So, how was *your* day at work?
Part of the impetus to try to produce this memoir is Gloria's death. But part of it is the requests that I have had, over the years, to produce a memoir as one of the old guard in the security field. As noted, I have trouble considering myself in any sense important that way, but I suppose, if I am supposed to be dispensing career advice, that I should talk about my jobs.
As I've said, I am from Vancouver. That makes me a rarity in Vancouver. On one of my job interviews, in order to make some small talk and make you feel at ease, the interviewers asked where are you from? Vancouver, I said. No, no, they said, where were you born?
Vancouver.
I should probably add some of my job interview stories here, because I've got a lot of them. Having had so many different jobs, and having had jobs for such short periods, I have been through an awful lot of job interviews. Most people do not know how to conduct job interviews. I learned from the best: that's the Canadian federal government. You have to write down the questions that you were going to ask, in advance, and include the answers that you expect, and what the answers would indicate, either positive or negative, about the candidate. An awful lot of people think that it's overkill, but it's a really terrific system. It's an awful lot better than the techniques used by an awful lot of human resources, and recruiter, specialists. I have seen all the tricks, I have seen all the trends, I have seen all the processes that people think are shortcuts to hiring the right person. There are no shortcuts.
I remember one job where it was important that I had first aid qualifications. This was a group interview: I was facing fifteen interviewers. One of them asked me what I would do if someone had suffered a serious burn. So, in order to answer, I asked whether he was talking about first, second, or third degree burns, over what extent of the body. I asked how long it would take an ambulance to get to the work site, I asked what the first aid supplies were at the work site, and a number of other factors. I was only trying to clarify his question, in order to answer it appropriately. However, after I had listed all of my questions, he sat there blinking for several seconds, and then said, "Well, I guess you know what you're talking about." Obviously he didn't.
Another time I was applying for a system analyst position, and they asked me to take a computer knowledge test. They put me in a room by myself, with paper and pencil, and then produced the question sheet. It was photocopied from a computer magazine, and was simply a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet trivia quiz. I didn't even bother filling it out, I just left.
Then there was the time that I got to the interview, and was asked to wait. While waiting I could hear some discussion going on, and because it was clear enough, and loud enough, I realized that they were discussing what questions they wanted to ask the candidates for my position. You don't necessarily want the people that you are interviewing to overhear you discussing what questions you're going to ask them and what you expect to find out from those questions.
With all of this experience in being the interviewee, at one point I wrote a series of articles on how to hire technical people.
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Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
Next: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/03/mgg-51-so-how-was-your-day-at-workhwyd.html
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