It went VERY well, I thought.
Sorta. =J
I arrive 20 minutes early, which is a good thing because I ended up filling out a freakin metric tonne of paperwork.
The young lady doing the interview is also the IT manager, so she sprinkles "casual questions" through-out the interview asking questions like "How do you fix $Issue?" & analyzing my replies.
She has me take a written test to determine my level of mastery of the English language & general math skills.
It's a two page test of 100 questions like "APPEASE is the same, or opposite of, which of the following words?" or "1, 4, 2, 5, 3. Which number is next in the series?"
She says: "This is a timed test. You only get fifteen minutes. As soon as you open the top sheet, I'll start the timer & come stop you when it rings."
I turn the top sheet (scratch paper), she hits the timer, & leaves.
Five minutes later I'm done & start double-checking my answers.
Then triple-check, just to be sure.
Then start doodling on the scratch paper because I've still got 5 minutes left.
She walks in, looks at the fact that my test paper is closed, set-aside, and I've been doodling. "Was the test too hard? Were the directions confusing?" She picks it up, notices it's *done* & does that jaw-dropping thing that makes me bite my lip trying not to laugh.
"No, M'am. I finished fairly quickly, then spent some time double & triple-checking my answers. After that, I started to doodle [a picture of a rose] to pass the time."
She shrugs with a "unusual, but ok." kind of smile, & leaves to go score my test.
I'm sitting in the testing room & hear her say "*Wow*. That's a first."
I'm suddenly VERY nervous, and I don't know why.
She comes back in smiling like the cat who's just found the saucer of cream & says "That's impressive. I've been working here for over two years, & this is the first time I've ever had someone not only finish the test, but get a perfect score to boot. Nice Job!"
**Grin**
She takes me to another room, sits down at a computer, fires up the testing program, gives it her employee information, & tells it to log her in.
It refuses, claiming the (internally-hosted) web page isn't available & to contact her network administrator.
So she gets up, walks into the next room, & I hear "I *AM* the administrator, you P.O.S.!" *BANG*
She walks back in smiling gracefully, & I try not to giggle at the scuff mark on her shoe where she has obviously kicked something.
Sits back down, types in her password again, and !VIOLA! it lets her in.
She explains the rules of the testing bits, and says "When it tells you to call the admin, come out & get me."
I thank her, sit down, and nearly *ace* every test they throw at me.
98% reading comp, 97% cognitive, 92% math; 45wpm with no errors; 100% in customer help desk procedures.
All this time, the system is as sluggish as I'd ever hate to have to deal with on a daily basis, & generally feels like they're trying to run XP on a P200 with 128Megs RAM...
Then the system says "It's time to take a small test in your ability to-" and dies.
Shuts down.
Complete, hard, power off as if I'd yanked the plug from the wall.
I look down to make sure I haven't accidently kicked out the cord (nope, still plugged into the outlet), look over to see if the UPS is still on (yup), & then inhale to sigh...
And smell *smoke*.
THEN I yank the cord from the outlet & jump out into the hallway.
"Where's your fire extinguisher? I think the computer is on fire."
The poor lady looks at me like I'd just grown feathers, a beak, & started pecking her in the head.
She gets up, runs for the room, takes one step in, inhales, & makes a u-turn back out into the hall.
She grabs the F.E. from its bracket on the wall around the opposite corner, & steps back into the room.
She didn't need to use it, as the smell of smoke was all that we could detect.
She puts down the F.E., opens the side of the case, & says "SH!, the motherboard blew a cap. You don't happen to remember your scores do you?"
I hand her the print-out's I had the testing program make after each section was complete, listing my scores as proof that I had, indeed, taken the tests.
She's happy & impressed that I had the forethought to do so (she hadn't told me it was needed, but since the program offered it, I took the opportunity), then just sits there, looking at my scores, and shaking her head smiling.
"I don't know why I'm surprised, considering your performance on the other test."
We go back to her office & continue the interview process, only now she's asking me things like salary requirements & which shifts I'd preferr to work.
As the interview is drawing to a close & we shake hands, I offer to help repair the damaged system.
"Well, I won't lie to you - we don't have a replacement for that system yet. The best I can do is take one of the *even older* computers out of the throw-away pile & try to upgrade it enough to MAYBE do the job."
I offer to bring a computer from home (the P500 with 512), retrofit it with any hardware from the blown system, install any OS they've got a legal copy of, & move all the old software/settings to the new unit.
She just sits there looking at me like I'm some sort of hallucination. "And why would you make such an offer?"
Umm, because the system died while I was using it, and even though I'm not legally responsible for it having done so, I feel ethicly inclined to help lessen the damage my actions may have inadvertantly caused?
"I appreciate the offer. What time can you be here with the equipment?"
I'll open their doors in the morning (3 hours from now) with the computer & my tools in my truck, & ready to start work if they make the formal offer.
((Crossing fingers)) =J |
