f13.net

So I just did a preliminary interview with a major .com and the first question after I sat down was "How many of the years between year 1 and 2005 are the same number forward and backwards?"

I was expecting personality questions but I walked out of there feeling like someone had kicked my ass and then flushed my head in a toilet.  I don't think I will be getting a call back, I didn't do that badly but I certainly could have been better.

I didn't want to move to the northeast anyway </aesop>.

Anyone got any good stories about interviewing or being interviewed so I can commiserate while recovering from this beating?

Sorry to say, but you win.  My stories all involve me fucking up, not receiving retarded questions.

9:  x    (x=1-9)
9:  xx   (x=1-9)
90: xyx  (x=1-9, y=0-9)
10: 1yy1 (y=0-9)
1:  2002

?
Think that's right.

I don't mind questions like that one too much - I might steal it for my applicants.  What I hate are trivia questions, and that's all I got on my last interview.  I went in and the guy just rattled off a list of very obscure questions.  I think I scored somewhere around a 50 (I think), but I doubt I'll get a call back either.  I'm not sure I want one.  Oh well; sometimes they go well, sometimes not.

edit: doh, fixed

Oh Ya.

Sorry guys I win this hands down.  Nobody can beat me.

After an interview at a big investment firm I was told there was transportation waiting for me.  I saw a limo driver - told him who I was - the guy made a call and drove me to the airport.  2 days later on my follow-up conference call - I was informed that I took the limousine that was waiting for the board of directors who arrived downstairs after I did.  I was also informed on the conference call that intended transportation for me was a yellow cab not the limo.  The conference call btw - was to be a live debate with some asshole analyst in CA, being told all of this just before the debate shook me up.

I actually did get the job.  Moral - if your going going to fuck up an interview - do it big and in style lol.

To this day that story still follows me in the industry.

How about being asked if you would invest your own money in the firm interviewing or one of their competitors?  Stupidity and honesty operate from the same brain center - so in that interview I told them I would invest in their competitor and why.

Try auditioning for an acting role.

It's one thing to have fun with other actors, where you're all writhing on the floor, behaving like three year olds or retarded monkeys.....It's another to step into a roomful of people who's express is to watch you do it alone, and judge you on it. Especially when you've got it in the back of your mind that it's basically a stupid fucking job anyways.

When interviewing for the position I currently inhabit, I was asked to walk a hypothetical customer through the peeling of an apple over the phone. The question befuddled me for a moment, and then I collected my thoughts and went for it. After I got the job, I spoke with the interviewers- apparently a large number of them either refused to even try, or made such a lackluster try at it that is was clear they didn't give it their best effort. I was among the few who tried as well as I could- it showed I was willing to try, and that I could think quickly on my feet. I am guessing the 1-2005 question was something similar- some interviewers like to throw curveballs and see how well people react under pressure.

I remember having a Microsoft phone interview at 2pm and the call is what woke me up. I think I was up to 5am the night before (likely playing Everquest).  Completely spur of the moment.  The first question the guy asks is a pretty difficult math/logic question in which I had to fumble around for a pen and paper so I could write it down and stumble through while the guy is thinking "ohh great, a dipshit".  I got it right, but honestly, it made me feel like a complete tard. Thing is, they eventually wanted to fly me out for an interview but I had already accepted another position.  Every Microsoft interview I've done has had me walking out of the room feeling like a moron.

Another crappy interview would have had to have been with Boeing.  I did the 1 hour technical interview part first and just slam dunked it.  Next was the HR interview.  The interviewer leads off with "well, they have some questions we're supposed to ask, but a lot of these are just ones are just my favorites"  If any interviewer ever leads off with that crap, run for the fucking door.  What I got bombarded with was a bunch of goofy ass, stupid fluff questions that I tried to answer but probably came off looking like a complete stooge doing so.  The questions were literally like, "if you could be a breakfast cereal, which cereal would you be?".  Just innane, stupid crap that made me feel like I was auditioning for Miss America rather than a position writing software for an attack helicopter. 

All of my interviews from that career fair were wierd, possibly because the second day of the fair was September 11, 2001 (Boeing was on the 10th).



 

True that.

One time I was asked - when interviewing with a venture capital firm: "What kind of car do you drive?"

Honda civic at the time.  I was told later if I had said Mercedes - they would have walked me out the door.

On a separate note I don't like to be pushed around.  You push me I push the fuck back.  I have had 2 interviews with small investment banks that basically ended in open arguments.

I hope so because thats what I came up with after about 10 minutes of floundering around and a good bit of prompting from the interviewer.  Another question was essentially how to parse a dictionary file for the largest set of words that are anagrams.

I'm starting to like my current job more and more, for one thing I don't have to prove myself anymore.

edit:

I interviewed with Boeing once and had a similar experience, the technical portion was given by some Ph.D. and it was just really straight forward questions like "Decribe inheritance." and "What's the difference between pass by reference and pass by value?" and then I had some strange HR interview that I just kind of winged, I was a told a while later that it had come down to three candidates and that they choose one of the others.

I wish I were interviewed on my problem-solving skills instead of getting asked questions about whether or not I'd hypothetically do a project that used existing data or conducting my own research. Isn't that basically asking, "are you a glory whore, or are you lazy?"

Edit: If I'd been asked the car question and answered truthfully (that I don't own a car), I wonder what the response woulda been. And the answer to the cereal question is always "puffed Kashi". A question that draws a blank stare deserves an answer that draws a blank stare.

I've had a few of those ridiculous interviews since I've worked a gajillion jobs. I tend to answer bluntly: "Look, I have the qualifications to do the job and I have a great work ethic. Don't jerk me around with this crap." I don't tend to get those jobs, but I figure I wouldn't want to work with wankers like that anyway.

I got my current job by actually suggesting some network improvements when touring the building, vs my competitor who just wanked on about her certification, which she had yet to complete.

My favorite, though, was the walmart questionaire...it must be to weed out the imbeciles, though evidence points to the contrary. I mean...Would you smoke marijuana on the job? Would you steal from your employer? Those are some goddamn dumb queshuns. All it ensures is honest law-abiding folks....and a whole lotta liars.

I had an interview with a corporate think tank that lasted for 2 days.  NO joke.  They started me at 8am on a Tuesday and I met with every person with a title in the company until 10pm that evening.  I then repeated the fiasco the second day by giving a series of talks and meeting with more people.  At the end of the second day I felt like I had given birth.  I'm not quite sure how, but I was offered the job.  Funny thing is that I learned so much about the company during my research and 2 days on site that I no longer wanted the position.  Funny how that works.   

I'd like to delete my post. I have no idea wtf any of you are talking about, as I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Math questions? At a job interview?

I know not your world.

[edit] Seriously though, what's going on?

Don't people get hired for personality, experience and/or proof of concept anymore?

I once got given the choice take-home writing assignment "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"  For an investment research position.  Luckily the guy I interviewed with was such an self-opinionated ass that I wasn't interested in working anywhere near him.

You've never dealt with HR, have you?

It's not as much math as it is logic, reasoning, and the ability to think on your feet.  While the roots are in math, it's math that anyone interviewing for the position would know.  Not that I condone asking that shit out of the blue to someone on the phone that still hasn't taken their wake-up piss yet.  If someone actually asked me to multiply matrices or perform integrals during and interview, I'd just adjust my tie and walk out.

I greatly prefer more of an informal chat, but I'm not completely shocked and insulted when they actually want an on-the-spot evaluation of my mind as racked with nerves as it already is at the time.

At one time, yes. I thought they were mumbling though. You mean to tell me they were actually saying something?

Most of my other jobs have been from either family businesses, family connections, walk in work, or something that employs certain crafts on a job by job basis. I'm far too humble for anything more....Or just a loser, depending on how you look at it.

Look at the people answering, and what their jobs are.  Math is an important part of the day to day each of them, and as Rasix points-out, a good way of determing their reasoning skills.  We're not getting lawyers, salespeople, division presidents and other 'business professionals' answering here.

I'm lucky enough to say I haven't had a horror story to share with you all.  Neither from the interviewing side or being interviewed.  I suppose the biggest 'whoops' moment was the last Architecture firm I interviewed with.

   One of the principles interviewing me asked what my philosophy was, and what exactly was I looking for.   I was forthright and told him that I thought a good portion of the profession was a joke.  I wasn't looking to go to a "High Design" firm, as they are filled with people who were all about ego and self-promotion.  I also expressed my feeling that most "Designers" were only looking to make a name for themselves at the expense of the client and their goals.  A functional building is, in my opinion, superior to a 'pretty cool' one.  If you can mix both you're doing your job, but function has to come first.

 Now, I knew from looking at him and the way he dressed he had aspirations of being such a designer, or at least had some hero-worship of it.  However, the firm didn't produce such work, so lord knows what he made of my answer.  He had a meeting to get to about 5 minutes later*, so I have no idea what he thought of the answer.  I think it perplexed him that someone in the field would answer as such (it always does when I say it.) but hey I'm honest.  If you're not that, then it'll come out while you're on the job, or you'll be miserable doing the work anyway.

*Which wasn't just an excuse, because on the tour of the building 15 minutes later I saw him in said meeting.

I would give my eye teeth to go to an interview where I'm simply quizzed on my knowledge and problem-solving skills, which greatly outweigh the amount of experience I have on paper. "Making the Dean's list" amounts for jack shit in my field if you haven't worked long enough to have much BPJ. I've been a better botanist than my superiors at my last two jobs, but just haven't been working long enough to be a certified Professional Wetland Scientist.

Ah...Honesty. It's why I'm in the situation I'm in now.*


* Honesty with myself I mean. Honesty lead me to temporarily (or maybe completely, who knows) abandoning the path I was on. I didn't find that middleground you've found as an Architect.

All I'll say about job interviews is that if you go in to one without having thought out an answer to "Where do you see yourself in five years?" you are an idiot.

Q: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

A: Trying to answer this very question.


Hmm....Does that speak of Ambition or the lack of it?


[edit] I'm so sorry for derailing. Honestly. Work (I mean talking about it) brings out the worst in me.

I got asked that once, in an interview right before college graduation.  I told them I wanted to be a team lead by then - they laughed, and I wound up working elsewhere.  As it turns out, it only took 4 to be manager over all development, with recommendations to take over IT when our current guy leaves, although this is admittedly a much smaller IT org (~30 IT here vs a few hundred).  Still, I've had good opportunithy here that I apparently wouldn't have had there.

So yeah, I'd suggest not getting bummed from a bad interview.  Look at it in another way; you're interviewing the company too.  You want to fit into a company that's going to accept you, not just one that'll take you.  Otherwise you may find your prospects 5 years from now haven't moved at all from today. 

Sadly, it's another one you can't always answer honestly. "Raising a genius toddler" doesn't go over well in the dog-eat-dog world in which we live.

The point of the math or problem solving questions is just to see how your critical thinking works with a dash of stress and in an unrelated field.  For example,  the question I remember from buddies interviewing the Management Consulting and Investment Banking gauntlet (Which was nearly everyone.  We conformed to expectations at Williams) was: 

"Why are manhole covers round?"

The "correct" answer is because that shape will prevent manhole covers from falling into the hole.  Actually it's because manhole covers need to cover round holes.  The holes are round partly because human bodies are round, partly because round shapes deplace pressure well.  Point of fact, sufficient lip on any shape cover will prevent the cover from falling in the hole.

I hate that question, but it is popular.

Don't say "doing your wife."  Don't say "doing your wife."

Doing your.... son?

Note: I interview a lot of people. (And I hate it)

I dislike logic puzzles. I've never seen any correlation between people who do well on them and people who work out as employees. They purport to test "thinking on your feet" and such but there are very few jobs where you have 10 minutes to solve some silly logic problem. I also dislike it when interviewers say "just talk through what you are thinking about it." Because usually what I'm thinking is "stop bothering me so I can solve this stupid fucking problem." I don't think out loud. When I want to think carefully about something I lock myself away with a pen and paper. I don't blabber "well I could try this."

Interviewing I look for two things: do they have the skills, and are they going to work out as employees. So many people have the skills but they have a bad work ethic, a poor approach to things, always have to do things their own way, never learn from mistakes, won't work hard on something they don't like to do, etc. I think it's pretty easy in my field at least (software stuff) to tell if the person has the skillset required. It's far harder to figure out what will happen when you throw them into the work environment.

I think there is a difference between puzzles that are the "aha!" kind, where you have to either see the solution or you miss it, and the kind where you have to work through a problem.  I don't see the former having much value (such as the manhole cover).  I like puzzles like the year anagram; if you can't work out how to solve it, you're going to have a hard time as a dev, because these are the kinds of problems we routinely face.

I prefer "Well, god willing, laid up at home with a work related injury."

My first response to the initial problem was "Are your date representations 4 char right justified space padded, 4 char right justified zero padded, or some other presentation?", for three reasons.  One, that is generally the sort question I have had to ask when confronted with year fields in the last ten years as a programmer.  Two, it changes the answer, since zero filled is, I think, 20 (xyyx, y=0-9, x=0,1,2  0000 excluded, >2005 excluded), while Roac's solution looks right for space filled.  Three, because I tend to answer questions with questions, which is one reason I don't do better in interviews.

I applied for a position reporting security alarm calls on the third shift awhile back, and among the battery of tests I got was as Wonderlic IQ exam.  I found that a bit odd, but concluded it was an attempt to allow real people to avoid taking any responsibility for who they might hire.

As far as I can tell, roughly half of people blatantly lie on resumes, so one of my goals when interviewing someone is to determine if they fall in that half.  If I catch them listing proficiency in something that they know absolutely nothing about, even if that thing doesn't directly pertain to the job, I'm not going to recommend hiring them.

Yup. I usually give people a chance on that though, because so many people are told to "embellish." Usually I say something along the lines of "if you don't know that's fine. If you want to guess, that's fine. But if you guess make sure you say it's a guess first."

I will ask anything someone has on their resume. I give a tough interview. I have an excellent memory for certain types of information, I tend not to forget concepts. So if I see a for example some college course someone has taken I will ask them a lot about it. I also know at least a bit about tons of different programming languages and APIs, so I can usually ask questions about those things too. Sometimes it takes people by surprise - if you say you took a data structures course I'll ask you what a Red/Black tree is. (I don't expect most people to know that, and I only remember the basic idea - color nodes red and black with a certain pattern to preserve a roughly equal distribution of nodes that falls within some specific bounds) I'm not really looking for specific information (I really don't care if someone knows what a Red/Black tree is) but if I know more about the course they listed on their resume than they do that is usually a warning sign.

Modify: About answering questions with questions. I would probably say "depending on your date format it matters, so I'll just assume we are talking about standard written numbers with no extra characters or leading zeros." If you do too much asking back it can look like you are avoiding the question.

I don't do too many interviews any more because I don't like doing them, and also I tend to scare some candidates. I am always the bad interview, where someone thinks they are doing well, then they talk to me and figure their opportunity is shot to hell. (Sometimes it really isn't - I grade on a scale) I am also not very personable (in case people here haven't noticed already). I can have my charm at times but I'm not the guy you want making the first impressions. I'm not a grumpy or annoying coworker, but I don't have a warm, outgoing personality either.  Interviewing with me is a lot like interviewing with HAL I would imagine.

Presently I go with a mix.  Mostly it's because I have to follow a fairly rigid scheme in the hiring process, and damnit, I want to be as flexible as possible.  So I give myself as much wiggle room as possible.  The interview is part technical, and part personal.  I don't mean personal as in private, but the stuipdly generic questions like, "how do you define teamwork".    I asked the second group mainly because I have to (grr...), but surprisingly, some cannidates can't give an adequate answer.  Not even a textbook one.  "Where do you see yourself in 5 years"... even "to have a kid" could be somewhat humerous or ice breaking.  One guy brought up his divorce in almost every one (Goodbye).

The tech Qs aren't terribly in debth; mainly to feel out someone's exposure to a technology.  Resume says you worked on SQL - know transact SQL?  Build stored procs?  What about cubes?  No need to rigidly define things, just enough to know someone is or isn't bullshitting.  If they've done what their resume says, they'll be able to talk about it competantly, even if they don't know every last thing I could quiz them on.  How did you build X?  Why that architecture over, say, this one <insert another way of doing it>?

Then comes the test.  Quick easy and hard Q on 4 or 5 topics, plus one or two problem solving items.  Tests are nice in that they don't involve much of my time and give me something concrete to compare two people against, but aren't so rigid that I can't give credit for interesting or insightful partially correct answers.

Things I don't much like are "aha!" puzzles, tech trivia, or questions so abstract as to be obscure ("if you were a tree...").  Supposedly, those kinds of Qs tell you about their personality.  I don't want to know much more about someone's personality beyond them being *normal*.  Maybe someone else can explain to me why I should care how a person ascribing theirself to one virtue over another makes them better workers, but the more I read, the more I get the feeling that it's HR people trying to pretend they know something more than they do.

I have never had to go threw all the bullshit you all have had to go threw.  My last job I just got hired for is my paramedic position.  I basically dropped off my updated resume and called two days later to check on the status.  The supervisor told me to come clock in and get to work, no interview, just get on down and get to work.  My RN job in the emergency department went about the same, came in and dropped of my resume, checked on the status, then went to an interview that was more like a get to know me and then called and said come on in and get to work.  Before that I got drunk and went and joined the Air Force, and before that I got drunk and joined the Army Reserve.  I worked at Long John Silvers once in high school, but don't remember having an interview process, just that a couple of friends worked there and they said to come on in and work.

Of course my landing my current emergency department RN job and my Paramedic job so quickly and without a lot of hassle is that I have 3.5 years of Army Reserve time and 9 years of active duty time, and the jobs and training I did in the military paid off for me.  I do keep getting pressured to go into leadership positions or teaching...things I hate, I hated becoming a Seargent in the Air Force because now I had to be in charge of drunk ass Airman Skippy, and actually lead and set examples for the young troops.  Fuck that, I joined to fuck, fight, and fly!   :-D

Maybe this wasn't the thread to read one hour before my interview  :-)
 

Im in the interesting position of an employer coming to me (lunching with the headhunters today) so the interview shouldnt be too tough, its more a case of them wanting me, rather than me wanting a new job.

HR's only business should be making sure you get paid, making sure you get benefits, and making sure your boss isn't threatening to fire you if you don't fuck him. Trying to determine who is the correct fit for the company isn't something those assholes should be anywhere near, because they are generally the worst fucking people in the company to deal with on a personal or professional level. They are also bullshit merchants of the highest order.

Luckily, the HR guy at my current company is a great guy who does what he should and none of what he shouldn't, and is totally pleasant to deal with.

I had a cousin who became famous on Wall Street for 15 seconds when a female interviewer asked him if he had a problem working for a female boss and he answered "No, I don't have a mindfuck about that." He didn't get the job.

I have been lucky in the interview department generally. They have mostly focused on relevant skills and experience. I did get to the final round at Putnam at which point they require a full day of psychological evaluation. I spent 3-4 hours assembling weird shapes into apples, hearts, butterflies and creating narratives from a collection of 3-5 pictures. Then I spent about 3 hours answering questions on a computer: "would you rather teach math to high school students or be a cowboy" type of shit.  I got so annoyed by the computer questions that I started answering randomly. After going through all that, the job disappeared after they fired a good chunk of the portfolio management team.

Ooh, that's tough.

Shitkicking or kicking the shit out of kids?

I'm sure it has something to do independence though.

omg was yur avatar brought to us by Michel Basquiat?

I'm proud/ashamed to say that despite interviewing for approximately 40-50 jobs during my lifetime, I have never gotten a job based on an interview. I just plain suck at them. 

One of the better/worse flameouts was being flown to California to interview with a big firm and doing the entire half-day long interview with my fly down.

Microsoft Interview #1:  Year 1999

Question #1 "Describe to me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Question #2 "You go to an island nation on vacation and have your wallet and passport stolen.  You have no cash and no ID, what do you do?"  (My answer "Find the US Embassy, explain my problem", response "There is no US Embassy", my response "Learn to cook over a campfire", the interview did not progess much beyond that point)..

Microsoft Interview #2:  Year 2005

I'm given the worst (literally the worst) code snippet I've EVER seen in my entire life.. I've seen interns produce much better code than this code snippet, hell I've seen Senior Engineers produce better code than this code snippet (coming from a Senior Engineer who's had to work with a lot of other Senior Engineers, that means a lot).. I'm asked "what does this code do."

I think we can all agree: interviews suck.

However, I will say that interviews go a *ton* better if you don't need the job but they need you.


In the last position I interviewed for, I interviewed with the VP of Technology and then the folks who would be on the same team (peers) as me. But I never once interviewed with the guy who would be my boss. Is it just me, or is that weird? I didn't feel very comfortable taking that job (I didn't).

Intersting thread.

I generally treat every interview I go to (several) as a tete-a-tete.  They get to know you, you get to know them.

I do tend to stutter a bit, but that's fine.  Makes you look less than perfect, and people sympathize with you then.

Oh, and a shot before the interview will do wonders.

I dunno.  Would the VP be your boss' boss?  May be that the boss was unavailable (leave, trip, project, whatever) so they had to get by without.  I would think it's a negative though, since it makes it harder to judge what the expectations for you are.

That's the thing. He was there! I even said waved hi to him as I passed him in the hall on my way out of the building when I left after the second interview (with who would be my peers). I didn't have a chance to ask him some pointed questions (ie: is he cool with me going to a class during the day twice a week and extending the hours I worked to cover it?). Blah.

Edit: Oh yah, the VP was the boss' boss, and she was cool. But still..

Of course, since they are a smaller company (if 200+ ppl is small) they really didn't have any policies in place for folk who are in the Reserves, so I didn't think they were wholly comfortable with that .. which makes me uncomfortable.

Step 1: Yell "honey, could you make me a P&B sandwhich."
Step 2: Wait.


Beg for some change, call up someone in the states and yell out "get me the hell out of here!" The mug someone and steal their identity.



I always hate questions like that because they are usually stupid gotchas. Like my coworker will ask what happens if you put http://blahblah in the middle of a Java method. (It compiles because http: counts as a label an then the // is a comment  - yay) I would not want to hire anyone who sticks that in their code whether it compiles or not, it's just silly.

Hell. it's not even that. It's more of 'how does this person react to weird assed shit under pressure? Like code getting deployed to a production system and it all fails because the wrong compiler version was used - or the wrong database driver was installed - or whatever, and the client is on the phone screaming and threatening to defund you - etc...'

Sometimes, the best interview questions don't have a 'right' answer. All you want is to be able to measure their reaction.

Now you see, I solve all of the issues you listed above by writing good software and not using Magic (TM) in my code.  It works wonders, and I rarely (never?) get called at 2 AM in the morning because some esoteric undocumented "feature" of the driver/compiler/OS was changed in the most recent patch and it broke my buggy but occasionally accidently works piece of shit code.. So asking me questions to judge my reaction in those situations is somewhat silly..

Good software development practices for the win.

I had one really bad interview for an investment banking analyst position. The question he asked was:  "What's the first line of a statement of cash flows". I drew a blank and said revenue (close...ish)

We were five minutes into the interview, and he advised me to study up for future interviews. OUCH.

The point isn't to get an answer but to observe how the applicant reacts.  The only right answer is, With Great Enthusiasm so the interviewer knows you don't get flustered, defensive, dismissive, etc.  Another one that still occasionally comes up is, "I come to you and ask to get the weight of a standing 747 by lunch time today.  How much does it weigh?"

It's a good test.  A lot of people fail it, getting all pissed off that they are "supposed to know" coefficients and modern aircraft specifications for a job sorting the company's socks instead of whether they have the termperament to get the job done no matter what.  What the interviewer wants to see is a person's ability to pace their emotions, show committment, and at the same time as they work to resolve the business problem asking smart questions like, "what does weighing the 747 mean for our business?"

In my case I always answered the last one by saying, "I call my brother-in-law - what he doesn't know off the top of his head he'll find out or can even get us time on the scale at D/FW airport... on and by the way what business problem are we trying to solve?"

I'd ask the audience.  They're right 90% of the time.

Silly questions like that I answer with one word: Google

Well, maybe not just *one* word, but the gist of my answer is that I'm willing to find the answer even if I don't know it.

Are you an accountant? If so, then yeah that's a bad thing to flub on. If not, meh.

Btw, "Net Income" is the answer, non-accountants. Revenue is way off.  :-P

I'm not an accountant. I'm a finance guy. I guess that's part of the problem.

Another acceptable answer might be CF OPS.

So, then, you've never, ever been forced into a situation where you had to support someon elses crap code? You write every line of code for your org?

...

Merits for bringing up good development practices. Even more bonus points if you outline defensive coding strategies. Demerits for claims of infallability.

Sure, but I don't take 2 AM calls to fix other people's problems.  If I didn't break it, it can wait until the next day.


I am infallible.

Recently, we were interviewing for another attorney in the child support division.  Being a bureaucracy, there is a standard litany of questions. 

One of them is "What is a recent family law case or article that you have read?"

One lady's answer was "Roe v. Wade."  WHAAT?  Why are you citing a 30 year old case that you read in Con Law? 

It really didn't matter what her stance on the case was.  Her answer told us she was a militant and not a family law practitioner.

No it is not. Net income is the only correct answer.