Slightly OT, but I've developed a reputation for giving very hard interviews. I have this utterly irrational idea that the candidate actually be able to demonstrate their skill.
In a previous position as a Network Operations Manager back when everyone just used recruiters for every position, I actually made a candidate cry[1] and was told by the recruiter my interviews were too hard.
The funniest interview question I've been asked was a joking off-handed remark:
"What runs on tcp port 666?"
"There is no RFC defining port 666's in use, but its colloqially the port the game Doom uses. By the way, its a horrid choice, because its below the 1024 limit, meaning the doom server would running as root under *nix."
The tech interviewer's response was "Hire him. He knows his stuff. And we need one more for the Quake tournaments."
...Xoff
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[1] He was interviewing for a senior network engineering position, claimed 5+ years of Cisco experience, and couldn't get admin privs (i.e. enable) on the console of a Cisco 2500 series when I handed him the passwords. I gave him 2 minutes of fumbling, thanked him for his time, and said he wasn't a good fit because we actually used Cisco equipment instead of just saying we did.
xoff
@xoff
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RE: Meanest Interviewer Question
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Can you just fax me the wtf?
This was back when I had first "upgraded" from Tech Support to Technical Writing[1] and I was writing a manual for an ISP. This was back in the Win3.11 days where we had to send out floppies for new users, because they didn't have a TCP/IP stack. The web was a new thing. Domains were free. Slackware was the cool new thing, etc.
I had been using a publisher for the "new user" manual who had been great -- knew what they were doing, gave great proofs, understood Pagemaker, font substitutions, etc. Normal procedure was to put our pagemaker files and a postscript version on a ZIP disk and they'd come get it. They'd provide proofs after a phone call fixing any issues.
The comptroller wanted to save money (of course) and they had "an associate" (meaning: a friend) who owned "a full service print company" (read: they made photocopies).
The new and cheaper printers really had no idea how to do document production more involved than printing fliers and 3-part forms. They didn't have a ZIP drive (wtf? Everybody used them at that stage! You couldn't exactly email a 25mb file via dialup!), they didn't have Pagemaker, etc, etc...
Problem was, they didn't tell us any of this upfront. It was the old "can't do X" cycle...
First, they asked for the file on a floppy (it was 25mb). Next, they wanted it in Word (I made them get Pagemaker - they had to find a machine with a CD ROM)
Then, they sent a "proof" -- I use quotes here, because it wasn't a proof. It was just a printout of the manual on regular paper (our format was a smaller pamphleted size) with no registration marks or anything. And they didn't have any of our fonts (and appartently ignored the substitution list we'd included) -- so half the text wasn't readable because it'd become WingDings or other weird crap. Even Courier was screwed up. COURIER.
I blew a gasket on the phone with their "lead designer" -- she didn't know a damn thing, and the fonts was the last straw.
She didn't understand the issue (obviously she hadn't even looked at the "proof"), or why I was upset, or even what fonts were.
"Ok, I understand you are upset. We just don't have any of these odd fonts[2] -- I have your list here, but I don't have the actual font itself. Can you fax it to me?"
I carefully had her repeat that. She wanted me to FAX the FONT FILE to her? Yes, that'd be easiest.
I fired them on the spot. I almost got fired for it, too.
Later, after many beers, the Operations guys offerred to take the font file, uuencode it, print it, and fax it to her for me. I always liked those guys. :)
...Xoff
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1 Yes, its an upgrade...the number of morons you need to interact with on a daily basis drops significantly. Its just the type and severity of the moron that increases.
2 Garamond was the one we'd chosen...I use it to this day. Its a
standard font that comes with Pagemaker, IIRC.