Useless Conversation

[Chimpy]

God, I hate interviews.

Me too, especially since they all seem to accomplish nothing for me.

[Cyrrex]

I think the Interviewer generally hates them, too.  At least, I always did when I had to interview someone.  Surely there must be a better way?

[IainC]

I think the Interviewer generally hates them, too.  At least, I always did when I had to interview someone.  Surely there must be a better way?

Two men enter, one man leaves. As a bonus you can sell the edited highlights on DVD afterwards.


Edit: The idea of going all Mad Max is actually quite appealing at the moment. I have Narri parading up and down outside my apartment, there's still a week to go before Fasnacht and already there are impromptu parades and bands marching up and down the street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZKUSsN5gyU This is what is currently going up and down outside my window - that video was shot about 50 yards from my front door. Those guys are wearing about 20 kilos of cowbells each.

[Sky]

Du musst mehr bier trinken.

Or something.

[Minvaren]

Those guys are wearing about 20 kilos of cowbells each.

($include heavy_metal_joke)

($include more_cowbell_joke)

(Wunsche fur bier zu trinken)

[Der Helm]

Edit: The idea of going all Mad Max is actually quite appealing at the moment. I have Narri parading up and down outside my apartment, there's still a week to go before Fasnacht and already there are impromptu parades and bands marching up and down the street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZKUSsN5gyU This is what is currently going up and down outside my window - that video was shot about 50 yards from my front door. Those guys are wearing about 20 kilos of cowbells each.

You should come to Cologne then, not much going on here. 

[Chimpy]

Had the leftover parts of the root of the tooth the crown broke on taken out today. Woo for being careful about dry socket and for vicodin.

Hopefully I won't need to take the vicodin by tomorrow as I have a job interview at 11 am and class from 6-9pm.

[Lantyssa]

You should come to Cologne then, not much going on here. 

Köln was okay, but I really enjoyed München.  Of course that was a long, long time ago.  Neither had men parading around with bells on.

[Strazos]

You should come to Cologne then, not much going on here. 

Um...Translate?

[IainC]

Fastnacht or Fasnet is carnival season in Southern Germany. It's about two weeks of partying and costumed revelry culminating in a big parade on Shrove Tuesday. There are many guilds who wear different costumes, some of these are very old and date back hundreds of years such as the Narri or the Glonkis who represent different types of Fool, others are more modern such as the Cats guild. There will be bands marching up and down playing music, Narris withtheir cowbells, Glonkis with their tin drums and all sorts of stuff going on at all times of the day and night. I live on the main street in town so most of these will be wandering about outside my window.

Narri:

P1010168 by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Glonkis:

P1010299 by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Cats

P1010283 by Iain Compton, on Flickr

Gentlemen Dragoons:

P1010190 by Iain Compton, on Flickr

It's all pretty surreal. We arrived in Germany two days before all this kicked off and our hotel was one of the main hubs for guild meetings. We were also the only people staying there so we had no clue what was going on and there were secretive conclaves of strangely dressed people at odd hours. We fully expected to have stumbled into a nest of Lovecraftian cults and to end up being sacrificed to nameless, squirming gods in ceremonies too foul for human minds to ken.

[Merusk]

Neat pics!

Off to the Windy City in a few hours.  Let's hope it's worth it.

Hope it doesn't blow.

First: Thanks for the well-wishes all.  It did blow. Why? Because as Ironwood said, interviews suck.   What sucks worse, however, is sitting down to do a skills test and realizing, "Shit, this is exactly where I didn't want to be again.  I hate this type of work.  This blows.  Plus it'll be less money.  But it's a job.. damnit, what to do."

Of course, the actual interview sealed the decision.  The 2 supervisors don't even seem that enthusiastic about their job in the first place. They kind of trudged around and both looked well-worn and it was only 9:30am. When asked about the possibility of future advancement they were clueless about where exactly I'd advance to.  I get that there's only 6 people there currently but if things pick-up?

No plan, no hint of a clue about what might happen and no thought put into it at this time.  (So.. what about before things were awful...)  Beyond that they went out of their way to make certain and hedge that hey, there might not even BE a future because the housing market is still wobbly so no guarantees they'll even keep the # of people running all 5 states at 6.  For 200+ plans?  Yeahhh... no. 

Upsell me at least a LITTLE.  I get that it's dire out there right now, I've been through numerous staff reductions and an office closure.  When you can't even be positive to the guy you're trying to hire, it's no wonder I got a sense of fear and desperation as soon as I walked in the door.

[Paelos]

Sounds like a job that's not really a job. That's ok I went through about 15 face to face meetings where they told me flat out halfway through that I was impressive but they didn't have anything right now. The key was that one of those actually called back and hired me. I'm still with them now.

[Abagadro]

It's possible Sky was jesting that you would want to take along the top half of the child, and you fell into the sarchasm?

I is a stupid.

[Selby]

I just went from ap. 3 foot of hair length to 3 mm.   /

I did that about 7 years ago to try and be a respectable adult.  It didn't work.  We're back to waist length hair now with no plans to ever cut it off! ;-)

Upsell me at least a LITTLE.  I get that it's dire out there right now, I've been through numerous staff reductions and an office closure.  When you can't even be positive to the guy you're trying to hire, it's no wonder I got a sense of fear and desperation as soon as I walked in the door.

I had the EXACT same interview situation with an automotive company a while back.  I was asking about the technical problems they were having and plans to fix them and got "well, um... yeah..." as a response from several people.  And when asked about the future of the company, plans for profits, etc was given a severe runaround.  I mean damn guys, you are trying to hire talent to fix a design issue you have, try and WOW people to want to work for you, not be all glum that you aren't even sure you'll have enough funding to continue keeping the lights on in 6 months...

[SnakeCharmer]

Didn't you have a huge landbarge Cadillac 'vert?  Or coupe?  If so, whatever happened to it?

[Ironwood]

First: Thanks for the well-wishes all.  It did blow. Why? Because as Ironwood said, interviews suck.   What sucks worse, however, is sitting down to do a skills test and realizing, "Shit, this is exactly where I didn't want to be again.  I hate this type of work.  This blows.  Plus it'll be less money.  But it's a job.. damnit, what to do."

Wow.  You had the exact same situation that caused me to post in the first place.  Interview was awful.  Ran out of time for my last two slides, even though the presentation went really well and was getting nods, smiles and laughs (yay, engagement).  Then the followup chat showed that it's a small world after all, since I was known to one of the panelists and had a 'good rep' with him and the people he knew me through (which was nice).  I knew exactly what they wanted, how to do it and impressed them with ticking the right boxes.

The trouble ?  I'm not even remotely sure I want this job.  I suspect I'm a hell of a lot more switched on than the chap I'd be reporting to and that may cause tension. The company has just got a new CEO who wants a clean sweep - she sounds like she knows what the hell she's doing too, which is good, but it's not going to be the most stable place for a while, I suspect.

I'm not fired up and I think it'll just be a job for its own sake.  The trouble ?  I really need to take it if it's offered because I'm losing my mind without some direction and focus.  Hell, before you know it, I'll be playing Rifts...

[ghost]

That's a tough situation, guys.  The other issue with saying, "well, at least it's a job even though it sucks" is that it might not look too good as a stepping stone if things don't go great.  Particularly if it is something that doesn't pertain to what you really do. 

Is there a possibility of getting into a new field, Merusk? 

[Selby]

Didn't you have a huge landbarge Cadillac 'vert?  Or coupe?  If so, whatever happened to it?

I think that was Kiler who was looking to buy a very rusty '76 Cadillac convertible and I was one of the many convincing him to run the hell away (this was a quite a long time ago, details may be very fuzzy).  I do restore cars and landbarges, but I'm not into Cadillacs ;-)

[RhyssaFireheart]

Happy Morning Wake-Up Call!!

53 charges totalling $1400 pending on the debit card this morning and all the charges are to FedEx.  Good thing the husband checks the accounts every morning, so he's already gotten the old cards canceled and new ones requested.  Because the charges are all still pending, not sure which card it was that got nicked, his or mine.  Neither of us has used them anywhere unusual or new, just the regular fast food joints for lunch, although I don't typically go out for lunch.  Just needed to the past two days because I'm out of my lunch foods at work. 

[Ironwood]

See, I've never really understood that.  If you nick a card, get it right into the limit straight off.  None of this fannying around.

[Cyrrex]

And charges to Fedex?  WTF?  Go buy a TV at Walmart like a real criminal.

[Merusk]

Surely they'll never track me down when I ship all this straight to the neighbor!

[Rasix]

When ours got stolen, all someone did was buy $200 worth of flowers in Peru.

[ghost]

When ours got stolen, all someone did was buy $200 worth of flowers in Peru.

That was probably 6 semi trailers worth. 

[RhyssaFireheart]

Yeah, it's a bizarre thing to do with a stolen card, IMO.  We'll have to wait until the charges either go through or get rejected to figure out if it's his card or mine that got taken.  I'm just glad he'd gotten his expenses yesterday and taken out cash, so I could have something to get lunch with.  I guess there is a benefit to running accounts at multiple banks.

[WayAbvPar]

When ours got stolen, all someone did was buy $200 worth of flowers in Peru.

$300 could get you a nice house in Peru! /Seinfeld

[ghost]

Charo has to give up her pet bull.

I think it is what is left unsaid in the article that is most disturbing. 

[Yegolev]

What was unsaid?  Coochie-coochie?

[Merusk]

Oh, I forgot to mention that gas hit $4.06 in at least one station when I was in Chicago.  The local reporters said it was already $4.36 or so in L.A. and had been for days.   Hooray for $4 gas this summer as I continue to live in a city determined to never have mass transit.

Is there a possibility of getting into a new field, Merusk? 

Not without some new training.  The unfortunate result of an Architectural degree is it's good as a degree in 14th Centruy Moldovan literature when you want to do something else.  I wish my parents had known that and made me go into engineering instead.

[ghost]

Yeah, my friends in architecture aren't too excited right now either.  Sorry man. 

[Yegolev]

I enjoy the once-smug faces on my architect "friends".  Not including Merusk, he's apparently a normal person.

[Mosesandstick]

I'm not sure how it is in the US, but the building regulations in the UK (and possibly the rest of the EU) mean that there might be changes to the way architects have to do things wrt environmental legislation? Being ahead of the curve might help with things in the future?

[Strazos]

From what I understand, crooks start with smaller charges to test the card, so as to not tip-off the card companies. Buying $2000 tickets overseas or something similar is an immediate red-flag.

Also, if someone gets a card, they may not immediately know what they want to pound your card with, so they test it while thinking of all sorts of silly shit to buy, like scuba gear.

[Merusk]

I enjoy the once-smug faces on my architect "friends".  Not including Merusk, he's apparently a normal person.

I got "C"s in design classes because I was too practical.  I hated my school for shoving design in front of things like structure, HVAC considerations and usability of the building.  I didn't make many long-term friends there.  What a surprise!

I'm not sure how it is in the US, but the building regulations in the UK (and possibly the rest of the EU) mean that there might be changes to the way architects have to do things wrt environmental legislation? Being ahead of the curve might help with things in the future?

In the US this was developed and privatized by a corporation about 5 years before the government even considered environmental design and legislation.  They have been relentless about marketing their standards and getting them in front of the money guys as a kind of e-peen for developers.  It's called "LEED" by the United States Green Building Council.

Part one of this ingenious marketing plan was tagging "United States" on their name to infer governmental power and connection when there is none.  They are a wholly for-profit private company. If we ever get around to legislating about environmental design beyond the wholly voluntary Energy-Star requirements, it will most likely be modeled around the LEED certification.  Particularly since so many designers, Architects, construction companies and buildings are already buying in to it. Hell, 90% of the jobs I've looked at require LEED AP certification.  The only way to get said certification is to have worked under another LEED AP on a LEED-certified project, meaning you work for a firm with one on staff or you pay a consulting fee for a guy who'll do little beyond walk you through the paperwork. 

I can't say if the system is flawed or not but just being a private for-profit raises red flags to begin with.  I can't speak about it specifically because residential uses only E* so my exposure has been stuff I've read in trades and the complaints of others.  It  sounds incredibly easy to game like any other point system.  One of the biggest complaints I've heard is it also ignores the total energy required to put into the building in terms of specialized materials and construction details to achieve certain points, vs what more traditional materials or simpler details might accomplish.

[Yegolev]

Merusk, you are obviously an engineer at your core.