Last month my wife and I visited London and got to ride the London Eye, the gigantic Ferris Wheel-like ride. I asked the operator how many "pods" there were and he said 32, although they are numbered 1-33 as there is no number 13. I thought people had gotten over those number superstitions, but apparently not.
And while I've never beed kidnapped while on a job interview, I've had some lousy ones. While attending college for journalism I applied at a print shop and thought I was applying for a layout/design job when in reality it was basically a knock-off Kinko's. The manager gave me a tour of all the copiers and machines while I was dragging around this big portfolio of all my layout work I had done. We went to his office for the interview and about five minutes in I said "this isn't for me" and just got up and walked out.
I had one other one where the man interviewing me kept scratching his neck, sides, and underarms and then halfway through the interview he informed me he was having an allergic reaction to his wife's new laundry soap and started removing his shirt and scratching all over like a madman. Funny thing is, I got that job.
Haha! Man you made me laugh on a rainy day. Your interviewer stripping in front of you is definitely a good signal you're getting the job, or at least stand a healthy chance of getting a fat settlement out of court!
I'll tell you one other funny story about that second job interview. An older woman (at least 70) said I had to pass a typing test before being hired. She sat me down in front of a computer with Microsoft Word, opened a magazine to a random page, and told me to pick a paragraph and type it a few times. She set a timer for a few minutes and then left the room. I typed the paragraph once, ran spell check on it, copied it, and then pasted it like 15 times. When she came back she did a word count and divided by two and then said "wow that's really good, you type 250 words per minute." I guess I pasted it a few too many times -- oops. :)
Wow. So I'm guessing this wasn't a job with very high hiring standards? Or just employed an older person easily fooled by technology? Haha. Yeah, maybe you should've just pasted a couple times!
I had to do a typing test only once, when I applied to write obits for the newspaper. I had to listen to a simulated phone call, quickly type all the info about the corpse, then arrange it all into a neat story. I got the job, but they called to give it to me, like, 2 months later when I'd already taken another one.
Yeah, per that job... everyone in the main office was 60+. The lady who administered the typing test to me was in her 70s.
While working on my journalism degree I interned at two (both) local newspapers. At one, one of my primary tasks was to read AP news stories on some antiquated computer system and rewrite them into news blurbs. At the other I mostly did "man on the street" bits that involved asking people pointless questions about the weather or traffic. The questions were inconsequential; what was important was getting their picture and names. People seeing themselves in the newspaper sells papers.
It was at that latter newspaper that I learned the truth about smalltown newspapers. The sales team had 30 employees and then there were three other people: the editor/reporter, the photographer... and me. I was bluntly told one time, "our job is to fill the white space around the ads with words and pictures." The true value of journalism revealed!
If you go to the casino, take a look at the baccarat tables. The most popular layout has space for seven players, numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and it is not uncommon to see all seven spots occupied by Asian people. Good episode! -- Dave in Kentucky (from onsug.com)
Last month my wife and I visited London and got to ride the London Eye, the gigantic Ferris Wheel-like ride. I asked the operator how many "pods" there were and he said 32, although they are numbered 1-33 as there is no number 13. I thought people had gotten over those number superstitions, but apparently not.
And while I've never beed kidnapped while on a job interview, I've had some lousy ones. While attending college for journalism I applied at a print shop and thought I was applying for a layout/design job when in reality it was basically a knock-off Kinko's. The manager gave me a tour of all the copiers and machines while I was dragging around this big portfolio of all my layout work I had done. We went to his office for the interview and about five minutes in I said "this isn't for me" and just got up and walked out.
I had one other one where the man interviewing me kept scratching his neck, sides, and underarms and then halfway through the interview he informed me he was having an allergic reaction to his wife's new laundry soap and started removing his shirt and scratching all over like a madman. Funny thing is, I got that job.
Haha! Man you made me laugh on a rainy day. Your interviewer stripping in front of you is definitely a good signal you're getting the job, or at least stand a healthy chance of getting a fat settlement out of court!
I'll tell you one other funny story about that second job interview. An older woman (at least 70) said I had to pass a typing test before being hired. She sat me down in front of a computer with Microsoft Word, opened a magazine to a random page, and told me to pick a paragraph and type it a few times. She set a timer for a few minutes and then left the room. I typed the paragraph once, ran spell check on it, copied it, and then pasted it like 15 times. When she came back she did a word count and divided by two and then said "wow that's really good, you type 250 words per minute." I guess I pasted it a few too many times -- oops. :)
Wow. So I'm guessing this wasn't a job with very high hiring standards? Or just employed an older person easily fooled by technology? Haha. Yeah, maybe you should've just pasted a couple times!
I had to do a typing test only once, when I applied to write obits for the newspaper. I had to listen to a simulated phone call, quickly type all the info about the corpse, then arrange it all into a neat story. I got the job, but they called to give it to me, like, 2 months later when I'd already taken another one.
Yeah, per that job... everyone in the main office was 60+. The lady who administered the typing test to me was in her 70s.
While working on my journalism degree I interned at two (both) local newspapers. At one, one of my primary tasks was to read AP news stories on some antiquated computer system and rewrite them into news blurbs. At the other I mostly did "man on the street" bits that involved asking people pointless questions about the weather or traffic. The questions were inconsequential; what was important was getting their picture and names. People seeing themselves in the newspaper sells papers.
It was at that latter newspaper that I learned the truth about smalltown newspapers. The sales team had 30 employees and then there were three other people: the editor/reporter, the photographer... and me. I was bluntly told one time, "our job is to fill the white space around the ads with words and pictures." The true value of journalism revealed!
If you go to the casino, take a look at the baccarat tables. The most popular layout has space for seven players, numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and it is not uncommon to see all seven spots occupied by Asian people. Good episode! -- Dave in Kentucky (from onsug.com)
That is wild! I haven't been to a casino in years, but next time I go I know exactly what my mission will be. That's really damn fascinating.