Lazy Man and Money

Cheap Entertainment – Becoming an Expert

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This is another article from frequent contributor Kosmo. I love this idea, but I think I will way too busy this year

I have decided that 2022 will be the Year or the Dinosaur.  Rawr!

I’m still a kid

Most kids outgrow their dinosaur phase.  I never did.  I’ve watched all five of the movies in the Jurassic Park franchise and have read countless books about the beasts.  I have three stuffed dinos (T-Rex, Brachiosaurus, and Triceratops) that can be seen in the background of my work conference calls.  I keep on on the major trends in vertebrate paleontology, but have never dedicated large amounts of time to the topic.  This changes now.

Becoming an expert

I have decided to become an expert on the topic.  Not at the level of an actual paleontologist, of course.  With constraints in my life (job, family obligations, etc) I can’t possibly dedicate enough effort to reach paleontologist-level expertise.  I believe that I can achieve the level of a sub-expert – a big step below a true expert, but far above someone who has a casual interest.

I think about a thousand hours of study should get me to that level.  This is definitely a multi-year goal.

Why am I doing this?  Because I find the topic interesting, and because the internet makes it achievable and fairly inexpensive.

Books

I actually have a few dinosaur books on my Kindle, just waiting to be read.  Dinosaurs 101 seems like a good place to start.  As the name suggests, its a general book that hits the high points without going into great detail on any particular topic.  It has been an easy read so far.

T. Rex and the Crater of Doom is a book written by Walter Alvarez.  Alvarez was a member of the team that put forward evidence for the asteroid theory of dinosaur extinction.  For those who aren’t familiar with the theory, the basic idea is that there is a layer of sedimentary rock that is high enriched with iridium.  This layer appears around the world and appears to have been formed at the same time.  Iridium is much more common on asteroids than it is on earth, leading to the theory that the worldwide deposits of iridium in that layer of rock was the result of an asteroid impact.

Hell Creek, Montana: America’s Key to the Prehistoric Past tells the history of a geological formation that covers part of Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.

Podcasts

I will ease into the process with some podcasts.  I’ve been listening to the I know Dino podcast recently.  This podcast alone has 300+ hours of content.  This will serve as the backbone of my dinosaur podcast experience, but I’ll jump into other related podcasts from time to time.

I know Dino features a married couple (Garrett and Sabrina) who are dinosaur nuts.  In the past six weeks, I’ve listened to 25 of the episodes.  I’m learning a lot about bones.  I’ve always had some trouble keeping human bones straight – especially the leg and arm bones.  Constant references to specific dinosaurs bones is also helping me reinforce my knowledge of human bones, since humans and dinosaurs have a lot of bones in common.

I know Dino is technically free, but there are ways to support it.  I haven’t yet become a Patreon supporter, but I’ll definitely be doing that in the future.  Patreon is a good way to reward your favorite content creators with a few bucks in their pocket every month.

The podcast also sells merchandise.  I’ve bought a mug, sweatshirt, and t-shirt.

Movies

In addition to the Jurassic Park movies, there are a fair number of documentaries about dinosaurs.  Evolution of the T-Rex begins with T-Rex’s earliest Tyrannosaur ancestor, who served as mesopredator, while the Allosaurus filled the apex predator niche.  The Tyrannosaurs eventually grew in size and filled the apex niche when the Allosaurs died out.  (Your homework assignment – look up the word mesopredator.)

I’ve just started on the BBC series Walking with the Dinosaurs.  I’ve also purchased the subsequent movie with the same name.

Costs

At this point, I’ve spent about $50 on books and videos and $10 at Michael’s on a nifty T-Rex skull for my desk.  I spent $60 on the I know Dino merchandise, but those are functional items.  I can wear the shirts and sip hot chocolate from the mug.  Hobbies tend to take a bit of spending in the early stages, so I’m sure I’ll spend a bit more money in the coming moments.  Long term, I’d expect to spend around $10-15 per month – picking up the occasional book that catches my attention.  I’ve been spending 5-7 hours per week on dinosaurs, so that comes out to an hourly cost of about fifty cents.

Hobby

Becoming a dinosaur expert is my cheap hobby.  What are your ways of entertaining yourself and your family cheaply?

[Editor’s Note: I’m going to learn the Python programming language this year and build some kind of tiny/trivial app. This shouldn’t be too difficult because I used to be a software engineer. However, very few people used Python back when I was programming. I’m also very rusty – I’ve spent too much time writing about personal finance.

There are numerous YouTube videos about programming in Python and I think I have a Kindle book that I picked up for free. There are often free Kindle books on programming languages. I’m sure the library also has quite a few books on Python. My library automatically renews the book for months on end unless there’s big demand for it. I think there will be plenty of availability of Python books.

I don’t think it will cost me anything to become pretty good at Python. There’s a potential that I could even make some money with it.]

Teaching Your Kid to Drive

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Teach Your Kid To Drive

Recently Kosmo causally mentioned in an article that he was teaching his 14-year-old daughter to drive. In Massachusetts, where I grew up, the age to start is 16 when you can get a learner’s permit. Fourteen seemed very early to me, but my view of Iowa is that it’s all farms where it’s impossible to get into a car accident ;). While that may be a bit of a joke, it isn’t too much of an exaggeration.

On the surface, this article may seem like it doesn’t have much to do personal finance. I’d argue that safe driving for everyone in the family can save you thousands of dollars compared with the alternative. When I learned to drive

The legal driving age, and the various steps to a full license, vary dramatically by state.  In Iowa, you simply need to pass a written test in order to get a permit.  At that point, you can drive with an adult.

Here are the steps my daughter and I have gone through.

The First Step

The first step is a written test on the basic concepts of driving.  In the past, this was a written test given in the DMV office.  This was typically a nightmare.  Not the exam content itself, but the very long lines at the DMV.  You could wait an hour or more before your turn came up.

(OK, I need to tell this one DMV anecdote.  I was there to renew my license several years ago.  The person in front of me had lost his license.  I don’t mean that he’d had it suspended; I mean that he had misplaced the actual physical license.  Apparently this wasn’t the first time.  The DMV person told him that if he kept losing his license, the DMV would need to investigate him.  The guy couldn’t understand why.  The employee spelled it out for him – the concern was that he wasn’t actually losing the license, but was selling it to minors so that they could use it to buy beer.)

In the COVID era, the process has changed.  The exam is now online.  The teen’s proctor (me) requests an exam time and promises to ensure that the kid won’t cheat.  A few days later, we had a time slot.  My daughter signed on and passed the test.  She turned the screen to show me the message… and it promptly disappeared.  We didn’t receive a confirmation, so it wasn’t apparent if the grade got logged.

Now she needed to actually go to the DMV and get her picture taken.  This is by appointment only, due to COVID.  The first available slot was a few weeks out.  I signed her up, even through I wasn’t sure the grade had been logged.

I sent an email to the DMV to let them know about the glitch.  Several days later, I got an answer – her passing score had indeed been logged.

Licensed (Well, Permitted)

The appointment went off without a hitch.  She had a vision test, got her picture taken, and left the DMV with a temporary paper license.  Her permanent one would arrive in the mail in a few days.

She’s a very hesitant driver, so we started things slowly.  We went to her old elementary school and did some laps in the parking lot.  After fifteen minutes of driving at top speed of 10 mph, with nearly constant braking, we were done.

More parking lots

School parking lots are a great place to practice driving on weekends, because they are typically deserted.  During the next few sessions, we alternated between the elementary parking lot and the larger one at the high school.  We still struggled to get above 15 mph, but she was getting more comfortable with the basics.  Driving forward, turning left, turning right, she had mastered all the skills.

Well, maybe not all the skills.  We practicing pulling into parking spots, and pulling out.  Backing out was confusing – which way to turn the wheel?  I let her puzzle it out herself.  Try it, and if it doesn’t work, try it again.  There were no cars anywhere near us, so I wanted to let her use trial and error to figure things out.  We went over a few curbs in the process, but nothing that my chiropractor can’t fix.

Finally, I had her take the plunge – driving on an actual street.  We exited the school parking lot and she drove a few hundred feet and turned onto a dead-end street.  She was nervous, but it was a big step forward.

I see dead people

A friend of mine suggested driving in cemetery parking lots.  They often have winding roads, and if there is any traffic, it’s very slow moving.  We drove to a town about ten miles away and pulled into the cemetery.  We switched seats and she was ready to go.

The great thing about this cemetery is that it had a huge hill.  We hadn’t previously done any hill driving, since school parking lots typically aren’t on a hill.  Her first challenge was to be able to crest the hill.  The timid pressure she’d been using on the accelerator wasn’t going to cut it.  She had to press down hard, or we’d roll down the hill.  We got some decent RPMs out of the engine, and made it to the top of the hill.  She drove around the cemetery, and then had to go down the same hill, braking slightly to keep her speed under control.

City driving

We live in a town of twenty thousand people.  Small by metropolitan standards, but still far busier than what she’d be comfortable with.  I drove from the cemetery to the nearest town – a burg with a population of about 900.  Perfect.

I had her driving into town and then turn into some side streets.  She had to stop for actual stop signs.  Watching for traffic was another new skill.  She was hesitant at first, waiting longer than necessary.  She was also a bit slow when she was making turns that didn’t require a stop.

We meandered around town.  We practiced parking in various lots.  More than once, the navigator (me) inadvertently directed us onto a dead-end street.  On one of those occasions, I had her practice a three point turn, which she executed flawlessly.

Get out on the highway

Next, I had her get on the highway.  She was very hesitant, but eventually got on the road and eventually got her speed up to almost 55 mph (the limit).  She had a tendency to go a bit too far to the right, and she was able to practice this as we drove into the middle of nowhere.  After about ten miles, we turned around and headed back into town.  I told her to drive back to the cemetery on the other side of town.  She’s driving 25 mph as we exit town, since that’s the speed limit.  An impatient driver races past her – in a no passing zone, uphill, and with ongoing traffic.  His stupidity created a nice learning opportunity for my daughter.  She correctly explained all three problems with the pass.

A long way to go

We still have a long way to go.  It will likely take a few more lessons before she’s comfortable driving in our town.  I start in some of the more remote areas and eventually migrate to more congested areas.  At some point, we’ll actually get out on the interstate and practice lane changes and merging.  Finally, we’ll practice some driving at night.

Tools of the Trade

There’s more to driving than just the physical tasks behind the wheel. You have to know about all the things that go along with keeping a car in good running order… in good times and in bad. [Editor’s Note: Kosmo’s got a few links to Amazon coming up. If you buy something, I may make a small commission.]

I’ve had her pump gas once, and walk through the basics of the pay at pump process.  Then I popped the trunk and walked her through the various tools inside.

Although it’s always a good idea to have jumper cables in your trunk, they’re only helpful if there’s another car nearby that can help you.  A starter pack relies on a rechargeable battery and can jump a dead battery in seconds.  I’ve had one in each car for years.  I recently replaced the bulky old ones with a lightweight DB Power units that aren’t much bigger than a VHS tape.  Note that you must charge these on a regular basis, or they’ll be dead when you need it.  We recently had a battery issue with one of the cars.  The battery was only a few years old, but ended up having a bad cell.  I used the starter pack a half dozen times in the span of a couple of days.  I had just bought them a few weeks earlier, and they passed the test with flying colors.

Most cars come with a jack that is… terrible. [Editor’s note: Kosmo used more descriptive and colorful language here.]  Get yourself a hydraulic bottle jack and you’ll thank yourself the next time you get a flat.  Sure, you could wait for roadside assistant, but a friend of mine recently had to wait for six hours.  With a bottle jack, you’ll quickly have the car jacked up.

The lug nut wrenches in most cars are also pretty crappy.  If your lug nuts are on tight, it can be almost impossible to loosen them.  A four way cross wrench can give you far more leverage.  Seriously. it’s like you hit the “easy” button.

It’s never a bad idea to have a set of wrenches in the car.  You may need to loosen battery cables or any of the other various nuts and bolts.  You don’t need mechanic quality, since you’ll have infrequent need of them.  However, it’s a good idea to get a set that has both “standard” (SAE) and metric wrenches.

None of these are particularly expensive.  You can get a decent start pack for under $100, and you and get the other three items are around $60 total.  They also don’t take up much room.

Kosmo’s 2021 Year in Review

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Kosmo’s back with an update over the last year. I’m hoping to have mine for you early next year when I finish with the numbers. Have a great New Year!

I know what you’re thinking. Year in review? Isn’t that just a scam to get paid for writing the same content twice? Of course not.

COVID, COVID, and more COVID

COVID dominated the news cycle in 2020 and still hasn’t released its hold. I come from a large family (eight kids) and basically, all my siblings have had COVID affect their family to some extent. One sister had it about a year ago and is just finally hitting her stride again. Another sister had it recently and now randomly smells smoke when there is none.

My daughter tested positive about a week ago and is a few days away from being able to return to normal. At this point, mild symptoms.

After she tested positive, the rest of us got tested at a drive-through clinic a few minutes from the house. We arrived at our appointment time and were done within minutes. My son, wife, and I also had a subsequent self-test. We dropped it off at the state hygienic lab last night (also just a short drive away). We got the results this morning – still negative. Great testing process in both cases.

New job

I’ve written many articles about my new job, and I won’t rehash all the details. The work has been very interesting. I’m on nine projects a the moment, with business partners that include analytical chemists, CPAs, and vice presidents. It’s rare that I don’t learn something in a meeting. I just got assigned a project this week that has the CEO’s son as the primary stakeholder.

I was in the office a handful of times between January and June before returning on a normal basis. Normal means two days in the office most weeks. I’m not a morning person, so rolling out of bed at 6 AM to drive fifty miles isn’t my idea of a fun time, but I discovered a McDonalds off the interstate that has great bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits and an efficient and friendly staff.

My biggest work failure of the year was an attempt to recruit a former colleague to come to work for my employer. The position interested her, and she would have been a great fit. In the end, she had to withdraw for personal reasons. I understand and respect her decision, but am disappointed that we weren’t able to add an employee of her caliber.

School

My kids spent the 2020-21 school year online. They did very well academically. This year, we decided to send them back. They’ve continued to do well academically, with my daughter improving from a 3.85 GPA in 7th grade to a 4.0 in the first trimester of this year.

My son (6th grade) had a bit of a rougher adjustment back into the social environment of school after a year off but is also excelling academically. He has plenty of brainpower, but I think we may have an uphill battle getting him to actually do all the work instead of just coasting.

Vacation

We took an actual vacation this year, returning to Door County, Wisconsin. After another pleasant stay in the peninsula, we are taking tentative steps toward the possible purchase of a rental/vacation/retirement home. Financially, we’re in a position where we can handle a decent down payment and could even swallow a few years of losses, in a worst-case scenario. Realistically, we should be able to make a bit of money on a property, even though we’d need to hire someone to manage it. We’re not trying to build a real estate empire; we’re just trying to get other people (renters) to pay for our retirement home.

Sports

I’m a proud alumnus of Iowa State University. This year, the Cyclones were coming off a shockingly good 2020 football season in which they won the regular-season conference title outright. They ended this season with a disappointing 7-5 record, with a number of frustratingly close conference losses, plus a loss to the damn Hawkeyes. Star running back Breece Hall had another outstanding season and will forgo a year of eligibility and enter the NFL draft.

The Cyclone basketball team won some games last year. Two, to be exact. After ending the season on an eighteen-game losing streak, the coach got fired. A new coach came in and took advantage of relaxed transfer rules to completely remake the team. They have emerged as a defensive juggernaut and have risen to #8 in the nation at the time I’m writing this. We do have some difficult games looming.

My main sport is baseball. There’s currently a work stoppage due to the collective bargaining agreement expiring. It’s not apparent to non-fans yet, since it’s the off-season. If the stoppage carries over into the season, it will be a dreary spring.

Finances

Our finances are, honestly, pretty boring. I’m 46 years old, and our home mortgage is roughly 25% of our home’s equity. Other than the possible purchase of a rental property, the largest expense looming on the horizon is college for the kids. They are in 8th and 6th grade, and we’ve been funding 529s for them since they were in diapers. Nonetheless, there’s the concern about exactly how much college will cost, and how much of the cost we should have them pay. It’s a more difficult question for us than it was for my parents. (Editor’s Note: see How Much Do I Need To Save For College) For my parents, the obvious answer (and the most fair to my siblings) was that I needed to figure out how to pay for college on my own.

Our retirement accounts are invested in fairly boring date-targeted funds, and we have some additional funds invested in an equally boring index fund. You’d fall asleep going through our finances, but we’re steadily adding to our net worth every year. This is partly due to boring investing and partly due to living well within our means.

2022

I’m looking forward to seeing the end of COVID in 2022. It has been a rough two years for everyone – financially, emotionally, and physically. Omicron is on the rise as we head into Christmas, and the research has been unclear. It’s probably less serious than Delta. Maybe less serious? I’m hoping that we finally emerge from the other side, into a world that is more like 2019 was.

How was your 2021 – and what are you looking forward to in 2022?

COVID Hits the Kosmo Household

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This is an article contributed by frequent writer Kosmo. Though it has less to do with money than a typical article, it’s worth making an exception.

Monday morning (December 13), my 14-year-old daughter had a temperature of 101.6. We had her tested for COVID and influenza A and B, just to be safe.

Monday evening, we got the COVID result back – it was positive.

Oh, crap.

Pandemic precautions

We’ve been very cautious throughout the pandemic. My wife and I worked from home starting in March 2020 and didn’t return to the office until the summer of 2021. We had the kids do online school for the 2020-2021 academic year. They’re back in school this year, but the school has a mask policy, and it is followed without much pushback from parents or students.

We wear masks whenever we’re around strangers (or unvaccinated people), especially when it’s a situation where social distancing isn’t possible.

We limit our trips into retail stores by taking advantage of delivery services and curbside delivery.

We’re all vaccinated. My wife and I have both been boosted, my daughter had her shots earlier this year, and my 11-year-old son has his shots. My daughter’s last shot was six months ago since she’s not yet eligible for a booster. We wonder if her immunity has waned significantly during this time.

The previous weekend

Although we haven’t done a lot of social activities during the pandemic, we’ve done some things lately. This weekend actually had quite a lot of activity.

On Friday night through Saturday morning, my daughter had a sleepover for a friend’s birthday. The four girls wore masks, except when they slept. We were concerned that my daughter was contagious (but asymptomatic) at the time and may have spread it to her friends. At this point, none of the friends have tested positive, to our great relief. We would have felt terrible if they had, even though there was no way we could have known that she was contagious.

On Saturday, we attended a “north pole” event an hour away from our home, as well as a Christmas light display that evening. This included riding a train a short distance. We were totally masked the entire time, except when we were in the car together. That was probably three hours of breathing each other’s air in a confined space.

The next day, I took my daughter for a driving lesson. She’s still quite tentative, but I was able to get her out on the open road (in the middle of nowhere) and she got her speed up to almost 55 mph. We also worked on some hills and town driving. Overall, a pretty productive lesson. Afterward, I drove to Target to grab a pickup order. I spent 90 minutes in the car right next to her, at a time where she was definitely contagious.

Isolation

We’ve had my daughter in isolation since we got the test. She stays in her bedroom and one of the three bedrooms is now exclusively hers.

My daughter has been fairly content during her isolation. She has a TV to watch, her Chromebook to use, and lots of books to read. We have a box that we keep stocked with fluids and non-perishable foods. We deliver food to her room and mealtime and we’re using disposable plates and silverware. She simply throws the detritus into her trash can.

The first several “meals” were hot dogs, but she had a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza (beef) yesterday. She didn’t have much of an appetite for about the first thirty-six hours, but it has returned to normal.

There have also been noticeably fewer arguments between the kids since they aren’t in the same room. [Editor’s Note: During the last month, I’ve been using, “Different rooms, now!” several times a week for my kids. It works.]

Next steps

Monday night, I was relaxing in my recliner when I realized that we might have a Christmas problem. I’m the person who does all the gift wrapping, and, more importantly, I know where everything is hidden. Christmas was twelve days away. If I got COVID and lost strength, we might not have presents wrapped in time for Christmas. After everyone else was in bed, I started wrapping. I had finished wrapping 85% of the gifts by 1:30 AM.

Tuesday morning, we got a call from the doctor’s office. Even though this call went very smoothly, it took about twenty-five minutes. It was the first in a long line of these calls for the nurse who contact us.

The rest of us had to get tested. My wife and son had been tested a couple of times before, due to exposure. This was my first test. Although the nasal test isn’t exactly painful, it’s quite uncomfortable. I was starting to wonder if the experience was ever going to end, but then it was done. It felt weird for a few more minutes and then was OK.

Technically, my employer’s protocol was to return to work if you’re fully vaccinated, even if you have a close contact exposure. My job mostly involves sitting behind a computer all day, so I touched base with my boss to say that I wanted to stay at home, out of an abundance of caution. The risk to my coworkers didn’t seem to be worth the benefit of me being in the office. He agreed.

Storm

That night, there was significant wind even in Iowa – extremely unusual for this time of year. Winds of 70+ mph and quite a few tornados. Anxiety was already high as we awaited the results. Would all three of us have COVID? None of us? If each of us had a mere 20% chance, that meant that there was as a (1-(.8^3)) chance that at least one of us would have it (using the somewhat flawed assumption that the probabilities were independent). That’s a 49% chance.

As we were watching the weather coverage, I got my result – negative.

Around 7:30, we moved to the basement due to a severe thunderstorm warning. Finally, with storms bearing down on us, my wife and son got their results – also negative.

Although my daughter had been in isolation, we had her come down to the basement with us, since the storms posed a threat to her physical safety. We were all masked, and she stayed in a separate area of the large family room.

How did this happen?

The key question we have is how this happened – where she could have caught COVID. The most likely answer is school. She takes a bus to school, is at school for eight hours every day, and then returns home on the bus. Since she’s in junior high, she’s moving to a different classroom for each class. That’s a lot of interaction with a lot of different people. Although there’s a mask policy that is followed very well, masks only reduce the transmission of the droplets that carry the virus, they don’t entirely prevent transmission.

Current state

At this point, my daughter has only had mild symptoms. Her temperature quickly returned to normal, and her primary symptoms have been congestion and tiredness. She has slept in until noon the last few days, but she was awake around ten this morning. She hasn’t had any weird side effects, such as losing the sense of taste or smell.

At this point, we’re hopeful that we’re just “running out the clock” on her isolation. We’ve had other family members who have had COVID. I have a sister who got COVID around Christmas last year and is just returning to normal. Another (fully vaccinated) sister got it recently and now frequently smells smoke.

The rest of us continue to remain symptom-free. We continue to wear masks around her and wipe down surfaces frequently.

Stay safe

In closing, I wish all of you a safe holiday season. There’s yet another variant making its rounds, and it will surely affect some of your families. I hope that anyone affected has only minor symptoms. Here’s a to 2022 that’s far better than 2020 or 2021!

Worst Interview Experiences

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We’ve got another article by Kosmo today. It’s always entertaining to read other people’s horror stories. I included a few of my own at the end. Tomorrow, I hope to post a fresh article covering November’s passive income.

I’ve been pretty optimistic lately, and have focused a lot on the good aspects of my career.  Now it’s time to be negative and look back and some of the worst interview experiences I’ve had over the years.

My fault

One day during my senior year in college, I was awakened by the sound of people in my apartment.

Oh, crap.  This was the day the property management company was going to show my apartment to a potential renter.  There hadn’t been a conflict, because I should be showered and out the door before they arrived.  The fact that they woke me up meant that I had overslept.

Which also meant that I was running late for an interview with one of the big accounting firms.  I meekly waiting for the rental agent and potential renter to leave, and then got ready as quickly as I could.  After a sprint across campus, I arrived out of breath and fifteen minutes late.

I apologized, and they allowed me to interview as if nothing had happened.  But I knew that I had dug a hole for myself, and that the other candidates were going to look better in comparison.

Not surprisingly,  I didn’t get the job.  Also, I had to write a letter apologizing for my lateness.  The on-campus interview were arranged by the university, and if you didn’t arrive on time for an interview, your interviewing privileges were suspended until you wrote a letter of apology.  It was a good idea, as it tended to really cut down on people simply blowing off interviews.  I had the letter submitted by the end of the day, since I couldn’t afford to miss any interviews.

I also called the property management company to apologize for being in the apartment when I had told them I’d be gone – becoming the first tenant in history to apologize to a landlord.

Deja vu

About fifteen years ago, some changes at my company put my teleworking position in danger, and I started to interview at other companies.

One of the interviews was with a local software company.  I interviewed with the CEO, and the impression he gave was that their employees paid zero attention to the clock and were totally committed to the company.  I interpreted this as meaning the company put employees through the meat grinder and had them work long hours on a consistent basis.

It wasn’t the optimal position, but it might be worth considering.  After the on-site interview, I waited to hear from them.  I never heard from them.

About a year later, a headhunter was lining up some interviews for me.  They mentioned a job at this same company.  I said that I was reluctant to interview, since they had ghosted me before.  The headhunter showed surprise and said that it was most likely a one-time glitch.  I agreed to interview with the company again.

I went through the exact same interview process again.  After talking with the exact same people for a second time, they ghosted me again.

The token

I get a call from HR at a large trucking company that is headquartered in the area.  I applied for a position six months earlier, and this is my first contact with them.  He wanted to know if I was still interested, and I responded that I was.  We talked a bit about salaries, and it was clear that I was at the top end of their range.  He said he was going to follow up with the hiring manager and get back to me.

The next day, I hear back from him.  The company is still interested, even at a salary that is at the top of their range.  He sends me links to a few assessment, including a personality assessment and the Wonderlic test.  I carve out time that night and knock out the assessments – coming tantalizing close to finishing all the Wonderlic questions, but not quite making it.

A few days later, I hear back from the guy.  Assessments were good, and he wants to schedule an on-site.

The day of the interview arrives.  I’m going directly from my current job (where I wear jeans and a t-shirt) to the interview, where I’ll be wearing a suit a tie.  In a far corner of the huge parking lot at work, I cover myself with a blanket and awkwardly change my pants and shirt.  I arrive a few minutes early and check in at the front desk.

The hiring manager takes me back to her office and gives me a five minute explanation of her team.  Then she asks a couple of questions about my background.

Then she just stops.  No follow-up questions to my answers, no new questions, nothing.  I try to jump-start the conversation, but I fail.  The interview lasted less than fifteen minutes.

I try to make sense of things during the drive home.  The couple of questions she had asked were pretty basic, and I wasn’t sure how my answers could have raised any red flags.  Then I realized that likely scenario.  The company probably had a policy that X number of candidates be interviewed for any position.  They had a qualified candidate in house, but needed to rope in a couple of other candidates just to check that box.

I know that a lot of companies have a policy like this.  The idea behind them is good – making sure that you case a wide net instead of simply taking the bird in the hand.  But it only makes sense when you’re actually given each candidate serious consideration.  If you’re just having a couple of BS interview to pad the numbers, this doesn’t help anyone.  It’s a waste of time for the company and for the candidate.

Wrong answer

I had an interview with a smaller company in the area.  The meeting was with the director (hiring manager) and a vice president (her boss).

I arrived a few minutes early and checked in at the front desk.  Ten minutes after the scheduled start time, the director and VP retrieve me from the reception area.

The VP takes control of the interview, doing about 90% of the talking.  This seem a little unusual, since the director was the hiring manager.  Since the candidate would be working directly for her, I would have expected her to be a bit more active in the process.

His questions were very precise – drilling down into the minutiae of textbook knowledge of my discipline.  At this point, I had been out of college for 20+ years, and at the time I went to college, there really wasn’t a textbook for the type of work I was doing.  My work process had evolved through internal training and mentoring, and the process I used didn’t necessarily line up point for point with the current textbook, especially not in terms of terminology.  The focus of the question was on rote memorization rather than actual practical knowledge.  It almost seemed like he was trying to impress my with his encyclopedia knowledge.   I was not impressed.

I walked out of this interview not expected an offer, and also not wanting one.

Your experiences?

What are some of the worst interview experiences you have had?

Editor’s Response

I’ll go first on this. These are a little more about job stories than just the interviews themselves.

The Insurance Company

I actually don’t remember the interview, but this was my first job. The programming was interesting, but the boss was terrible. Everyone hated her, but I guess she got results which was good for the company. At one point she had mentioned having an identical twin and I thought, “Wait, there are two people on Earth like you?” My next thought was, “Why did we get stuck with the evil twin?” Fortunately, I didn’t say what was on my mind.

The Pulled Job

While working there, interviewed at another company and got a job offer for 30% more money. It was doing cutting edge web programming and I jumped on it immediately. When I accepted the offer, they said they already gave it to someone else. I think maybe a day passed. I had already written my resignation letter for the insurance company, but luckily I didn’t send it in.

The HR Blunder

A big internet company interviewed me a couple of times and I really hit it off with them. The HR person in charge of the hire though switched jobs and I was lost in the shuffle. I persisted, but it took about six weeks because it was this time of year of Thanksgiving and holidays. This time I got the job and the 30% raise working on cutting edge search engines. It was the best job I ever had and I moved up the ranks to be a manager very quickly. As a 24-year-old kid, I should not have been the hiring manager, but I was. I may have been the worst interviewer in the history of the world.

The dot-com bust happened and we merged with another big company, so the entire development team was axed. It was supposed to be on 9/11, but they waited a week given the events of the day. The top people at the company recruited me a few years later and I worked with them for a few years until those people left and the new management made things bad.

The Overdress

My first job interview in Silicon Valley was an interesting one. Everyone made fun of me for showing up in a suit. That’s simply not done there. I explained that it’s a culture thing in Boston (and well the rest of the world as far as I know) and it shows respect for the employer. I think it earned me some points, but they probably also viewed me as “Weird Boston Guy”, which I was.

The Facebook

I interviewed to be the head of Facebook’s mobile development division in 2006. Facebook was much, much smaller then, but still growing fast. I don’t think it was as big as MySpace because you still had to have a college account to join. The interviewers all explained how they live at the office and worked 18 hours a day. I had this Lazy Man blog at the time, so that wasn’t going to work. In hindsight, if I could have done the work (it was over my head), I probably would have made a hundred million in stock options. That would have been nice.