The first fifteen seconds

[thebullet]

shereads said:
If there's anything I can't stand it's optimism in the face of overwhelming evidence of doom and failure.

So, that's why you don't like George W Bush?


Re: the current thread...
I'm kind of proof and contra-proof at once. I met the girl who was the love of my life and I knew it in the first 15 seconds. I was practically slobbering over her with the first look and the first few words she spoke.

on the other hand:
It took her several months before she realized I was the love of her life.

Which just goes to show you. You never know.

 

[Evil Alpaca]

I'm a terrible interviewee, but I've often been "wheeled in" as the no-nonsense, shrewd techy guy to do a sanity check on interviewees who might be so slick that they fooled the touchy-feely managers.

Once, after a very rough night, I had to interview someone at 8:30 am. I was unshaved and really tired. I went through some questions with him, made up my mind -- the guy was good. So I told him, as I always did in those situations, that I was going to recommend him, and he could spend the rest of the interview asking me about the firm. I found we got on really well, there was a rapport.

By the end I was saying things like "do yourself a favour, this place will kill you. Look what it's done to me", and he was consoling me and telling me that maybe all I needed was a vacation.

For me, interviewing for jobs was a bizarre thing which, thankfully, didn't last that long. I interviewed pretty well with one company but tanked with the other. I forgot really simple basic stuff that anyone should have known at that level. When I got called out for a face-to-face interview, I suddenly felt like I had flopped on that one too, but was apparently wrong. It was the same kind of job as the first with the same basic required knowledge base, but I just did better on one than the other. My first impression was wrong with one company but right about the other, so I guess the point to this rant (if there is one) is that while the gut instinct may work in the pinch, it isn't the only force at work. Blah, I'm too tired . . .

G'night all.

 

[R. Richard]

I used to do job interviews for computer programmers. I was a computer programmer and could tell if the person could program or not. It would usually take me on the order of 15 minutes, not 15 seconds. During the secind 15 to 30 minutes, I could find out how well the interviewee could program. I almost never was wrong in my judgement.

I hired a guy who was such an ass hole that I had to keep him more or less locked in a room where I was the only one who would communicate with him. He could do the good quality work of about five people, which is why I hired him in the first place. I eventually fired him. Another, totally incompetent, manager picked the guy up and troublemaker destroyed his group in about six months.

In order to do good job interviews, you have to know yourself how to do the job and also have to have some idea of the impact of the person on your existing personnel.

 

[BlackShanglan]

For me, interviewing for jobs was a bizarre thing which, thankfully, didn't last that long. I interviewed pretty well with one company but tanked with the other. I forgot really simple basic stuff that anyone should have known at that level. When I got called out for a face-to-face interview, I suddenly felt like I had flopped on that one too, but was apparently wrong. It was the same kind of job as the first with the same basic required knowledge base, but I just did better on one than the other. My first impression was wrong with one company but right about the other, so I guess the point to this rant (if there is one) is that while the gut instinct may work in the pinch, it isn't the only force at work. Blah, I'm too tired . . .

G'night all.

I did have one job interview where I knew half an hour into the (day-long) interview process that I would not work at that institution regardless of the salary or benefits. I suppose it's fair to say that that decision was based, perhaps not on a fifteen-second judgement, but on a series of snapshots of people whom I did not get to know well. However, when one member of the institution repeatedly makes bigoted remarks to one in private, and when everyone belonging to groups subject to that person's prejudices looks miserable, depressed, and defeated - one tends not to care to experience confirmation at length and first hand.

Shanglan

 

[hogjack]

Utter bunk

I haven't read (nor will be reading) "Thin Slicing" but if you've properly conveyed the essence of its main point [major assumption] then it sounds like a load of pop-psychological bunk with an erroneous conclusion that doesn't meet the standards of any valid sociological research.

Nonetheless, I'd still bang the Today Show's Katie Couric. That would give her 15 seconds of considering whether to undergo another 60 seconds of the coupling.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Two words: Bull and shit. Combine them into one and you get Shitbull, Native American Supervillain who would have turned out good if only he had a better name. Oh woe this unkind world for thrusting such hardships on such a wee little lad...

Oh, sorry, got carried away. Shitbull, good guy underneath really.

Sorry, yeah, bullshit, that sums it up pretty good. This comes from the same school of psychological assholes that believe seduction is the same as love and that every action in your life is dictated by your relationship with your parents in utter disregard that other things happen in a person's life.


Personally, I've always hated this kind of prick. Psychological turnip twaddlers who believe that cause they've got the degree, they know all they need to about the human mind when what they know is their own twisted little mind and fragile hold on reality.

And furthermore-

We're sorry. This rant has been disconnected for the sensitivities of the audience and to sell you delicious new Psychology. Stick it up your ass and make your dick hard. So hard...yes...with thoughts of mother. Mother, mmm. I'm coming with the whipped cream. Don't leave me here, mother....Unsatisfied and be sure to bring the wh-

We're sorry. The previous was a madman and certainly not a representative of the psychological community. We have high standards here and believe understanding the human condition is serious work. We take the times to get things right and don't get bogged down in pop psychology and dating our mums. In fact the practice is sickening, right mum? Oh yes, honey, shall I spank you for being a bad boy. Oh yes, mummy, I should enjoy that very mu-

Well fuck right. Finally got rid of those wankers. Where was I. Ah yes, Shitbull was a misunderstood youth-



How bout we try again later, mmkay?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Psychological turnip twaddlers

Please God tell me that's a reference to Opus the Penguin ordering 3,000 Ronco Turnip Twaddlers.

Shanglan

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Please God tell me that's a reference to Opus the Penguin ordering 3,000 Ronco Turnip Twaddlers.

Shanglan

Vaguely...

you turnip twaddler.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Vaguely...

you turnip twaddler.

I've been called worse.

Shanglan

 

[shereads]

So, that's why you don't like George W Bush?

No, I don't like George W. Bush for these reasons:

(1) He brags about not reading, as if staying busy makes up for staying ignorant

(2) His eyes are too close together, like a greyhound's eyes. Unlike greyhounds, he doesn't seem to gain much speed from the streamlined shape of the brainpan.

(3) He's a slack-jawed monkey boy.