Oh fuck. How many more of these questions am I going to have to answer?
It was 10am. “Tell me about a time you invented an original metric, why you did, and how it impacted results.”
“Uhhhhhh….number of bagels eaten per hour? I like bagels. I am a carb championa.”
“Tell me about a time when you built something based on customer input.”
“Uhhhh, well I do like traveling to customers in sunny places, so I’ll listen to them if they’re in the right location.”
“Tell me about a time when you took action without any data.”
“Well, I once needed to get to Boston by midnight, so I immediately booked an Amtrak ticket.”
“No, now tell me about a time when you took action without any data, and you had no external emergency situation to push you to do it.”
“Heh, what? Well, I did eat a mozzarella sandwich this morning.”
“Tell me about a complex problem you solved with a simple solution.” “Uhhhhhhhh…FUCK, I so stupid.”
“Tell me about two of your proudest moments.”
“Uhhhhh…I quit my toxic job, #1. I built a good team at my last job and was the only bastion of executive sanity there. Oh right, and there was this time I had this horrifically antagonistic relationship with the guy in charge of development, and then I won.”
“Here we have something called ‘tenets.’ What would be the ‘tenets’ of a mobile app you would design?”
“Uhhhh…can I talk about features and design? (WTF are tenets in this context? Are they like weird principal moral type things? Miriam? Webster? Where ARE you????).”
“Tell me about a time you were getting pressured to do something and decided to do something else.”
“Well, there was this guy that kept pressuring me to go to his apartment, but I remembered I had cashews at home, so I politely declined. Actually, I just ran away.”
“Tell me how you decide what to work on.”
“Uhhhhhh…based on importance, impact, and my potential contribution?”
“No, you’re not understanding me. Tell me how you prioritize.”
“Uhhhhhhh…I just do what makes sense to do?”
“How do you know what makes sense to do? How do you know what your contribution will be? How do you measure what’s important?”
“Uhhhhhhhhh…I just do stuff, okay? And then I get promoted a lot. Why you ask so many questions? Sheeshums.”
“In your last role, how did you convince decisionmakers of your view.”
“Uhhhhh…I was the decisionmaker, so it was pretty easy.”
“Do you have any questions for me?”
“Yeah, what is your job?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Uhhhhhhh. OK, back to me then, I guess.”
“Tell me about a time when a project you worked on wasn’t successful.”
“Well, I did work on a project once that was a complete disaster. Honestly, it was a train wreck.”
Silence.
“Too honest?” Blink blink.
You did not pass go. Stay in Los Angeles, my dear. OK :). Time to sip la margaritas en el sol. Or write in my blog on Amtrak on the East Coast thinking about sol.