Friday 17 August 2007

Failing an interview on the way up

A company I worked at once was hiring for a technical position (not dev work) and it put out the call to the pimps (from Wikipedia: "Typically, a pimp will solicit clients for, protect, and in other ways manage a [fill in profession] in exchange for a commission on her earnings") to get a handful of fully screened applicants.

During the week of the interviews, geeky looking people that I didn't recognise (stranger danger) were being shown through our offices and in one case one hopped on to the lift with me. Story starts with me turning up at the lift to our building pre-coffee-comatose one morning. As I waited for the elevator to land on the ground at it's usual slothful pace, two other people turned up and waited for the same thing.

When the doors opened, I boarded and hit the button for my floor. The second guy paused, holding up the queue of 1 behind him and then stepped on to the lift. I admit it wasn't the friendliest or most fragrant lift but he was even slow for me without my caffeine hit. Then half way in the door so the other guy could just fit passed, he spun and looked at the buttons... eons passed... and he finally pushed a button. He pushed the button for my floor that had already been pushed. He saw me push hit. He saw it was the only red button. He pushed it anyway.

As he stepped off the lift in front of me as we got to our floor, I just knew that this guy was not someone I could ever enjoy working with, technically anyway.

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