mind control. Even though you, the parents, are the pillars of success and all that is right in the world, you got there by figuring it out on your own. Chances are, you ignored your own parents and still do to this day.

 

Parents out there, we appreciate that you help us all you can. Take us out for meals, make us care packages, and listen to our trails and tribulations without god-like judgment. However, be sure what you’re giving us is help. Don’t weigh us down with extra pressure, because we’re trying to learn to solely help ourselves, and that pressure alone could very well make us stand still, fall, or break.

 

This has been a public service announcement- brought to you by non-ham-like ham (but not spam) and the letter Y.

 

Poke me gently. I’m under a little pressure.

 

Oh, and I think the interview went well. Thanks for asking.