What they asked

Off the top of my head, I’ve had 40 paying jobs in my life and about 200 interviews to get them.

My latest job search was this past January in Sonoma County. Before that was a search 12 years ago.  Things have changed.

Job searching today is pretty much like internet dating on eHarmony or Match.com. Companies use algorithms and filtering software to find the resumes with the greatest number of hits that match the job posting. You want your resume to have the highest score of hits to be one of the lucky few that make it into the hiring manager’s inbox. The challenge is to fish out and repeat as many words or phrases from their job posting as you can and use them in your resume while still sounding like yourself.

Once I figured out an efficient process to do that, I started to land interviews. Like a first date, sometimes the unexpected happens.

The most memorable interviews of my work life so far have been these:

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country

When I was a new college grad and applying for my first administrative jobs, I was asked for a handwriting sample. Could I please write a short paragraph on this piece of paper?

My first thoughts were:

Punishment, write 100 times ‘I will not….’

Criminal investigation.

Sound smart!

Sentences like ‘The quick sly fox jumped over the lazy dog” and “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country’ were already part of every job application as they were measuring my typing speed.

Except that this happened in Israel and English is not the native language which made this more confusing for me. Graphology is a standard part of every single job application in Israel, even today, but I didn’t know this at my first interview there. 

So, do you play golf?

I had recently met our new 18 year old receptionist, just graduated from high school. As I introduced myself and welcomed her, the CEO and every senior executive stopped by to ask her, “See you Saturday morning? 6am tee time”. She grew up playing golf and joined the highest inner circle of the company during her first week. 

A short while later I was interviewing for the role of Investor Relations Manager at a Silicon Valley start-up.  As the interview was wrapping up, the CFO asked me, “So, do you play golf?”  

If this question comes at the end of an interview, it’s code for ‘you got the job’. 

If asked early in the interview, it’s the most important question of the entire discussion. If you want the job, you must answer Yes. Then go straight to a driving range and start to practice.

The Staring Contest

My interviewer was the CEO of Mercury Interactive, the hottest company in Silicon Valley in 2001. The CEO had resisted having an executive assistant but his staff convinced him that it was time. He ushered me into his office and I sat across from him at a small conference table. My resume was in front of him.

He folded his arms, leaned back and stared at me, without speaking. He leaned forward and began to thumb through my resume flipping the pages back and forth. He sighed loudly, leaned back and continued to stare. He looked me up and down. He squinted. Then he cycled through this process again and again.

I remained completely calm watching his intimidation act, looked him in the eye and maintained my warm-welcome-approachable look.  After a good 5 minutes, he finally asked, “Why are you here?” We talked for an hour.

I didn’t get the job. Mercury missed their numbers and had a hiring freeze. Then the CEO was accused of financial shenanigans and the company went under.

60 Questions

I got a call from American Ag Credit to set up a half hour phone interview with an HR Generalist. At the appointed time, I left my temp job to take the call and sitting in my car in the pouring rain, the HR Generalist told me that she’d be asking me 60 questions that have no right or wrong answers.

My personality test had many questions about my life beyond office hours:  

What do you think about or do when you’re driving alone in your car?

Are you a morning person or a night owl? 

I flunked my personality test. The matchmaker concluded that my potential boss and I were not compatible.

Once a nerve-wracking experience, I now love interviews. Each interview feels like going on stage to do improv like Whose Line Is It Anyway? The more off-the-wall, the better!  When I get an unprepared or inexperienced interviewer, it’s almost disappointing. Then I flip it and subtly steer the conversation in a better direction and deliver my lines to hopefully make the interview relevant and memorable.  One of us has to do the unexpected!

House Porn and Boondoggle

Jeepers!  Creepers!  When did I become such a peeper?!

Since we moved up north, I have kept my eye on the housing market.  Some day we want to be within walking distance of shops and restaurants and I want a nice garden. 

I downloaded the Trulia app and I often look at houses for sale. I could say this is just market research.  But really, I think this is what people call "house porn".  

I love looking at the pictures. I can't resist seeing what people have inside their homes and yards.  From the ones who have paid to have it staged to the ones who hung 18 quirky chandeliers, left their dirty clothes on every chair, and have a package of Wonder Bread on the kitchen counter. Pinch and zoom and you can see every detail of their lives.  It's deliciously disgusting....voyeuristic.  

I was never like this before and it didn't start this way. But it's a slippery slope. 

At first I only looked at houses that we could actually buy. Our price range, decent condition. I would click on the map feature to see where it is as I try to get acquainted with neighborhoods. Genuine market research. 

But then I started to look at everything.  Even on Mondays. 

What do you get for $12million??? What is that horrid looking shack in the middle of the Russian River vineyards? What were they doing out there? What is a 300 sq ft 1 bedroom 1 bath doing on 4 acres??  It's too small to be a farmhouse, was it for the caretaker or a family of migrant farmworkers? Wow - Look at that ultra modern all solar all salvaged materials surrounded by an apple orchard!  Could I live in a place called Occidental? Sounds like industrial New Jersey, yet it's the ultimate hippy-turned-rich bohemian community. Are we bohemian enough, would we fit in?

Descriptions are equally tantalizing. 'Cozy'  'Charming'  'Vintage'. 'Turnkey' 'Art studio'. Every writer has a different definition.  

Cozy = small. 

Charming = a bit beaten up but you might think that adds character.  

Vintage = old.  

Turnkey = you don't need to fix anything (yeah, right!)  

Art studio = it has 4 walls and a roof and you can stand in it, but there is no room for a chair, a table, a bed or any furniture. It was probably the old exterior fuse box and now it's been added to the square footage with temptation of Airbnb income. Yeah...I could see people would pay to sleep in a hammock....ok, a short person.....hey, we could earn enough to cover the taxes!

Look!  a koi pond!  That sounds nice. Oh wait...I'd have keep them alive.  

Look at the sculpture garden...do they come with the house?  

My goodness....they've used all those conch shells so creatively. 

While I was trolling the internet for houses, I suddenly fell in love with one. 

The property I fell in love with was actually 3 little dwellings surrounding an amazing garden. The 1945 bungalow was 400 sq ft. 1 BR  1BA.  It was never remodeled or upgraded, although the owner over-decorated everything inside and out extensively. The chandeliers did not come with the house. The description said "dollhouse". Think of those really fun shabby chic antique stores. Every tree had things hanging from it. A bathtub used as a planter in one corner...lights strung up everywhere. 

The second space was a converted garage - done very well and turned into a lovely zen room with some Japanese doors and other touches to give it character. Greg named it the Mikado Room. 

The third structure was a little pre-fab house styled like a barn, with a red door and a front porch all covered with wisteria.  

There was also a storage shed - 6' x 24' with no ventilation. It had been installed 20 years ago to grow pot. The walls still had the hooks for all the grow lights. The gas/electric meter had been tampered with to not register the full electric usage of the property. So we could have had extra income from both Airbnb and weed and a $10 electric bill! 

To make a 3 week long story short:  The seller never held an open house. She was selling it "as is". We were the only ones who made an offer. We offered $25K less than her asking price. She accepted. We went into escrow...paid for all the inspections...which revealed a very neglected place that needed a lot of work.  We already knew it needed work, but the reports showed a lot more. Our wonderful agent scrambled to get a lot of quotes to estimate repair work.   Based on that, we lowered our offer by another $20K.  Trust me - that was generous.  There were a ton of things we were not asking for and willing to take on ourselves. 

The seller rejected our insulting offer. So the deal was off.  We are feeling neutral.  It would have been a lot of work and taking on some risks of unknowns. This boondoggle cost a lot but we learned a lot in a very short time. 

You would think that after we got the news of losing the house, I would stop and pause for a moment. But that very night, I found myself pressing my thumb on my Trulia app and aimlessly swiping, pinching and zooming in bed, in the dark, after Greg fell asleep. 

Then I googled "house porn support group". 

There isn't one.  

Maybe I'll start one.

After we buy a house. 

Blog Schmog

If you followed me over here, welcome and thank you!  

Maybe you know why you are here, but I’m not sure that I have that all figured out. 

I like reasons. I like goals. I like lists.  

I am writing because they asked. They know who they are. 

I am writing for future generations. I’d like to believe that one of my descendants will wonder if that funny birthmark ran in the family, if their great-great-great-grandmother Marian ate pumpernickel bread from Zabars, or what their ancestors did when they lived in suburbs on planet earth.

I am writing to fund my retirement. Advertisers will flock to my site, click merrily and flood my PayPal account with PPC royalties (that’s Pay Per Click. see, I’ve done my homework).  I’m going to bundle 25 posts into a book and self-publish and get 5-star reviews on Amazon. Then come the NPR segments and the New Yorker pieces. Then I’ll negotiate a movie deal. Have I impressed you with my solid business plan?  Don’t worry, I still contribute to my 401K and IRA; I’m not totally nuts.

I am writing to apologize for not liking you on FaceBook. I like you a whole lot!  I’m not on FaceBook because I can’t lie. What if I told you I couldn’t come to your first ukulele solo at open mic night because I was attending a work thing. And then I forgot and posted my falafel ’n waffle sandwich from the new vegan-kosher-halal-comfort-food food truck 2 blocks away while you were strumming?

I am writing because I am too long-winded for Twitter. Trump could start WWIII with one tweet. I could not tell you what I had for lunch in 140 characters. 

I am writing because I take lousy pictures even with a smartphone and can’t figure out the simplicity of Instagram.

I am writing to nail down material for my stand-up comedy schtick that I will invite you to in 10 years when I get over my stage fright and you won’t make it because you have a work thing. 

I am writing because I’ve been inspired by the great female slice-of-life writers before me. Erma. Nora. Gilda. Tina. Lena.* They all started somewhere. They all have names that end in ‘a”.  If that’s a pre-requisite, then I messed up because I had one and got rid of it!  *Erma Bombeck, Nora Ephron, Gilda Radner, Tina Fey, Lena Dunham

I am writing for myself. As Ira Glass said, “You’ll hit gold more often if you simply try out a lot of things.”

I am going to try out a lot of things.