Octopus Overlords

Have a face-to-face interview later today for a customer support position, with supposedly free training later in the month (in a week?)

And a Zoom interview next week for a "boutique" lawfirm's tech support position. Probably more my speed.

Why is "boutique" in quotes? Boutique law firms are definitely a thing, especially in the industry I work in.

pr0ner wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:12 pm Why is "boutique" in quotes? Boutique law firms are definitely a thing, especially in the industry I work in.

Not being in the law field, I find the term rather... cute-sy.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:45 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:12 pm Why is "boutique" in quotes? Boutique law firms are definitely a thing, especially in the industry I work in.

Not being in the law field, I find the term rather... cute-sy.

It usually means a small private practice that specializes in a niche area of law. Like kitchen cabinet liability or Great Lakes maritime law.

We use it extensively in consulting. In fact, I just sold us to a client as a 'boutique' consulting firm. Mostly because the job isn't something that aligns with our usual core mission but is something we can do extremely well. In other words in consulting sometimes it is used in typical consultant bullshit-y fashion to talk about something unnecessarily bespoke.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 4:45 pm

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:45 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:12 pm Why is "boutique" in quotes? Boutique law firms are definitely a thing, especially in the industry I work in.

Not being in the law field, I find the term rather... cute-sy.

It usually means a small private practice that specializes in a niche area of law. Like kitchen cabinet liability or Great Lakes maritime law.

Those cabinet chasers are the worst.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:45 pm

pr0ner wrote: ↑Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:12 pm Why is "boutique" in quotes? Boutique law firms are definitely a thing, especially in the industry I work in.

Not being in the law field, I find the term rather... cute-sy.

I would make sure the firm you're interviewing with doesn't learn of that opinion.

Of course not. Unless they're reading this board, which I doubt.

Did my ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) and Radiation Source Handling training today. I got my dosimeter badge and have to wear it when I go into the radiation lab. I am now closer to unlocking the secrets of gamma radiation and its effects on the Hulk.

But seriously now I get to help calibrate the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer instruments for one of the missions I'm on.

My interview plan shifted a bit, and I ended up doing a panel interview today, along with a demo/roleplay of their VR training system. The system is used for sales training, so they put me in the virtual environment and had me do a mock sales call. It was actually pretty cool, once you got past the fact you're talking to a digital avatar.

I apparently knocked both the panel interview and the sales simulation out of the park. Got an e-mail from the VP of sales about 20 minutes later, and he wants to meet week after next to "start talking specifics".

I'm still very much on the fence. On the one hand, the tech is very cool and they're the only ones in the market right now. It is very much a wide open field of opportunity. On the other hand, they haven't laid any of the contracting or compliance groundwork for doing business with the government (i.e. GSA schedule, SAM registration, Fedramp/DISA compliance, etc.), and have mostly hand-waved that away each time I've brought it up. I'm not sure that their very aggressive 2-year sales targets are feasible without those things in place. I don't want to be the guy who crashes and burns because they're not willing to have some patience to get the correct procurement systems in place from the start.

This will be the main negotiating point when I meet with the VP. If he's willing to have some goal flexibility for the first 12-18 months while we get things set up, I think I could jump on board. If not, it'll likely be a pass...unless they back a truck full of cash up to my house.

APL shipped me a new Dell 32” 4K monitor to replace the 3 yr old one I had before. I would have kept it longer but it started getting really annoying when it showed 3 vertical lines on the screen near the middle.


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Just had my initial interview with the boutique lawfirm. Seems I did okay, and will advance to the next round, do another interview with one of the partners, then probably a group interview after that.

Previous interview leads to a call center job with paid training, but not in my field. EDIT: Never mind. Apparently they gave me an interview and decided I don't have the experience they wanted. Now it's up to the lawfirm.

After a Herculean push this weekend I got caught up on NVIDIA again. Monday only brought nine new sessions to edit. I dared hope that it's down to a simmer. Then this morning I got an email asking me for an emergency edit of some stuff that's not in my bucket because it was supposed to be foreign-language, but came in in English instead. They sent me a spreadsheet with nine records from Taiwan and Korea, which I turned around promptly even though I needed to work for my other clients, and even though entries written by non-English speakers take longer to edit. They thanked me and said that the second tab was now ready for me.

Second tab? Oh, look! 39 more gorram sessions. From India. Crap.

Meanwhile, I've done a little over 300 nurse recommendation letters out of an anticipated 500. We've already passed that and I now anticipate hitting 600-700 before Friday's deadline.

I signed up as a writer on Upwork yesterday. I don't think it's going to amount to much, but I might have to stimulus myself a new laptop if a replacement power brick doesn't bring my 8-year old Asus back to life. I would just need one writing/editing project to write off the cost of the laptop on my taxes next year.

You broke everything. I just heard the TV in the background talk about the need for upskilling the workforce, especially for aging members of the workforce.

I demand nothing less than to be diagonally skilled!

The final (I hope) tally of nurse recommendation letters is 852 (of an expected 500). After putting in 8 hours today, I got to line 438. So I'm just barely over halfway done...and it took me nearly 40 hours over three weeks to get there. Pretty sure I don't have three more weeks to finish the rest, and I can't give them 40 more hours in the remaining week because I have other clients. I need to have a conversation with my "boss." She freaked out when it passed 600.

I'd be ahead of schedule if we'd gotten the anticipated 500.

Well, I had an interview with the CEO interview on Friday...which was a spectacular failure. The guy was, to put it nicely, a complete jerk. He straight-up called me a liar in the interview. We were talking about about some of the projects I've worked on that required training a huge population of federal employees with a short turn-around time, and I asked him if/how they would be able scale their training services to do that. His exact quote was "I don't believe for a second that you've actually done that. You can't bullshit a bullshitter." I was stunned...honestly had no response to that. That, combined with a number of other rude or dismissive comments during the discussion, left me with the takeaway that there was no way in hell I'd ever want to work for that guy.

They have no interest in actually setting up the internal systems and processes that would allow them to do federal government procurement, yet they're still expecting someone to jump in and immediately generate millions in revenue in the first two years. It might be possible, I guess, but it would be a huge risk and is one that I'm not particularly interested in taking at this point in my career.

I'm bummed, as it had sounded like a very cool opportunity up until that point. Glad I found out now though, rather than after I took the job. Back to the regular grind, I suppose.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 11:53 am Well, I had an interview with the CEO interview on Friday...which was a spectacular failure. The guy was, to put it nicely, a complete jerk. He straight-up called me a liar in the interview. We were talking about about some of the projects I've worked on that required training a huge population of federal employees with a short turn-around time, and I asked him if/how they would be able scale their training services to do that. His exact quote was "I don't believe for a second that you've actually done that. You can't bullshit a bullshitter." I was stunned...honestly had no response to that.

Wow, sorry to hear that. Did the interview go any further than this comment? Seems like it's pretty much over at that point. No comment like "Well at least I know I won't have to worry about you competing with me in the future"?

How about:

"You can't hire me, matey!" And hand him the pirate resignation letter.

That sucks. Some of those Guys-At-The-Top think making an interviewee uncomfortable is the best way to gauge their abilities, and it sucks. Best to find out that's the tactic this company rewards and take your skills someplace else.

Sounds like they have unrealistic expectations about federal contacts and don’t like the idea they’d have to change plans to get the job done. So therefore you’re full of bullshit, not him. Disaster avoided, IMO.

Skinypupy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 11:53 amWell, I had an interview with the CEO interview on Friday...which was a spectacular failure. The guy was, to put it nicely, a complete jerk. He straight-up called me a liar in the interview. We were talking about about some of the projects I've worked on that required training a huge population of federal employees with a short turn-around time, and I asked him if/how they would be able scale their training services to do that. His exact quote was "I don't believe for a second that you've actually done that. You can't bullshit a bullshitter."

"Hey, I'm sorry the people you've had working for you up to this point have set your expectations so low that you can't believe it's possible to succeed. I can see this isn't a great match. Good luck with your search."

I've got a Zoom meeting with 4 managers in a business I've applied to work at. None of their titles indicate any kind of technical expertise, so I'm guessing this is a personality check. The company proclaims to be relaxed and fun, but I still plan on wearing a tie for my meeting.

If I'm offered this job, it will begin the process of moving my family to Vermont. Better schools for the kids, no one in the area seems to be flying flags I'd associate with hate groups, and short access to a national park. We've already put an offer out on a property and had it accepted. It would just be a matter of building a house there while I lived in an apartment. The wife can't move without space set up for her kennel.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:01 pm Wow, sorry to hear that. Did the interview go any further than this comment? Seems like it's pretty much over at that point. No comment like "Well at least I know I won't have to worry about you competing with me in the future"?

We had another 5 minutes of rather uncomfortable Q&A, then he made an excuse to bail with 10 minutes remaining in our interview time...which was for the best.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:12 pm Sounds like they have unrealistic expectations about federal contacts and don’t like the idea they’d have to change plans to get the job done. So therefore you’re full of bullshit, not him. Disaster avoided, IMO.

They had actually managed to win two decent sized government contracts without going through the standard government purchasing processes (i.e. having a GSA contract, going through the RFQ process, etc.). One of those deals was with someone who basically brought their company with them when they moved from private sector to government, and was able to find the contracting loopholes that allowed them to do the deal without it. The other one sounded like a "unicorn" that they ended up randomly winning. In his mind, those two successes mean that all the usual contracting requirements don't really matter.

The other doozy was when he told me "One of my reps has a deal pending right now with [large federal agency], and we didn't do any of the contracting stuff you're talking about. So is my rep lying to me about that deal, or are you lying to me about how much of this is actually necessary?" I tried to explain that it's possible to get deals done, but they're the exception rather than the norm. He didn't want to hear that.

Good luck building a sustainable government sales territory that way, my dude.

My job at work has shifted to do a lot of federal contracting stuff, and as such I've been reading up on the False Claims Act. I'm guessing you're dodging a bullet on that front with this company.

Paingod wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:22 pm If I'm offered this job, it will begin the process of moving my family to Vermont. Better schools for the kids, no one in the area seems to be flying flags I'd associate with hate groups, and short access to a national park. We've already put an offer out on a property and had it accepted. It would just be a matter of building a house there while I lived in an apartment. The wife can't move without space set up for her kennel.

If not too personal, whereabouts (roughly)? I grew up in Essex Center and spent a number of years in Essex Junction and Burlington.

The Meal wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:08 pm That sucks. Some of those Guys-At-The-Top think making an interviewee uncomfortable is the best way to gauge their abilities, and it sucks. Best to find out that's the tactic this company rewards and take your skills someplace else.

Yup, good reminder than an interview is a two-way process. You're there to figure out if you want the job as much as they are figuring out if they want you. I'd consider it a bullet dodged.

When I interviewed as a game tester at Impressions/Sierra, the process went swimmingly and they took me to meet the founder, who I thought was going to hire me on the spot. He chatted me up for a few minutes and then asked me if I was a Christian man. When I flushed and stammered he quickly continued "I don't mean you have to be a church-goer, but I don't like crude language or bad morals." It was HIS company and he wanted GOOD people. I said I was not a profane person and would maintain a professional attitude. I was pretty sure he couldn't legally ask me that, and just as sure that I didn't get the job, and when they hired me the next day I wasn't sure I wanted to work there. As it turned out, the QA department was filled with guys who swore like sailors, and that interview question was "just David being David."

The last interview I had was with the CFO of the company and when he "God blessed" me a third time I decided I was not interested in working for him. Anybody who has to be that God-fearing in an interview with a stranger is most likely hiding some foul attitudes and behaviors.

There was that and then also the Team Lead fell asleep during the interview. Not joking, she nodded right off in the middle.

They offered me a second interview and I declined.

I should probably start going on job interviews just for fun. Maybe after I'm fully vaccinated that'll be my new project. I'd like to have more funny interview stories and not depressing ones.

I've luckily never had really bad interviews. Maybe one or two but I've conducted a lot of interviews in my career. Hundreds. Maybe more than a thousand. I have no idea. There are ones I specifically remember that stick out.

I was doing one years ago where I could tell the guy had some sort of bad falling out with the previous employer throughout the interview. Eventually I short cut to a typical interview question 'why are you on the job market?' He replied his lawyer has advised him not to answer that question.

Another for that same job. It was an end user computing position. This guy had a very thick Russian accent. When I tell this story in person I usually adopt that accent for his bits. I asked him if he ever managed Microsoft licenses. He told us a story about how back in Russia they had (paraphrasing) one copy of Microsoft Windows for all of Russia so no one cared about licenses. I took that as a 'not qualified' but the interview continued.

I had a scenario question along the lines of the President of the college's hard drive has crashed, he is about to give an important address and needs help retrieving his speech. What do you do? The intent is to see how they approach the problem. He talked about how he had an engineering background so he'd take the drive out of the computer and said tweaking the voltage often worked. <Heavy Russian accent> "You tweak the voltage. Maybe up. Maybe down. Many hard drives fail back in Russia but usually you can tweak the voltage and you get the speech back". Ok man.

Damn, that's some next level fixin'! Wish we'd have thought of that when I worked at Maxtor, Western Digital, Cornice, etc...

The Meal wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:01 pm Damn, that's some next level fixin'! Wish we'd have thought of that when I worked at Maxtor, Western Digital, Cornice, etc...

I'm sure that rattling, grinding noise is just a sign of an incorrect voltage.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:31 pm

The Meal wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 8:01 pm Damn, that's some next level fixin'! Wish we'd have thought of that when I worked at Maxtor, Western Digital, Cornice, etc...

I'm sure that rattling, grinding noise is just a sign of an incorrect voltage.

Rattling is voltage. Grinding is amperage.

...and squealing is the pigage

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:20 pm There was that and then also the Team Lead fell asleep during the interview. Not joking, she nodded right off in the middle.

I almost fell asleep when interviewing for my current job. In my case, it was because my flight was so delayed the night before that I didn't get any sleep and so had been awake for ~36 hours straight during the interview. I can only assume that their other candidates actually did fall asleep during their interviews...

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: ↑Tue Mar 23, 2021 8:49 am

Z-Corn wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:20 pm There was that and then also the Team Lead fell asleep during the interview. Not joking, she nodded right off in the middle.

I almost fell asleep when interviewing for my current job. In my case, it was because my flight was so delayed the night before that I didn't get any sleep and so had been awake for ~36 hours straight during the interview. I can only assume that their other candidates actually did fall asleep during their interviews...

I don't entirely remember it happening in the interview but the supervisor who interviewed/hired me told me years after the fact that he thought I was sleepy in the interview and might not totally hack it in the job but he hired me anyway. Almost 19 years later and I'm still going.

TheMix wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:06 pm

Paingod wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 12:22 pm If I'm offered this job, it will begin the process of moving my family to Vermont. Better schools for the kids, no one in the area seems to be flying flags I'd associate with hate groups, and short access to a national park. We've already put an offer out on a property and had it accepted. It would just be a matter of building a house there while I lived in an apartment. The wife can't move without space set up for her kennel.

If not too personal, whereabouts (roughly)? I grew up in Essex Center and spent a number of years in Essex Junction and Burlington.

We should be around the middle of southern Vermont, about 30 minutes west of Brattleboro. My wife is absolutely in love with the area.