Category: General

Posted on

I got to thinking about the whole Video Interview Thing…

Something about the “One-Way” interview has been bugging me. I tried to sort it out in the blog post here. I failed to clearly analyze what it was that concerned me.

I was denying my suspicious nature. A couple of good night’s sleep later and my concern clarified when I started down this path.

Have I become too suspicious? It that suspicion justified? Have there been simply too many bullshit recruiters and promises?

As I was thinking about it, I found myself asking this question.

“Why the one way video interview?”

The hiring manager still has to make time to review the video. Then they have to arrange to call the candidate back for another interview. This whole one way video interview paradigm saves no-one any time.

Why not just Zoom meeting or FaceTime, or whatever in the first place? Why add a layer of complexity?

Then it hit me.

The one way interview does allow for isolation, racism, and sexism.

The candidates are speaking blind to a dispassionate recording system. But the managers can review the video and easily allow racial, gender, or age bias to guide their candidate selection for second interviews. Since the hiring manager reviewing the videos doesn’t have to actually connect with the candidate, they can forget them without guilt.

It’s all done in the privacy of their office with no oversight or questioning of their choices or motives. It’s unlikely that anyone will take the time to review the reject pile.

If the manager said candidate X, Y, or Z isn’t appropriate, who’s going to go look at a video? Who will have the time to notice that the hiring manager is only interviewing candidates of a particular color or gender…

I’ll grant you, this can happen in any interview situation. But since most interviews are done with a minimum of an HR representative and the Hiring Manager present there is some oversight.

The old, “sort through resumes,” pick out those that have the skills you need and call those people for an interview tended to prevent racial stuff because you couldn’t justify hiring a less qualified candidate over someone more qualified, if you were hiring only on the merits of experience.

Looking at a resume you only had the name of the individual. I’ll grant that in more recent years, it became possible for racist bias to rear its ugly head because of the names some parents gave their children. “John or Julie Green” was pretty generic. (I’ve worked with two John Greens. One was white, the other black. Both were great guys and excellent programmers.)

With “Jose or Julia Verde” you could infer that they were of Spanish/Latin origin, but from where was the question. Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador? You might be able to narrow things down if they’d attended college or trade school in another country. If all their education was in country, you’d be fairly certain that they were at least first generation, so communication wouldn’t be an issue.

When you get to “DeKanye and Shaquanda Green” well, the parents of these children set their kids up to be victims of racism. It’s not right, but it is sadly true.

This name thing also works the other way. My surname screams white, and possibly NAZI to boot. So in this period of time I’m as susceptible to racial bias as poor Shaquanda. The only way we truly escape bias is if everyone changed our names to numbers. Perhaps our phone number or our social security number would eliminate all name based bias.

But we’d still have the physicality bias to contend with. The only way to eliminate that is to have everyone work from home and no video conferencing at all.

Which brings me back to the things that had been bugging me about the whole “One-Way” interview process.

1 It doesn’t save anyone time.

2 The candidate has little or no control over how the interview is used.

3 The “One-Way” interview can promote racism or sexism with no oversight.

4 This interview format imposes technological barriers such as compatibility and internet speed.

5 Technological barriers may indicate the economic level of the candidate, and be used in an exclusionary way or result in lower offered wages for the same work.

Now that I’ve worked through it I can tell my brain to work on something else. I hate it when my brain is chewing on something but can’t figure out what caught my attention.

If you’re looking for a job, consider the “One-Way” interview carefully. It may not be as much of an advantage as it’s purported to be.

I’d welcome an interactive video conference interview. That would in fact save everyone a lot of time and prevent un-necessary driving around.

Now I’m off to figure out why something Apple related isn’t working after their latest software update. I think it’s a bug but need to check out my settings before contacting Apple.

Talk about a company that needs good old fashioned manual testing and human eyes looking at their products…

Oh well, that’s never going to happen!

Have a good day.

Posted on

I’m not sure this is a good idea.

I just got an invitation from some of The Other half’s circle of old friends, to attend a beginning of summer event.

Generally speaking members of the group are okay people. There’s one however who drinks too damn much and then becomes an asshole.

NO, It’s not me… I’m an asshole ALL the time! I don’t need booze to become one.

On the one hand I’d like to see some of these guys and I’m sure they have questions about the Other Half’s passing. They deserve answers and I suppose it’s out of a sense of duty to the Other Half that I’m considering going to the event.

I’ll admit to an ulterior motive in going because the asshole likes to pick on people he considers to be “less than”. This particular person is an academic elitist with an Art degree of some sort and considered people like me “less than,” in spades.

I’m not an academic, and I was actually involved in the production of goods and services. He’s always liked getting under my skin, it was somehow amusing or entertaining for this guy to sour every single party we attended. I was always restrained so that I didn’t embarrass the Other Half.

But now the Other Half isn’t around, and he wouldn’t be embarrassed if I just said exactly what I thought.

You see, even after I stopped going to the events hosted by the Other Half’s friends, the drunk elitist simply turned his venom on my Other Half. Within a year or two my Other Half stopped accepting invitations to their parties as well. I don’t think my Other Half had seen this group of old friends for at least 4 perhaps 5 years.

It might be cathartic, hell it might just be dang fun to inflict pain on someone that offended me and my other half on so many occasions. I can’t decide if ignoring this particular bloviating asshole or confronting him directly and brutally would be the best path. I think I’ll have to make that decision on the fly if I decide to go to this event in the first place.

It will probably be the last time I see any of these people and as such… Well I might as well go out with a bang!

I would like to spend time with the hosts and at least one if not two of the other guys. If it becomes too much I can leave. Since I’ll be alone I won’t have to worry about forcing the Other Half to cut the evening short.

Posted on

I hate these sort of things.

I’ve started applying for jobs again. I feel like I’m banging my heard against the wall but like the lottery, you’ll never win unless you play.

So I’m looking for jobs and applying only for positions that I’m qualified. I strongly suspect if everyone did that and the hiring / recruiting / HR departments actually read the resume and application materials then the whole process would be easier.

I too have considered writing a bit of automation that simply applied for every job on every job board that was remotely similar to my actual career.

After all that’s what the people at Indotronics do when they solicit my application. Hey Indotronics people, I’m a software tester, not a welder!

Not that it matters to them. I’m absolutely convinced many so called recruiter organizations are just scam operations. I’ve been convinced of that for literally two decades.

Anyhow, I sent an application to a company on Thursday. They responded asking me to do a one way video interview. Basically they want me to log onto some service, then do a monologue for their amusement about why I should be permitted to work for them.

I’m sure I’m being too cynical, but this feels like the whole “Who’s the most popular?” “Who’s going to be class president or Prom King?”

We all know the people who typically received the nominations for these positions weren’t actually the best and brightest, typically they weren’t even the kindest.

They were the prettiest, the only other requirement was that they have the capacity to fog a mirror. In the case of the Prom Queen it was often about being pretty and easy Although I think easy was the top requirement, pretty was secondary.

Then again the Prom King who was usually the top school jock, and often top bully, would make do with doggy style if the Prom Queen wasn’t to his taste.

“Uh, Carl… Just so you know I was there a month before you were, and also about a 1/2 hour before you on prom night. Yeah dude, she wasn’t wet because you were exciting. She said you were dumb as a post, a terrible lay, and had a little dick. (I know that last bit is true, I saw you in the gym showers.) Oh, BTW You’re welcome! I always did shoot big! ”

Probably TMI… I digress.

This company says they want to get to know me… Then why not call me or set up a video link with the hiring manager? The company says, the hiring manager will see my monologue, well if the hiring manager is making time to watch videos, then why not just cut to the chase?

They’ve also asked repeatedly about the salary level being acceptable. Uh I wouldn’t have applied it the salary wasn’t acceptable. In fact, the salary would be great especially if I don’t have to drive anywhere.

I find myself wondering if this is some new scam. Or if this is yet another immature harebrained substitute for actual physical contact.

On the other hand, the position is a remote position and that presumes that there might be some video conferencing, perhaps they’re wanting to get an idea of my set up and if video conferencing would be viable.

I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to do this. I have decided that if I do, I’ll be using a VPN.

I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons of this whole video thing while not exposing myself to another bullshit circle jerk where there’s no money shot.

I guess I’ll do some more digging around about the company and also about this video interview hosting site.

It really does feel a lot like some video dating site, and somehow slimy to boot. I just can’t put my finger on why it feels that way.

 I decided to give it a whirl then discovered I had used this service once previously in 2019, for a single interview. 

At the time I found that the service was incompatible with the Safari browser running on a Mac. This incompatibility is still extant today, four full Mac OS iterations further down the road.

I believe that I also tried using a VMWare Windows installation but in that case the service wanted to use Chrome, (a security nightmare,) but easily loaded in a disposable windows partition. However Chrome wouldn’t connect to either the internal or an external camera and to the service’s, servers. Since I wasn’t being paid to investigate the defect(s) I went to plan “C”.

Back in 2019 I loaded their IOS application on my iPad, completed the interview, then found that my iPad operating system was compromised by their client.

At the time it appeared their client also caused significant data loss upon its removal. A factory reset and restore of IOS was required to restore my iPad to full functionality.

I didn’t wish to repeat the experience, especially not for one video interview every 4 years.

I am troubled that the video interview from 2019 was still stored on the service and that apparently there is no way for me as a candidate to delete my account directly.

I have deleted the video but I’d like to delete the account too. If I were a citizen of the EU there does appear to be a process in place that requires multiple email exchanges between the candidate and the service’s support team. 

Again, overly complicated.

I just cancelled the interview…

I offered the following observation;

It seems that we’re adding layers of technology that complicate communications, rather than using technology to overcome communication hurdles. 

Then thanked the recruiting coordinator for the opportunity.

Posted on

It’s the wadded up sinuses, time of year

Everything is in bloom, including some native plants here that I haven’t seen in a while due to the drought.

This means during the day I’m pretty much okay. I can breathe with only a few sneezing events.

At night I get to sleep okay, then an insidious thing happens. One half my sinuses clog, then I roll over and the other half clogs, and by 2am I’m a full on mouth breather.

I know this because I wake up with my mouth dry as Death Valley and thirsty as a man in the Sahara.

Apparently my snoring disturbs the dog. He’s part of the reason that I wake up. He’ll hit me with a paw, or try to see where in my throat the snoring sounds are coming from. It’s disconcerting to have a dog who thinks he’s an Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor.

He’s also the kettle calling the pot black. He snores, barks, and farts his way through the night. Sometimes he howls like a wolf in the dead of night and he’s completely asleep dreaming.

Did you know that there’s still a hard wired response in the human brain to wake up fully alert in fight or flight mode when we hear that sound close by?

I didn’t until I found myself waking up in a standing position on the bed, with a baseball bat in hand, and my back against the wall.

I see the dog looking at me in the darkness as though I was the insane one. My instinctive flurry of activity disturbed his slumber.

Since that night, I’ve heard him howl several times. He’ll be laying on his side twitching as though he’s dreaming then he’ll arch his back and howl. Usually by the time he gets to that point I’m by his side calling his name, gently stroking his ear or side. He’ll come to, look around very confused then snuggle against me. I’ll wait until he’s asleep again and then lie back down.

I don’t know what he’s dreaming about. I gather that he’s scared and lost in his dream based on the howl.

This is a new thing. It started happening over the last few months. Perhaps in response to the death of the other half.

We, the dog and I, just returned from a walk.

There’s a remote possibility that we’ll get some rain today. It’s cloudy right now but I think it’s all a big tease. If we were to get some rain It might clear the various pollens from the air but I’d bet that a day after the rain it’ll be worse. The added water will hit just when the little plants can use the boost to go full flower adding their unique pollen to the mix already blowing around.

At which point, I’ll be sleeping in a gas mask…

This time of heavy flower / weed pollen only lasts a few weeks. I don’t have a lot of trouble during this part of the year. I have trouble when the pine tree pollen blows around so thick it’s a yellow mist. Everything is covered in yellow dust and my sinuses feel like they’re filled with concrete. That time of year is yet to come. I think it’s going to be a doozy this year, I could be wrong, but with all the water in the ground, I’m betting the pines will be making up for the drought years.

For any of you humans who may be semen-phobic… I remind you that’s essentially what pollen is, so you’re already covered in, and breathing semen.

I’m sure some folks have just decided to live the rest of their lives in a hazmat suit.

Just to make you phobic folks truly miserable, remember why W.C. Fields didn’t drink water…

“Fish fuck in it.”

So there goes your option to run into the bathrooms and bathe.

Ahh, My work here is done!

Have a great day.

Posted on

That was surprisingly easy and nice.

It turns out that I don’t have to pony up a complete payment for the car.

That’s a mercy! The young lady asked first if I was wanting to refinance it, and I smiled back at her, “With these insane rates?”

She thought about it for a minute then looked at the current rate. “OH!” She said, “Let’s see if there are any other options.”

I patiently waited. After several phone calls, she said, “Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gong to merge your account into the joint account and then that account will be yours alone. The car loan will then remain there and your automatic payments will continue as normal.”

WOW! Talk about super nice! I’ve gotta say that this particular credit union has been fantastic for the 30 – odd years that we dealt with them. After the fire, when literally everything including our IDs had been burned. It was this credit union that handed us debit cards, and gave us access to our cash because they had photos of us, scans of our signatures, and the smarts to identify us without our drivers license. The same cannot be said of two major banks we were dealing with!

It was amazing.

And once again, they’ve come through making the life of one of their customers easier instead of insanely over complicated.

This is a relief. Now I’ll move forward with putting new tires on the car and have the service done. (Why bother to do any of that if there was any question about me keeping the car?)

Then there’s this. I was out and about with my new iPad and was having a problem getting data on the cellular link. I tried a bunch of things, nothing helped.

“OH NO, I have to call Apple.” Surprisingly I got someone who knew her stuff, she was in Canada and was very pleasant to talk with. We walked through everything and on the Apple side everything should have been working.

She was very sorry but had to direct me to my carrier. It was okay.

Elapsed time on the phone 10 minutes including hold time… Nice!

On the the cellular carrier. Again, got right through to a lovely lady in Idaho. We stepped through normal stuff and then she called someone with a bit more experience. A gentlemen came on the line and said, “I’m going to reset some things on our end, would you please reset your network settings on your iPad? “

I said, “Sure,” and set about that process.

Boom everything started working properly. Elapsed time including hold time about 10 minutes.

So 20 minutes grand total and the iPad is working exactly as it’s supposed to.

Today the power will be off for about 6 hours. Oh goody!