Showing results for Non-Computer - The Old New Thing

Last time, we saw the consequences of failing to recognize that lunch is not a competition. Today we'll see an even more unfortunate result. One candidate went to lunch with my colleague the economist. (Claim to fame: "Jenna von Oÿ is my cousin!") They went to a local Thai restaurant, Thai being a very popular cuisine here in the Seattle a...

One thing that many interview candidates fail to comprehend is that lunch is not a competition. You're not auditioning for Fear Factor. No matter how many times we explain this, candidates don't believe it. One of my colleagues took a candidate to lunch. As is typical, the candidate is asked whether there was any particular preference or phobia,...

It's not a big thing, but it shows that you have your act together and does a lot towards distinguishing you from everybody else. A story of the importance of writing a cover letter and remembering the name of your interviewer. (Then again, what do I know. JobsBlog probably is a better source for this type of info. Earlier this year, Angela McL...

During the NBC coverage of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, the announcers more than once said that the teams will not be entering in the normal order, but rather in a random order based on the number of strokes in the team's name as translated into Chinese. This is an odd use of the word random. You might say that at the Athens Olym...

A little while back, I invited readers to describe what students are taught (or end up believing) are the greatest contributions of their country. Many people strayed from the "what students are taught" part of the exercise, but I didn't mind too much as long as you were funny. Here are some of my favorites: Representing Greece is Pi, who wr...

Okay, so first there was the story about the planned DHS television series. And then there was the follow-up reporting that the whole thing was an investment scam and there was no such show after all. Following through on the story, it looks like the ringleader behind the scam has been sentenced to one year in prison and an accomplice to five ye...

I'm particularly fascinated by Microspeak terms which nobody actually knows the meaning of. You can defend jargon by saying that it's a shorthand way of talking in order to improve communication, but if nobody actually knows what it means, the in order to improve communication part is completely turned on its head. The Microspeak that allegedly all...

I was in San Francisco this weekend for a wedding. The flower girl was the bride's two-year-old niece, and when you add a two-year-old to the wedding party, you never know what's going to happen, because two-year-olds don't understand the world the same way adults do. During the unity candle ceremony, the two-year-old pushed her way to the tabl...

Last year, a friend of mine who lives out of state—let's call her Lisa—wanted to pay her family in Seattle a surprise visit, and I was enlisted as an accomplice. (Specifically, my rôle was to pick her up from the airport and take her home.) Everything was going smoothly until she made the mistake of telling one of another out-of-s...

My flight out of Seattle on Wednesday was delayed for about an hour. The explanation: Fog in San Francisco. Whoa, fog in San Francisco. Must've taken them by surprise!