I was talking with a co-worker’s husband yesterday and we were discussing some of his complany’s hiring strategies. He told me that they commonly asked an uncommon question during an interview session, a session that typically involved six to eight senior staff members interviewing one person. That is intimidating in itself. The struggle to find the answer that these people want even more so. It is framed as a morality question, but really I interpreted it is a question of strategy. The question is as follows:
You are driving down the road, and it is pouring down rain. You see three people on the side of the roadat a bus stop; an old woman close to death, your best friend who saved your life once, and the man/woman of your dreams. You only have one seat available. Who do you choose?
This is not a question I would expect to answer in a discussion type forum, or at a job interview at all. You see questions like this on personality tests and such for companies, and that situation is typically private. You would have a bit more time to mull over the correct answer. I guess the moral of the story is be prepared for anything in an interview.
The guy who guy hired answered this way: He would drop the car off and let the friend take the old lady to the hospital so he could stand next to the woman of his dreams and wait for the bus. Morality, maybe. Ability to make everyone happy? Definitely.
It is a little mind blowing that the development of a multi-computer
network has been a concept since the 60’s and how far it has come since just the past fifteen years. I know I take it for granted. Our main computer at work that we use to surf the web and do word processing, etc, has been out for about a week and it has been a frustrating handicap to the tasks I perform everyday. I am sure I am not the only who has encountered this. It almost bothers me how reliant I am on the Internet. It is a sign of the times….
Because of the fascination with the technology and concept of the Internet, early browser development focused more on bells and whistles versus compatibility and cohesion. The race for the best browser resulted in at least five different programming languages operating at one time creating obvious problems, for obvious reasons. What these developers failed to realize was that there was no point in development if it wasn’t accessible to everyone and with every new development, there was a different coding language. There would be no way that people could keep up with the technology if it did not have some structure to it. W3C only used their advice as “recommendations” for a while, so people ignored the importance of this advice. They then got some pressure from a certain group and changed their recommendations to standards. That got people’s attention.With so much technology developing constantly, there has to be a solid platform to base it on. That is the whole idea behind the Internet, to access information from anywhere. Web standards make that possible.
There could not be a comprehensive network without standards. There would just be too much information out there inaccessible to all people, not to mention how much harder the code would be to write if there were no rules for it. There would be headings and paragraphs flying willy nilly all over the place, lists would be numbered instead of ordered, copyright would be in the head. It would be total chaos. It’s a good thing that someone is on the ball. Thanks WaSP
So it is nine thirty, Monday night, and it feels like I am forgetting something. I checked my planner and my calendar and looked around the house for any signs of what it is I could be missing. I have no leads. Then it occurs to me, no Catherine, Kay, and Thomas. That is what Monday is missing. I guess I will go work on some html……
I think that the idea Carnegie had that would be most beneficial in my life would be do split my life up in compartments, only dealing with”day-tight” compartments. I am constantly looking at my calendars, planning, re-planning, deciding what needs to be done and if that gets done, what else it is that I need to get done. I spend so much time looking ahead, it tends to cloud the present. Looking ahead is evident almost every aspect of my life, from financial planning to my daughter’s cheerleading schedule. Living in just today makes me rather uncomfortable.
Right now I am thinking about my to-do list at work tomorrow, this is an extremely busy time of the year for us and I am booked until January (see there I go again, I am already thinking about January), and all the things that are lined up for my day off this week. I am starting to wonder if all of the planning that I do for the weeks and months ahead is making my worry worse. I really wouldn’t classify it as worry, but more of a Master to-do list and an obsession to check things off of that list. The theory is that looking ahead just seems to ease the routine to have everything already lined out. I think I spend less time thinking about what I have to do so I have more time to do it. It really doesn’t work this ideally.
I probably spend just as much time thinking about the things that I have to do as I spend actually doing them but I also think that not planning in advance may cause me to worry more. I am going to try over the holiday break, to live day-to-day, but that could all change once school starts again.
Another issue that I need to conquer that falls into this principle is letting go of the “what ifs” of the future. I consider future issue throughout the day, at least once a day. I think of it as good planning, but half the time the issue that I have worked myself up about doesn’t even occur and I have wasted my day on something that really didn’t matter. I don’t deal with surprises well, but I have also realized that there will always been one waiting for me, no matter how much planning I do.
So yesterday at work I had to take a delivery to a customer’s house. My primary custom is to Map Quest the address and follow the directions. My boss would not let me use Map Quest. She said I had to go old school, and she gave me some directions. I threatened to use the GPS on my phone, and she said she would take the phone away. She can be pretty persuasive…..So I did not use the phone either. She was making me do it without computer-generated technology. I completed the task with no major issues besides driving around in a circle trying to figure out when the ln turned into cr, the sign was under the bushes….
So later, I relay the story to the boyfriend. He says, “Map Quest is old school. Everyone uses Google Maps now.”
One of my favorite websites is Hulu, http://www.hulu.com/. I may be behind in the digital age. We do not have a television in the house. Anything we watch, we watch on Hulu or other similar sites. It is a legit site which streams full episodes of many current shows as well as archives of other shows and movies in almost every genre. They still show commercials, but they offer the option to watch the commercial in one block before the show or movie or intermittently throughout. (The commericals can get repetitive, but they do that on tv.v too.) Their episodes are a week behind on weekly shows and a day behind on daily shows. It is just like Tivo or anything recordable, because it can be accessed whenever, a favorite feature of mine. If I feel like watching The Addams Family at four in the morning I can.
It is recently running a bit slower because so many people are now aware of it and accessing it. They have not quite figured out how to accommodate to so many users, but really I cannot complain. I have used it for about two years now and nothing has really changed about the design or navigation through the site, which is comforting. It lists several ways to find things, based on whether you’re just looking for something new to watch or to find your favorite shows. You can also set up an account with a queue for regularly watched programs. The movie list is pretty extensive. Another good thing about Hulu, vs projectfreetv.com, is that all of the media is on-site. There are no links re-routing you to unfamiliar sites. The only drawback is that they only archive the new shows, like Family Guy or Glee, for five or six episodes. I have never really been a scheduled television person, like sitting down every Wednesday from seven to eight to watch certain shows, so I do miss some stuff. They have to make room for new episodes as well as some other behind the scenes issues, so that really is not a complaint. I have been impressed with the site and I feel like it is user friendly and nice looking. There are nice images with previews of what they have to offer as well as thumbnails of contents. There are several ways to find the same thing, which is important because some people just navigate through websites differently. It gets my vote!
(There was a point in time when they had Scooby Doo and the Goblin King on there and I had to watch it like 6 times a week. That wasn’t their fault though. I sure was glad when they removed it, because I could then tell her the truth…….)
I was a little confused about scoring the test, but I realized that I am definitely more Judging than Perceiving, to clarify from the title of the previous blog. I blogged last week about not wanting to be put into a box determined by a personality type. I see now that it is the wrong way to look at the situation. I think that the test is actually helpful in understanding ourselves a little better; our motivations, needs, want, actions. If we realize that we do act in a certain way, whether this way is right or wrong, it will definitely be more beneficial in understanding others.The results were very similar, as I had mentioned earlier, to what my type is. It would be impossible to cover every little quirk I had with a test, and there are many quirks. The description on the sheet Catherine handed out last week described me as an “analytical manager of facts and details,” and that I value routine, consistency, and”learning through planned, sequential teaching”. It also mention skepticism, which I would say that I am not, and that I am not emotional when taking decisions into account. I would have to disagree with that. My decisions are heavily weighted by how they will affect others. I do not like to disappoint others and I strive to make sure that they outcome of my decisions, how ever trivial they may seem, do not negatively affect others. Not to say that this doesn’t happen, because I have to be selfish every once in a while. Besides three or four things I did not exactly agree with, the test was pretty solid.
That story that Catherine and Kaay related tonight was something I have been through. When I travel, I start planning a month ahead. I list and plan and map and budget. I pack two weeks ahead and load the car a week ahead. Even with all that, going on a perfectly planned trip with someone who is rather spontaneous can be a little nerve racking. I went to Florida with some family a few years back and the structure of the trip was pure chaos. And I let it get to me the entire time. I did not begin to enjoy myself until the last day, when I stopped really caring about a plan of any kind and going with the flow. Up until then, I wanted to oppose everyone who wasn’t ready for breakfast at 9 a.m. and didn’t have their sunscreen on by 9:30. What a waste. I have not made that same mistake. The key is adaptability. There are some situations when it is ok not to have a schedule. Vacation is one of them.
The trouble is getting out of the rigid way of thinking that I feel keeps me grounded. The schedule, the black book, the calendar,the setting of goals and assignments, and crossing them out, it gives me the impression of solidarity and accomplishment, as to assure myself I am not just wasting away here. It is a method of both comfort and fulfillment. Not that my life consists of just doing stuff, but I have found a method that works for me and I cling to it for dear life. I may have found a few life preservers though.
I was thinking about the whole personality test thing and I was considering the importance of the results. ( I may have missed this part of the discussion last week. ) I really would not like to think that I have one out of sixteen personalities. It makes me feel cookie-cutterish. I understand that to make it in the business world I will have to grow up sometime and get rid of this urge to go against the “norm”. At first, that is what this testing seemed to be like, to want to “classify” me and I want to revolt and yell and scream and say “No, that is not me, there is no way that a series of questions can tell me what kind of person I am!” A little melodrama if you will.
Sadly, I cannot. I know myself to an extent and those results really did not vary much from the truth, I now just have a lot more words to describe it as well as some explanations for certain behaviors I have. It was a very interesting exercise and I did try to be as honest with myself as possible. I don’t know who I am when I first wake up, but sometimes, I don’t even want to talk to me. I read a little on the test and its method and its pretty sound. I also learned that it really is not a reduction of personality, but more of a tendency, like repetition. The handwriting exercise really made sense then. We practice what it most comfortable for us. At first when I thought about the test I considered the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy, as in people tend to act the way people expect them to. If you test as a certain type, is this subject to change or will it persist because you have found it to be true? I have seen one person go from one extreme to the other because of life situations. There is no way I could really fire or reprimand someone, even if asked to. I don’t have it in me, yet. Should I become the CEO of a large organization, it would become a necessary thing that I would have to do. I wonder if eventually I would start leaving that at work and not feel so bad about doing it after a while. That is the kind of thing that bothers me; becoming callous out of necessity for survival. Would my personality actually change over time? I don’t really know, but this inspired some reflection on just how meaningful these personality types really are.
Obviously I am a fan of Google, and I am not the only one. The idea that there is so much information after typing in a phrase or word is pretty cool. It is also a little mind-boggling. Maybe not so much now because people are used to it, but Google speeds up research processes that would take days, even years, to re-cover in other ways. Not that I always trust Google results, but with anything Internet-related, judgment and common sense must be used when analyzing content. There are tons of search engines, but to me, Google is the most comprehensive and user friendly. Plus, they have all kinds of cool applications that go with it.
I have been using the Calendar for about two months now and I am pretty satisfied with it, but my favorite Google program is the Documents. I got the blue screen of death right before the semester started. Google documents provided a way to do word processing for school without having to drop 200 on a program when it was not the best time to spend money. It was more intuitive than 07 for sure and much easier to use. It is like when they designed 07 they said “let’s make this a scavenger hunt.” (That whole indentation thing was really bugging me this morning, but after an extensive search and trial and error, I got my works cited just right.) I digress. Back to Google docs. It took some poking around to find the right formatting, as there are some thing listed in a place I would not have thought to look, like the double space for the lines. You have to poke around any program anyway. Overall, it was easy to use and saved my butt. I also really liked the share feature. It is interesting, and certainly a more collaborative creative process, to have four people working on a script at one time. I would say that the best thing about it is its mobility. Just in case a jump drive is lost or forgotten or whatever else may pop up, I can work on it anywhere as long as I have a computer and an Internet connection. I think I may have appreciated it a little more when I did not think of Google in terms of making my demographic a revenue source, but if they did not do it, someone else would. For the services provided, it may just be worth it. They have to stay in business too. Google makes my livelihood go just a little bit smoother every day. That reliance is also a little frightening.
I have not used the presentation or spreadsheet features of the docs, although that form Thomas showed us tonight was really cool. It would be helpful in research. I cannot really compare it to anything but Microsoft, as Google had the first web-based document building that I was aware of. In comparison to 07, I would rather use Google, as it is just simpler. I got the Office Suite a month ago and have continued to use Google instead……
Ah, my presentation. Thanks to all for listening, I was more comfortable up there than I thought I would be. Not completely at ease, but not as nervous as I had predicted. (Thanks for humoring my monkey too, she has a hard time sitting still for long periods of time, aka 5 minutes…) I thought it went well. I was enthusiastic about sharing the information I had uncovered about things to do this Fall and I thought that this showed in my presentation. I also thought that the information presented was pertinent to the topic and was presented in a cohesive manner. I also practiced the presentation enough times that I was able to focus on the audience rather than my notes or the screen.My pacing could have been a little better, as I tend to do everything a little faster when I am nervous, especially when it comes to speaking. I also should have read Catherine’s notes on the presentation before presenting. When I did look at them, it was a little too late and I had made a few mistakes, such as complete sentences and font under 36 inches. All in all, I felt good about it and thought it went pretty well. Thanks again for being an encouraging audience, and I am sorry I missed everyone else.
