excellent post. pussycatch return to the style that has always given so much satisfaction. continues'.
(Comment on Career opportunities # 1 )
followed (with less than two months late) the board of
roger_ , and continuing the story of my brief trip into the world talks to Vincent.
On Saturday morning (it was done on all three days, from Thursday 'Saturday) we split in two to three main groups (rather than' many small groups of 6 which I have narrated in the previous episode). A guy between 30 and 40 but more 'to the 30, with the air of someone very successful, the test did talk to my macro-group.
We were around a large table, and if I remember correctly he was standing at a blackboard. The problem we had to solve was to decide what price we would have deemed it convenient to pay for a license from a taxi driver in a big city ', and in turn, after providing us with new information related to trafficking in that city' or the maintenance of the car, asked each of us do a simple calculation (which typically involves an addition or multiplication).
When my turn came I amazed at the stupidity 'of what' demanding to calculate, I always said 'Well, I would take that number and divides it by that other number. " And he consistently said 'yes', correct, but you need to calculate. "
Now, I have a problem: I'm not very good at doing math in your head (I think it is connected in some way the fact that I have serious memory problems), and since I passed the elementary I was always very happy that nobody asked me most 'of them. I said, and he said that however, 'when one speaks with the customer to do the math in your head at once, to show numbers, be ready. He said it was very important. I decided to be humble and think "well, will have 'reason for him." This
pero 'led me to be particularly hostile to his request to do the calculations on the fly. I took all my time to do the calculations, and when the impatient guy I explained to him that if he had permission to use pen and paper would have been more 'fast.
Another reason for discussion was the fact that sometimes appeared in a chain of transactions multiplication of useless, since a couple of steps after it was divided by that same number. That issue, therefore, it was absolutely irrelevant to the solution of the problem, objective and I was just 'cause we were doing to follow a strategy for resolving the third grade that we were wasting time, and that would be much more' rational as you do teaches, I believe, from the first media: use letters to denote variables of the problem, assemble them gradually, reasoning, in a single formula (thus simplifying the irrelevant variables) that replace the numbers at the end. He said that when talking to customers can not be 'doing well', they want to see the numbers small step for small step. I decided to again (but more 'to fatigue) of being humble and thinking "well, will have' reason for him." I was still of the opinion that a work environment where he is right and not 'a work environment which can be estimated. However this
, iterated for every time I come 'for my turn at the table, port' Oscar the company to take less and less subtly for a ride to the point that the whole group began 'to laugh every time he came my turn. I think he thought, in all sincerity, 'you have to do with a mentally handicapped people.
I was totally convinced he had won the dialectical confrontation with me, so I decided to show me that impermalosire not 'a good idea. When
the collective exercise was over, and we found the amount 'of money that would have been cheaper to pay up to get a driver license under those conditions, he said, "and now, we calculate what would happen if these two parameters have these values are different." Incredibly, he did a good remake of the same tasks, and then gongolai, 'cause I had the victory in his pocket.
fact, when it was over, he asked "anyone has any questions, comments, criticisms?", And I said 'yes', I ", and he run away 'to laugh, provoking hilarity' of any room. And I said I had it all wrong since the setting, for two reasons.
The first was that he had always put a reasonable value for all parameters and what interested the problem was a limit and not an average. The wannabe-driver of his problem, in fact, wants to know the maximum price they should pay, not the average price it pays for itself. If the cost of petrol was in the long term, uncertain by 10%, we should consider the pessimistic scenario from the beginning (but realistic) with 10% more 'of the current price. And so 'on. Between her teeth and grudgingly said I was right, and asked what was the second reason.
The second reason was that if we should issue a written LEAST on paper but in the meantime calculated route in mind for the customer numerelli idiot at the time of the fateful question, "and if you change this parameter to change the outcome?" net would have taken 3 seconds to get the answer, instead of having to redo half 'of the calculations again.
Other grotesque incident had happened the night before. After dinner on Friday 'evening, in fact, they took us to the disco, so that' all we could know better.
(I'm not a great expert on clubs but just stepped in, and I found that one of the few decent among the other candidates looked at and commented with a "mamma mia" kitsch aesthetics of the place. Candidatesse behind Two We, however, unaware, chirped praise the elegance of the place, and for the first time in years I felt oblivious to use the word "trendy" with no implied irony.) In line with the "know each other better," was launched (from select) the play to say the 5 (or 10) things more 'details that have been made.
I tried to give up immediately, saying that I always have a totally normal life. But they insisted, for Christ's sake. Then I asked her time and always got to be able to at least talk to the last lap (each lap you had an episode only).
While other fairies, I was trying to force the memory for something that was the least worthy of note, and while listening to others looking for inspiration. There were those who had kissed
uninterrupted for an hour for a bet, most had done this or that crazy sport, or had been in particularly dangerous or exotic places (one was at the north pole - or south, can not remember).
I tried to play the card of a place where no one certainly was not: a few hundred meters underground, taking data in a particle accelerator. But not impressed 'no one, and aroused' spoiled courtesy of encouragement for others (who had been in more caves' deep, or the south pole, or cut the throats of poisonous snakes in tropical forests).
In desperation, especially since I do not give up (was not allowed to retire from the game: everyone said things more 'special they had done, and I had to say), then I said something a bit' special that I had actually done. May God forgive me (literally, since the theme and 'religious).
'm not sure, after all these years, but I fear that the association of ideas that I bring 'to remember - and telling - that thing was the fact that one of the girls have said, from the most' special, the visit to the Holy Land and the (re-) conversion to Judaism.
My brain by 'in the loop in an association of pernicious ideas when you pronounce' the word Jericho, and so here's one particular thing that I explained that I had done was win a game show on the radio Bible, as a teenager.
Some find it 'weird in fact, someone else made a face but a bit' so '. I realized that the tone of snickering with whom I had said could be quite mysterious, but not all of them had told the 'cause and wherefore of their episode, but I had shot this information without questioning. I then explained that what's really special that I had won a lottery Bible was that I'm an atheist, and already 'I was at the time. This aroused 'a little' more 'of interest, and then explained that since I was a kid someone told me that I could not be an atheist if you do not read at least
the Bible, I read it. Without spiritual benefit, obviously, 'cause so far everything' and that I 'and remained' vague memory of the great massacres and some hot scene. Be ', in short, had gone well': I turned the knob on the radio trying to win the boredom of an afternoon of adolescence, when I came across a biblical quiz show. The conductor was a priest, and very pious people phoned but blatantly ignorant. With amazement I realized that I knew more 'than the average of those people who, unlike me, we really believed.
several phone calls from no one knew
answer the question "Who breaks down 'the walls of Jericho with the sound of trumpets?" . I lost my patience when a listener, after the conductor had given the most patient help "begins with G. ..", said 'Jesus'. " I crossed the phone number I called, and gave the right answer (Joshua '). The presenter was in seventh heaven, and start 'to praise me. I interrupted him saying that we do not bring back some blasphemy, 'and hung up, before returning to the radio and hear the conductor embarrassed that he pretended that he had not understood what I had said and that should have been cut off, and anyway if I called give the coordinates to the switchboard to receive the prize (a bible hardback).
are still mindful of facial expressions when I saw instantly crystallize the faces of all the people around me when I told this episode (especially, for understandable reasons, the girl who had rediscovered Judaism in Israel), and realized that seem to tell was not so ' divertente come lo ricordavo io.
