The Interview
Sunday, May 22, 2022
I'm running out to brunch at Max and Erma's with Mike to tell him what happened yesterday, but I'll leave a short synopsis here.
I forgot to mention what company I was interviewing with. A good thing actually, they don't want it to be known that they are hiring for that particular position. This blog actually got brought up during the interview portion because they googled me and found it. And of course they found me in the social networking sites, old job company sites (not many of those) and other personal sites as well. A good thing I have nothing to hide.
I was expecting a physical. And that was pretty much the first thing on the agenda yesterday morning. I had to strip down naked, hold my arms out, spread my legs, and get a complete body scan done. I didn't know at the time it was a complete CT scan, not just getting my physical dimensions. They practically filled a 15 x 125 mm test tube of my blood. I thought they might do a cavity search on me next, but the medtech told me that the CT scan took care of that. Lucky for me. I thumbed them my family's medical history, which I was a little surprised about. I knew I'd be getting a thorough physical, and would probably would want my parents' history, but they wanted everything I had.
Then I had what I call my mental capacity checkout. I sat in a room with what would appear to be a wool cap on my head while they showed me 2d and 3d pictures and vids while playing music, speeches, asking me questions, sometims just weird sounds. I think they threw in some different smells. And while it was pretty subtle, they also did some haptic stuff with me. All I did was sit there. I wasn't supposed to respond to any of it, the cap recorded all that they need to know about.
Then I actually got to sit down and talk with a couple of interviewers, one man and one lady. It covered the usual stuff, like why do you want this job, what makes you more qualified than somebody else. Then it went into crisis mode. While I was giving an answer to one, the other would be asking me another question. Another surprise, but I handled it fine, then they started asking questions at the same time, which got interesting, then they started telling me to answer within so many seconds. That got really hairy. I have no idea if I answered within the time frame or not. On the fly prioritizing seemed to be what they were looking for with quick judgement. I don't think I did too badly, I'm just not sure I nailed that part.
Then it went into the practical. They put me into the controls of a hardsuit and gave me an hour to practice with it. I didn't think I would need the practice, but the controls were a new design. Instead of actually flailing my arms around like I would with normal controls, I just gripped two handles, and thought about moving my arms around. It works based on the tech behind subvocalization microphones. My speciallity of working four and five jointed arms still had bearing even with the new interface. I just wasn't flailing my arms around.
I told them I was ready after 15 minutes, and they ran me through the gamut of tests they had prepared. The last one I was asked to do wasn't an official part of the test, but I had done so well, they wanted me to try something different. They wanted me to move an egg through a series of loops without breaking it. It's not a hard thing to do, but with a new interface and unknown equipment, I wanted a bit more practice. I told them I wanted just a little more practice with a rubber ball, they could watch if they wanted, then I'd try it. After handling the rubber ball for about 2 minutes, I had the feel for the interface and had a good enough grasp of the haptics (yes, the interface while immovable, still had haptic feedback) to try it. And I nailed it.
At the end of the interview, I had all five people that had been with me there to see if I had any questions. And I did have one question. Somebody had mentioned that the person previously in this position was injured, which was why the position was opened. I asked what had happened to that person, as I had not heard of anybody getting that badly hurt in the past three months. He had been wearing a softsuit and managed to get holed by a meteorite. The details had not been released to the public, which I thought was weird.
The other weird thing was that I never did get a straight answer on which project the position was for. It didn't seem to be for any of the solar power satellites, nor for the subcontract on the sky elevator.
I got out of there in just over 10 hours, drained emotionally and physically pretty well.
Mike's here to pick me up.
I should know something by next week.
I'm running out to brunch at Max and Erma's with Mike to tell him what happened yesterday, but I'll leave a short synopsis here.
I forgot to mention what company I was interviewing with. A good thing actually, they don't want it to be known that they are hiring for that particular position. This blog actually got brought up during the interview portion because they googled me and found it. And of course they found me in the social networking sites, old job company sites (not many of those) and other personal sites as well. A good thing I have nothing to hide.
I was expecting a physical. And that was pretty much the first thing on the agenda yesterday morning. I had to strip down naked, hold my arms out, spread my legs, and get a complete body scan done. I didn't know at the time it was a complete CT scan, not just getting my physical dimensions. They practically filled a 15 x 125 mm test tube of my blood. I thought they might do a cavity search on me next, but the medtech told me that the CT scan took care of that. Lucky for me. I thumbed them my family's medical history, which I was a little surprised about. I knew I'd be getting a thorough physical, and would probably would want my parents' history, but they wanted everything I had.
Then I had what I call my mental capacity checkout. I sat in a room with what would appear to be a wool cap on my head while they showed me 2d and 3d pictures and vids while playing music, speeches, asking me questions, sometims just weird sounds. I think they threw in some different smells. And while it was pretty subtle, they also did some haptic stuff with me. All I did was sit there. I wasn't supposed to respond to any of it, the cap recorded all that they need to know about.
Then I actually got to sit down and talk with a couple of interviewers, one man and one lady. It covered the usual stuff, like why do you want this job, what makes you more qualified than somebody else. Then it went into crisis mode. While I was giving an answer to one, the other would be asking me another question. Another surprise, but I handled it fine, then they started asking questions at the same time, which got interesting, then they started telling me to answer within so many seconds. That got really hairy. I have no idea if I answered within the time frame or not. On the fly prioritizing seemed to be what they were looking for with quick judgement. I don't think I did too badly, I'm just not sure I nailed that part.
Then it went into the practical. They put me into the controls of a hardsuit and gave me an hour to practice with it. I didn't think I would need the practice, but the controls were a new design. Instead of actually flailing my arms around like I would with normal controls, I just gripped two handles, and thought about moving my arms around. It works based on the tech behind subvocalization microphones. My speciallity of working four and five jointed arms still had bearing even with the new interface. I just wasn't flailing my arms around.
I told them I was ready after 15 minutes, and they ran me through the gamut of tests they had prepared. The last one I was asked to do wasn't an official part of the test, but I had done so well, they wanted me to try something different. They wanted me to move an egg through a series of loops without breaking it. It's not a hard thing to do, but with a new interface and unknown equipment, I wanted a bit more practice. I told them I wanted just a little more practice with a rubber ball, they could watch if they wanted, then I'd try it. After handling the rubber ball for about 2 minutes, I had the feel for the interface and had a good enough grasp of the haptics (yes, the interface while immovable, still had haptic feedback) to try it. And I nailed it.
At the end of the interview, I had all five people that had been with me there to see if I had any questions. And I did have one question. Somebody had mentioned that the person previously in this position was injured, which was why the position was opened. I asked what had happened to that person, as I had not heard of anybody getting that badly hurt in the past three months. He had been wearing a softsuit and managed to get holed by a meteorite. The details had not been released to the public, which I thought was weird.
The other weird thing was that I never did get a straight answer on which project the position was for. It didn't seem to be for any of the solar power satellites, nor for the subcontract on the sky elevator.
I got out of there in just over 10 hours, drained emotionally and physically pretty well.
Mike's here to pick me up.
I should know something by next week.
posted by wmprice at 9:36 AM
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