What I Hate About Interviewing

I actually don’t mind interviewing that much. It’s kind of fun. But there are a few things that drive me nuts about it. One of them happened to me today.

You know how sometimes, when you’re in the middle of a conversation, your brain will suddenly sort of…fart? And blow every intelligent thought you ever had right out and leave you sitting there wondering what’s going on?

Oh yes. {raises hand} Happened to me today.

So. We’re sitting there, and first off they asked me what tools I used to write SQL.

And my brain went: fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffwap!

It left me with nothing. I’m sitting there like a moron.

OK, here’s what they meant by ‘what tools I used to write SQL’, choose any of these: Query Analyzer, SQL Navigator, PL/SQL, Notepad, the query grid in Access, the smart guy across the hall.

But my brain got stuck on something like this: “Whaddya mean, what ‘tools’ do I use? It’s SQL, stupid, you know, SELECT-FROM-WHERE-HAVING-GROUP BY, you don’t need a tool to do that!!”

**sigh**

Eventually, after a shockingly long period of flailing and much help from the interviewers, it occurred to me what they were actually asking and I began attempting to maneuver my brain in that direction.

But wait! It gets worse! Because the fart had so utterly emptied my brain of sense that I couldn’t think of the two words Query Analyzer.

So what came out of my lips? What stunningly brilliant thing did I say, describing the tools I used to mess around with invaluable data?

“Oh, I can totally see it…it’s the one with the colors, where the ‘SELECT’ turns blue and if you’ve got a stupid semicolon in the wrong place it turns red…”

**groan**

Oh yeah. Sheer brilliance. Quick, get this kid a corner office, she’s golden. Knows all her colors, she’s like a total graduate student from Sesame Street University. Now, can we count to twenty as well, or are we still working on that…?