Possumblog

Interviewing

I’ve been on the other side of these before, and it’s never pleasant. If you know ahead of time who your competition is, you might be able to do a bit of homework and find out where they’re weak, but most of the time, you just take your best shot. If you’re on a short list with two other folks, you know that with all things being equal, you only have a 1:3 chance of getting picked, so you try to come up with some way to make yourself stand out.

From an owner’s point of view, it’s nice to have people vying to work for you--until you realize they want to be paid for that privilege. I’ve never been on this side before, but I did want it to be as up-front and rational as possible for our invitees. And it seemed to have been appreciated--everyone was complimentary of our efforts to get information together ahead of time, and poll the congregation, and come up with a program. Pays to do your homework, I suppose.

We did have one firm drop out from the short list, so our interviews got started a bit later than originally intended. My Friend John showed up WAY early and started setting his stuff up and chatting with folks, and at the appointed hour of 2:10 p.m., we got underway. For the next two hours and 40 minutes, we listened to and questioned three firms, and then after the last group left, we already had a consensus for whom to hire. I had started out telling our committee members to think about what they’d heard and read, if they wanted to, to go and see some of the projects of the various folks, and I told them I wasn’t about to vote on anyone. I figured they’d be better served by making up their own minds about people, although I did give my opinion.

But, as I said, after it was over, the choice was clear, and that’s about as good an outcome of a committee decision as could ever be hoped for. No rancor, no disagreements, just a desire to move forward to the next step. I don’t want to take credit for the smoothness of the process, but I will say that having some experience and understanding of the problems that can crop up makes it a LOT easier to avoid them, if you want to. I’ve had to deal with contentious committees before, with folks who have their own agendas separate from those of the group, and it’s never a good working environment.

Anyway, we had an impromptu discussion session as a group for ANOTHER hour, then after that broke up, ANOTHER hour of general gossip and foolishness. Home, with a stop for gas (22 mpg) and a wash (oooo--SHINY! Kinda) and then to the house, where the children had already gotten bath’d and hair-washed after staying outside for THREE HOURS! Jonathan was burnt to a crisp--his little back and shoulders looked like a lobster’s. We slathered him down with Ocean Potion, which has always worked well for us to prevent sunburns from blistering and peeling. The rest of them managed to not get so overdone--Cat was probably the next worst, but she just turned brown instead of red.

But, the bestest thing was that they FINALLY got to play in that stinkin’ pool. They had a good time, and that’s hard to beat when you’re a kid. After all the excitement died down, I took the thin plastic cover outside to cover it up, and was amazed to see that the middle of the dumbbell shape had squished outward, with its gunwales just about to be swamped by the water. Apparently, the children spend a lot of time pressing the sides down, in direct contravention of my instructions to them. ::sigh:: Oh well. I got the pump back out and blew some more air into the chambers to try to get it to plump up a bit and hold all that water, then got Reba to help me stretch the cover around the lip.

Goodnight, blow-up pool!

More laundry, some supper, some television, and then to bed.

And then, SUNDAY!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at July 25, 2005 12:18 PM