I have the best friends...

Okay, so now that the Bat Girl contest is over, all except the announcement of who won, I have to say that even though I really want to fucking win…….there’s a lot to be said for all the warm fuzzies I’ve gotten out of the process itself. And while I’ll write more about this later, I have to highlight here a sweet post by a Wharton classmate and former hockey teammate on the Wharton Wildmen, who wrote the following for our LinkedIn Wharton Wildmen Group. Thanks Craig H., love you!! Now I just need to dig up some of those Mardi Gras pictures to post here……

Wildmen - It's time to help one our own, Tasha Huebner, achieve a sporting honor she well deserves. For anyone who went to Wharton back in 96-98, you could not forget Tasha for her flagrant disregard for her own (or others) safety on the ice, her snarky write-ups in the Wharton Journal, or for a lucky few of us, her *ahem* presence at Mardi Gras. Well Tasha, or as she made some of us call her - "Mistress" - was diagnosed with pretty serious breast cancer a few years ago and got a very bad diagnosis right after leaving a White Sox game....and she hasn't been able to handle going back to one since. The good news is she's recovering well - has new boobs (if you know Tasha, you know how imp. they are) - and actually training for the IronMan in Kona, HI - but before she does that, she needs a fresh start with the White Sox, and one of the finalists to be an honorary Bat Girl on Going to Bat for Breast Cancer day with the White Sox. For some silly reason, they've made voting open on the internet here: http://tinyurl.com/Tasha-H . Voting closes April 13th - this Tuesday -- So please, go to http://tinyurl.com/Tasha-H , and vote for Tasha (often) and let's show Tasha that Wildmen don't just care about Hockey....we also care about boobs :-). To find out more about how Tasha's doing, and her quest to compete in Kona, read her blog at: http://thethighmasterroutetokona.blogspot.com/
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Next up: traveling with the Boobages of Death.....

Adventures in interviewing

So out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago, I heard from an executive recruiter who I had spoken to last many years ago. Literally, years. She’d been trying to fill a position for a particular company since October, and this company kept changing their requirements, wasn’t happy with even the most qualified of people, etc. Basically a big clusterfuck. So of course I said sign me up! Okay, not really, but I figured what the hell, sure I’ll talk to these people. Even though the job sounded odd (for a company that sells software that automates Word editing), and fractious (they were doing interviews at a local restaurant so current employees wouldn’t find out they were looking to recruit someone from the outside).

Anyway, the woman from the company wanted to do a phone interview first. Fine, though I hate those because then I don’t get the opportunity to dazzle people with my in-person wit and charm. And it seemed to go okay enough, though I did learn a few things:

1. People interviewing you have no sense of humor. So when she asked me “What was the most difficult challenge you had to face this year?”, my response of “Well, the year is still pretty young, now isn’t it?” didn’t go over too well. Even when I added “I’m just joking.” How was I supposed to know she meant this past year as a whole??

2. Related to that, it’s probably not a good thing to insert a long pause and then almost start laughing incredulously when asked question about said challenges. At least to my credit I made up some mumbo-jumbo about “keeping my current work challenging and interesting” rather than what I really wanted to say, which would have been something like this: “Umm, tough call. Maybe it’s been dealing with all these additional craptastic surgeries? Like the one where I had my lat removed? Wanna see the scar? Or it could have been trying to keep my head afloat and pay my bills after getting into many arguments with my asshat insurance company that doesn’t want to pay my fucking bills. Yeah, that’s kind of sucked too. Or rather, has presented itself as a challenge.”

Hmm, you know, it might be a good thing actually that it was a phone interview.

3. When they ask you the really inane questions, like “How do you stay organized?”, the answer they’re looking for is probably NOT the one that is the least bit truthful, for me and everyone else. Which would be this: “Oh, I generally just use the Stack o’ Paper method – that’s worked pretty well for me.” I do wonder though what she was expecting to hear – something about process flow and GANTT charts and multiple Excel spreadsheets using Solver? “If notes from Meeting A need to go in blue file folder CX, what color folder should be used for Meeting B for maximum optimization and efficiency?”

Umm, yeah, if that’s what she was looking for, she didn’t get it.

There were other random and bizarre questions, but of course nothing pertaining to my actual skills and accomplishments. Imagine that. Isn't anyone out there interested in hiring a witty yet bitter smartass? I gots mad skilz, really.....

Another placeholder post

Okay, so I know I have to catch up on things here, what with my story on The Day Tasha Almost Got Herself Arrested at the Federal Building, to my update on Whereupon Tasha Almost Got Mowed Down By a Runaway Pickup Truck in the Bucolic Town of Eagle, WI. Suffice it to say that I believe there's a proverbial key to the city being made for me as we speak. So there's all that.

And I know everyone here in this great Blogosphere of ours is waiting with bated breath to find out who the winner was in my first-ever brain tumor poll. Of course, in conducting this poll I used the finest research methodologies as taught to me at Wharton, excellent institution that it is. So that means I plotted out the variables, calculated the R-squared, looked for the resultant patterns - though I must say, everything wanted to default to the dreaded "swarm of bees" configuration. Then, I put everyone's names on a slip of paper, all the people who had told me they voted and my blog followers, and I just reached into a hat and picked one at random. Of course the hat in question was the Fuck Cancer hat, so that made it especially scientific. Yes, this is the kind of academic rigor I'm known for, folks. An inspiration to many.

In any case, it turns out that my winner was none other than.....Miz Laura! Who I immediately called with the good news, and even though it was 3AM, I could tell by the jubilation in her voice just how excited she was:

Laura: "Huh? What? Who? Who the hell are you again?"

Ah yes, the typical confusion under such circumstances, of those who can scarcely believe their good fortune.

So what with that done and with Laura soon to be receiving her very own Fuck Cancer hat, my epicly long blog posts will return, but in the meantime, I present you this, which pretty well sums up exactly what I myself say when anyone around me dares to utter the words "Joe Lieberman"......