Hope yer eyeball’s better today and that you heal-up soonest.
I, too, would like to hear teh tale of Mrs. Sven’s incendiary interview if that info’s cleared for release. (Talk about “bringing teh hottness”.) đź‘ż
BTW -- When’s your 29th birfday?
TeX --
Sorry to read about your difficult job search, the dispatcher interview and the suede-sloughing shoes. May some work-related goodness come your way.
Jerry (and the rest of you) --
Sorry for CasaK putting the kibosh on SqueakTV via ZOOM; if there’s an alternative which CorporateToolK and I feel is reasonably secure, I’m in. (Don’t want to ask BK right now as her employer’s daily torment is well underway.)
Hey Fatwa. Yeah, so Zoom is a Chinese company, I think. I found it to work great, but Skype has a new meeting feature. And while with skype you could always have small meetings, it looks like skype beefed up their meeting features to make them more comparable to Zoom and other meeting services.
The tale of Mrs Sven’s surefire (pun alert) interview technique is actually pretty funny and I’ll try to convince her to tell it here in her own words. It occurred around the same time that I learned other valuable interviewing tips like you should check your mustache for large noticeable boogers (me) and that it’s best to wear underwear and pants with a functional zipper (a friend).
Later on I learned that sometimes you shouldn’t state the obvious (me) -- like if the next person to interview you happens to be a woman with what you think is an unfortunate last name, for instance, “Beaver”, that maybe you should keep it to yourself.
My eye is better today -- thanks. I can see out of it without terrible blurriness.
No snow expected ’round here; lows in the upper thirties the next two nights and no precipitation in the forecast until late Friday night, when the low will be in the fifties.
Hi Everyone! Mrs. Sven here. Lovely to talk to you! I’ve been telling Mr. Sven that I keep thinking about writing to you, but I haven’t done it. Alas, I apologize. I must admit to lurking at times. I have always thought of the wheel as Sven’s space, and didn’t want to intrude. I want him to feel free to have a space to unwind without me always looking over his shoulder. But then – he invites me in quite often… and I love to read all your notes to each other. It puts a smile on my face. I feel like I know you all, and you all mean a lot to me, even though we don’t talk directly most of the time. Sometimes he leaves the wheel up and he has told me he doesn’t mind me reading it.
A little while ago, I caught a post from DV8 and it touched me, because I feel the same way about you all. You have been such a godsend. Bringing humor and tales of heartache into our lives, but most of all dear friendship. And I swore I would try to find my password so I could log on under my own name and let you know. But – I didn’t. And now I have TWO missions. One is to let you know the way I feel about you, and well… the second one is to tell you how I set myself on fire during a job interview. Mr. Sven asked me to tell the story, and since it’s his birthday week…. I guess I better do it.
I worked for a small company that was bought by a larger company, that was gobbled up by an even larger company in the 90’s. Eventually they got around to wanting to move our product lines to a state with a more favorable cost of doing business (South Carolina) and shut down the plant in California. As we were working like crazy to transfer the production lines and warehouse to the SC plant and auction off the rest of the assets, a handful of us were invited to interview at the SC plant.
Mr. Sven and I were flown to Columbia, and put up in a really nice hotel suite, complete with wet bar and a fruit basket! A corporate realtor was hired to drive us all around town and show us houses in the different neighborhoods. She enticed us with stories of what we could buy on one salary in SC compared to two in California. A welcome package explained that IF we were hired, the company would help us with moving expenses.
This was quite a new thing to me – usually I’ve just filled out resumes and sent them off to faceless HR reps who promptly round filed them. But anyway…. We hit all the highlights around Columbia for the weekend. We were taken out to lunches and dinners, and then on Monday, Mr. Sven flew home, and I started the work week where I was taken for a tour of the factory and introduced to the managers and directors and planners in the new workplace. That was the setting. I will now move on to the interview portion of the program.
Everything is going well… I DID pack the right clothes… I DID pack the correct shoes… yep… a left AND a right… and they match! (that’s another story) I met with the most important people; I am killing it! I am lucid, and conversational. I’m asking all the right questions. I’m wearing a white blouse and grey skirt, and I’m taken out to lunch by the hiring director… to a BBQ steak house… where I spilled nothing….yes, you heard me….NOTHING…down the front of me. I look good. I only have about an hour to go, so we leave the restaurant and start to head back to the plant to get my stuff, where we will wrap up and I will head to the airport.
As we are walking out of the restaurant, I notice there is a bowl of those big books of matches on the hostess counter next to where they put the mints and the toothpicks. Being from California… I thought wow, I haven’t seen that for a while (smoking had been banned in restaurants in California by that time.) I thought grabbing a few of those matchbooks would be nice reminders of my trip. I popped at least 3 of them into my skirt pocket and followed the Director of Supply Chain out the door.
We are sitting at his desk, just wrapping up. The day has gone well, I think. We are casually talking. As we are talking, I had taken those matchbooks out of my pocket, because… well I was wearing a pencil skirt, and there just wasn’t enough room to sit comfortably without them hanging out. (They were pretty BIG matchbooks. The kind with 40 or 60 or so matches in them.) There are 3 or 4 of them. As we are talking, I’m starting to fidget. I’m casually opening and closing them- tucking the tops back inside and out and back in. Sliding one inside the other and kind of shuffling them in my hand the way you might a deck of cards or poker chips. All of a sudden, I hear that fizzing noise, like a fuse has been lit. I look down and one of the matches has slid across the striker of another match book and ignites. The first matchbook is now igniting like a river of roman candles I watch the orange glow sizzle and spark from one to the next – almost in slow motion. My eyes widen as before I can even react, the second matchbook flames up and is now igniting the third one.
I tried a couple of times to clap my hands together to put them out, but the sulfur is burning them, and the flames and smoke are like… no kidding… a foot high! Not knowing what else to do, because I can’t hold on to them any longer, but I don’t want to catch anything on fire, I jump from my chair and I start juggling them. Tossing them in the air and catching them to keep them away from my singed palms but NOT letting them fall on the rug or the desk. Each time – trying to put them out by clapping my hands together and looking around for something to do with them, but they are NOT- GOING -- OUT! After the third or fourth time of tossing the flaming bundle into the air, I turn back to the Director’s desk and slam them down and start smacking them hard into the desk with my burnt palms, extinguishing them as fast as possible before they can burn a giant hole into the fancy wood top.
I look up and across the desk from me. The director looks as startled as I was. He looks down at the desk and back up at me. His eyes were as big as mine! There is a moment of silence where we both just stare at each other wide-eyed and at the desk and at each other. His chair is pulled back about 3 feet from the desk -half turned- both hands on down on the arms of his chair as if he was just about to propel himself out of it and run. My hands out in front of me –palms up- fingers spread- as if pleading for mercy, or as if I were just about to catch a basketball. I break the moment, as I realize the ashen pile of debris is still on his desk- so I start to scoop it up as he asks me if I’m OK and comes around to bring me a trash can to dump it in.
I calmly answer “Yes, of course, I’m OK. But do you have a place I can wash up and get this (black soot and charcoal) off my hands?” He points me out the door to the left – down the hall and take the first right. “Thank you.” I calmly walk out of the office – down the hall – down the next hall and find the ladies room and as soon as the door swings shut behind me I RUN to the sink to turn on the cold water and hold my charred hands under the cool stream. Thank You God!
Five minutes (or more) later I finally tear myself away from the blessed iciness of cold water to find my way back to his office. It’s getting late and I need to get to the airport. I don’t have a car. I have to find him to get ride. I can’t just slink out of there and pretend it was someone else that he met. An imposter maybe- hoping to get my job. I’m wondering if I can remember how to get back to his office. I open the bathroom door, and I follow the trail of smoke and the smell of sulfur. It was an easy find.
By this time, he has recovered his wits and is smiling. He asks me again if I’m OK. I tell him, I’m a little singed but I’ll be fine. He is looking at me as if he is expecting me to say more. Maybe he wants to know what happened. (Likely) Maybe he wants to know if I have more questions about the job? (Unlikely) The only thing I can think of to tell him now is “Boy does your office stink!” And I burst out laughing. This could go either way. But I figure I’ve already blown the job, at this point in time I just can’t be serious. As Ed A. says, when the situation is dire and all is lost, be playful. …Or something of the sort.
“It sure does!” He answers, and bats a cloud of smoke away from his face. In an office environment like that – the air just seems to hang in one place. And he burst out laughing too. And assistant walked in with some purchase orders to be signed. She eyed the clouds of smoke in the air suspiciously. “What happened here?“ Backing out the door now….”I’ll come back later.” In between swats of smoke and our fits of laughter, he asked me “You ready to go?”
“Yes, but can you grab my luggage for me?” “My hands really hurt!”
It was a long flight back. One stop, but I checked my luggage anyway. I didn’t care if they lost it, I just didn’t want to pull it with my hands.
When I got back to the plant in California, my HR director called me in to her office. “Do you want to tell me something?”
Me: “Um no, what?”
Her: “Do you want to tell me how your interview went?”
Me: “Uh – I don’t know – could have been better. What did you hear?”
Her: “Nothing, except you got the job.” She is eyeing me suspiciously.
Me: “What!? Impossible!”
Her: “Why is it impossible? You got the job, but I’m guessing there is more to the story. I’m not sure what happened out there, but I’m supposed to give you these for now.” She reaches across the desk and hands me a bundle of matches taped together with two oven mitts. “Dave called and he said he hopes you take the job because they already ordered for you a pair of asbestos mittens.”
Welcome to Teh Wheel, Mrs. Sven! I thank you so much for the story and I dearly hope you will become a regular part of the family here. What a delight.
I will have to explain to my wife why I am laughing. You have a gift.
Mrs. Sven! It’s so good to “see” you, again! It’s been too many years.
I’ve got tears running down my face from your story! I can picture you juggling flaming matchbooks while simultaneously trying to put them out in mid-air!
“Silly kitteh…rabbit food is for rabbits!”
Sven --
Hope yer eyeball’s better today and that you heal-up soonest.
I, too, would like to hear teh tale of Mrs. Sven’s incendiary interview if that info’s cleared for release. (Talk about “bringing teh hottness”.) đź‘ż
BTW -- When’s your 29th birfday?
TeX --
Sorry to read about your difficult job search, the dispatcher interview and the suede-sloughing shoes. May some work-related goodness come your way.
Jerry (and the rest of you) --
Sorry for CasaK putting the kibosh on SqueakTV via ZOOM; if there’s an alternative which CorporateToolK and I feel is reasonably secure, I’m in. (Don’t want to ask BK right now as her employer’s daily torment is well underway.)
BBL.
Two more days to go until I turn 30. Man, this is a tough one. And Tex is somewhere around here -- date, please?
[whisper]
Saturday.
[/whisper]
Hey Fatwa. Yeah, so Zoom is a Chinese company, I think. I found it to work great, but Skype has a new meeting feature. And while with skype you could always have small meetings, it looks like skype beefed up their meeting features to make them more comparable to Zoom and other meeting services.
I finally got it.
Good morning, GN, and happy day whatever of our heroic efforts to defeat this invisible enemy and win the war on teh virus by locking ourselves away.
Hi, Fatwa.
The tale of Mrs Sven’s surefire (pun alert) interview technique is actually pretty funny and I’ll try to convince her to tell it here in her own words. It occurred around the same time that I learned other valuable interviewing tips like you should check your mustache for large noticeable boogers (me) and that it’s best to wear underwear and pants with a functional zipper (a friend).
Later on I learned that sometimes you shouldn’t state the obvious (me) -- like if the next person to interview you happens to be a woman with what you think is an unfortunate last name, for instance, “Beaver”, that maybe you should keep it to yourself.
My eye is better today -- thanks. I can see out of it without terrible blurriness.
And on to work.
Glad your eye is better Sven!
Happy Healthy-eating Tuesday, Gerbil Nation!
Good morning, Fatwa, and Sven!
Sven -- I’m glad your eye is better this morning. Continued prayers for continued healing. Oh, and thanks for sharing those interview tips!
Fatwa -- I hope you and CodingK stay safe in the upcoming Georgia Snowpocalypse.
Hi, Sven and Paddy!
Sven --
Glad to read your eye’s better today; teh yay!
Paddy --
No snow expected ’round here; lows in the upper thirties the next two nights and no precipitation in the forecast until late Friday night, when the low will be in the fifties.
=========================
Glad you finally got that pesky spider, Fatwa! The collateral damage, I see, was totally worth it.
Look at that! I referenced an already uploaded image by pasting the url in the “File” box. It worked!!!
I didn’t wanna waste more space posting the same image twice, so I got it from our media library.
Linux Rob’s hat shipped today!
I can’t wait until he sees it!
OK, boys. This is going to be long.
Hi Everyone! Mrs. Sven here. Lovely to talk to you! I’ve been telling Mr. Sven that I keep thinking about writing to you, but I haven’t done it. Alas, I apologize. I must admit to lurking at times. I have always thought of the wheel as Sven’s space, and didn’t want to intrude. I want him to feel free to have a space to unwind without me always looking over his shoulder. But then – he invites me in quite often… and I love to read all your notes to each other. It puts a smile on my face. I feel like I know you all, and you all mean a lot to me, even though we don’t talk directly most of the time. Sometimes he leaves the wheel up and he has told me he doesn’t mind me reading it.
A little while ago, I caught a post from DV8 and it touched me, because I feel the same way about you all. You have been such a godsend. Bringing humor and tales of heartache into our lives, but most of all dear friendship. And I swore I would try to find my password so I could log on under my own name and let you know. But – I didn’t. And now I have TWO missions. One is to let you know the way I feel about you, and well… the second one is to tell you how I set myself on fire during a job interview. Mr. Sven asked me to tell the story, and since it’s his birthday week…. I guess I better do it.
I worked for a small company that was bought by a larger company, that was gobbled up by an even larger company in the 90’s. Eventually they got around to wanting to move our product lines to a state with a more favorable cost of doing business (South Carolina) and shut down the plant in California. As we were working like crazy to transfer the production lines and warehouse to the SC plant and auction off the rest of the assets, a handful of us were invited to interview at the SC plant.
Mr. Sven and I were flown to Columbia, and put up in a really nice hotel suite, complete with wet bar and a fruit basket! A corporate realtor was hired to drive us all around town and show us houses in the different neighborhoods. She enticed us with stories of what we could buy on one salary in SC compared to two in California. A welcome package explained that IF we were hired, the company would help us with moving expenses.
This was quite a new thing to me – usually I’ve just filled out resumes and sent them off to faceless HR reps who promptly round filed them. But anyway…. We hit all the highlights around Columbia for the weekend. We were taken out to lunches and dinners, and then on Monday, Mr. Sven flew home, and I started the work week where I was taken for a tour of the factory and introduced to the managers and directors and planners in the new workplace. That was the setting. I will now move on to the interview portion of the program.
Everything is going well… I DID pack the right clothes… I DID pack the correct shoes… yep… a left AND a right… and they match! (that’s another story) I met with the most important people; I am killing it! I am lucid, and conversational. I’m asking all the right questions. I’m wearing a white blouse and grey skirt, and I’m taken out to lunch by the hiring director… to a BBQ steak house… where I spilled nothing….yes, you heard me….NOTHING…down the front of me. I look good. I only have about an hour to go, so we leave the restaurant and start to head back to the plant to get my stuff, where we will wrap up and I will head to the airport.
As we are walking out of the restaurant, I notice there is a bowl of those big books of matches on the hostess counter next to where they put the mints and the toothpicks. Being from California… I thought wow, I haven’t seen that for a while (smoking had been banned in restaurants in California by that time.) I thought grabbing a few of those matchbooks would be nice reminders of my trip. I popped at least 3 of them into my skirt pocket and followed the Director of Supply Chain out the door.
We are sitting at his desk, just wrapping up. The day has gone well, I think. We are casually talking. As we are talking, I had taken those matchbooks out of my pocket, because… well I was wearing a pencil skirt, and there just wasn’t enough room to sit comfortably without them hanging out. (They were pretty BIG matchbooks. The kind with 40 or 60 or so matches in them.) There are 3 or 4 of them. As we are talking, I’m starting to fidget. I’m casually opening and closing them- tucking the tops back inside and out and back in. Sliding one inside the other and kind of shuffling them in my hand the way you might a deck of cards or poker chips. All of a sudden, I hear that fizzing noise, like a fuse has been lit. I look down and one of the matches has slid across the striker of another match book and ignites. The first matchbook is now igniting like a river of roman candles I watch the orange glow sizzle and spark from one to the next – almost in slow motion. My eyes widen as before I can even react, the second matchbook flames up and is now igniting the third one.
I tried a couple of times to clap my hands together to put them out, but the sulfur is burning them, and the flames and smoke are like… no kidding… a foot high! Not knowing what else to do, because I can’t hold on to them any longer, but I don’t want to catch anything on fire, I jump from my chair and I start juggling them. Tossing them in the air and catching them to keep them away from my singed palms but NOT letting them fall on the rug or the desk. Each time – trying to put them out by clapping my hands together and looking around for something to do with them, but they are NOT- GOING -- OUT! After the third or fourth time of tossing the flaming bundle into the air, I turn back to the Director’s desk and slam them down and start smacking them hard into the desk with my burnt palms, extinguishing them as fast as possible before they can burn a giant hole into the fancy wood top.
I look up and across the desk from me. The director looks as startled as I was. He looks down at the desk and back up at me. His eyes were as big as mine! There is a moment of silence where we both just stare at each other wide-eyed and at the desk and at each other. His chair is pulled back about 3 feet from the desk -half turned- both hands on down on the arms of his chair as if he was just about to propel himself out of it and run. My hands out in front of me –palms up- fingers spread- as if pleading for mercy, or as if I were just about to catch a basketball. I break the moment, as I realize the ashen pile of debris is still on his desk- so I start to scoop it up as he asks me if I’m OK and comes around to bring me a trash can to dump it in.
I calmly answer “Yes, of course, I’m OK. But do you have a place I can wash up and get this (black soot and charcoal) off my hands?” He points me out the door to the left – down the hall and take the first right. “Thank you.” I calmly walk out of the office – down the hall – down the next hall and find the ladies room and as soon as the door swings shut behind me I RUN to the sink to turn on the cold water and hold my charred hands under the cool stream. Thank You God!
Five minutes (or more) later I finally tear myself away from the blessed iciness of cold water to find my way back to his office. It’s getting late and I need to get to the airport. I don’t have a car. I have to find him to get ride. I can’t just slink out of there and pretend it was someone else that he met. An imposter maybe- hoping to get my job. I’m wondering if I can remember how to get back to his office. I open the bathroom door, and I follow the trail of smoke and the smell of sulfur. It was an easy find.
By this time, he has recovered his wits and is smiling. He asks me again if I’m OK. I tell him, I’m a little singed but I’ll be fine. He is looking at me as if he is expecting me to say more. Maybe he wants to know what happened. (Likely) Maybe he wants to know if I have more questions about the job? (Unlikely) The only thing I can think of to tell him now is “Boy does your office stink!” And I burst out laughing. This could go either way. But I figure I’ve already blown the job, at this point in time I just can’t be serious. As Ed A. says, when the situation is dire and all is lost, be playful. …Or something of the sort.
“It sure does!” He answers, and bats a cloud of smoke away from his face. In an office environment like that – the air just seems to hang in one place. And he burst out laughing too. And assistant walked in with some purchase orders to be signed. She eyed the clouds of smoke in the air suspiciously. “What happened here?“ Backing out the door now….”I’ll come back later.” In between swats of smoke and our fits of laughter, he asked me “You ready to go?”
“Yes, but can you grab my luggage for me?” “My hands really hurt!”
It was a long flight back. One stop, but I checked my luggage anyway. I didn’t care if they lost it, I just didn’t want to pull it with my hands.
When I got back to the plant in California, my HR director called me in to her office. “Do you want to tell me something?”
Me: “Um no, what?”
Her: “Do you want to tell me how your interview went?”
Me: “Uh – I don’t know – could have been better. What did you hear?”
Her: “Nothing, except you got the job.” She is eyeing me suspiciously.
Me: “What!? Impossible!”
Her: “Why is it impossible? You got the job, but I’m guessing there is more to the story. I’m not sure what happened out there, but I’m supposed to give you these for now.” She reaches across the desk and hands me a bundle of matches taped together with two oven mitts. “Dave called and he said he hopes you take the job because they already ordered for you a pair of asbestos mittens.”
Welcome to Teh Wheel, Mrs. Sven! I thank you so much for the story and I dearly hope you will become a regular part of the family here. What a delight.
I will have to explain to my wife why I am laughing. You have a gift.
Mrs. Sven! It’s so good to “see” you, again! It’s been too many years.
I’ve got tears running down my face from your story! I can picture you juggling flaming matchbooks while simultaneously trying to put them out in mid-air!
Two gales of laughter from Happy Larryville, Mrs. Sven!
Just read that out loud to BrendaK; we both concur it was wonderfully told. Thank you!
That is even better than I had imagined it to be.
That’s just awesome!