I’m tired. Too tired to write, even though I find myself missing it more and more. Since Christmas I’ve been intermittently sick, first with the nastiest 24-hour GI bug I have encountered in a long time, then with a sinus infection capped with a bout of bronchitis. Every time I feel like I have recovered, I get hit with yet another illness. Falling into bed at 7:30 without bothering to have any dinner has become a common occurrence, a habit that I want to break.
As happy as I am to be working full time, doing what I enjoy and feeling as if I contribute, I find myself often overwhelmed by day-to-day home life. TA is peeing through his nighttime diapers, which necessitates a daily washing of his bedding. The laundry still needs done, the dishes still need washed, the bathroom still needs scrubbed, the cats still need food, fresh water and a clean litter box. There always seems to be at least one pair of socks on the living room floor and the bookshelves, dining room table and buffet are usually piled high with miscellaneous papers, J’s coins and other sundry materials that have no remote connection to literature or dining. Any conversation about hiring someone to come in for a few hours and straighten up the house a few hours a month (not even a week) is shut down as a waste of money. Add the guilt I feel at J picking up my significant slack with my tiredness at struggling to just keep clutter out of the main rooms, and I’m hair trigger cranky.
As happy as I am to be working full time, doing what I enjoy and feeling as if I contribute, I find myself often overwhelmed by day-to-day home life. TA is peeing through his nighttime diapers, which necessitates a daily washing of his bedding. The laundry still needs done, the dishes still need washed, the bathroom still needs scrubbed, the cats still need food, fresh water and a clean litter box. There always seems to be at least one pair of socks on the living room floor and the bookshelves, dining room table and buffet are usually piled high with miscellaneous papers, J’s coins and other sundry materials that have no remote connection to literature or dining. Any conversation about hiring someone to come in for a few hours and straighten up the house a few hours a month (not even a week) is shut down as a waste of money. Add the guilt I feel at J picking up my significant slack with my tiredness at struggling to just keep clutter out of the main rooms, and I’m hair trigger cranky.
But there is progress.
I've starting sitting in and conducting interviews with job candidates. Not phone screens, which are handled by my manager, L. Actual face to face interviews in which I must come up with technical questions (and know the answers) and evaluate whether an individual will be a good fit within my department.
With the exception of the first interview, all of them have been done in tandem with a second person from my department. The experience has been eye opening.
The first candidate was competent, talented, and had a strong work ethic. The only stumble during the interview was when I asked the candidate to define the ideal person for the job. Part of the response included a mini-dissertation on the importance of having a very specific degree to qualify for the job. Which is a fine answer, unless the person conducting the interview doesn't have the degree in question. I found this amusing (rule one in my field is "never assume") and voted to extend the candidate a job offer. It was turned down in favor of accepting a position in a more than pleasant city on the west coast.
The second candidate had a great resume on the surface. Good degrees, memberships to several professional organizations, professional certification and a considerable amount of job experience.
But something about the certifications piqued my interest enough to do a bit of additional research. One of the certifications in question came from an organization that has faced blowback in the past several years for charging a substantial sum of money for individuals to take a test to call themselves "certified" without actually teaching them anything of substance. Candidate two turned out to be a disaster during the interview, with zero practical experience and poor reasoning skills.
Another candiate was a complete nightmare. Between myself and my coworker, we got managed to ask four questions (total) in a forty-five minute period. The questions were answered in excruciating detail. Most of the time was spent nodding and saying "uh huh".
The debriefing was derailed when the CTO, after listening to five other interviewers express strong reservations about this person's ability to work in a collaborative environment, wanted my manager to do a background check anyway. The exact phrasing was "there is nothing wrong with being an odd duck".
A week later my coworker and I learned that this individual found our questions inappropriate and complained that we were "confrontational". This person, with 20+ years of industry experience, stated that they would not be comfortable working with us, but somehow managed to find all the managers quite amiable.
Both my coworker and myself were momentarily floored by the feedback, as neither of us had an opportunity to say much of anything during the interview. The CTO, who passed this feedback to my manager to give to us, stated that we needed to focus more on selling the company then assessing the technical skills of potential candidates.
