5 . . . 4 . . . 3

Which is the number of seconds I had left at the end of my timed “tools test” last week, part of the Resolver interview process.  The idea is that I sit down with whatever tools (i.e., information resources) I prefer open, and I have fifteen minutes to find the answers to all ten questions, all of which were ordinary and usual questions I can expect to be asked as a Resolver.  The one that nearly threw me was “how do you distinguish mainstream from performance Prescott processors.”  I had to leave it, go do all the others, and come back to it again.  I knew roughly where to look, but finding the exact link got me down.  Finally I fell across the reference I wanted in the knowledgebase and nailed down the answer—with, as I say, three seconds to spare.  Today Smiley and I had a mock interview, and he had some useful advice for me at the end of it.  He said I need to quit trying to balance positives and negatives and present a complete picture, and just point up the positive things, since the interview team by its nature will be looking for a reason to wash me out.  (This isn’t antagonism; they do this to every candidate.)  He also advised me that when the inevitable “what are your weaknesses” question comes along, I ought to have ready a couple of weaknesses that I’m already working on improving, rather than naming ones that are more integral and systemic (e.g., my preference for wanting to chew over a question rather than give a snap answer).  We’re going to meet again Wednesday, after I’ve had a little time to incorporate his suggestions, and give it a second go.

Other than that, today was just a busy Monday, the more so because of the backlog built up from last Friday’s holiday.  I rarely got a time when the phone wasn’t ringing the second I hit Available.

But last night was date night with Hero Woman, which always makes a day better.  I’d completely blanked out that I work every Sunday afternoon (you’d think that after two years I’d have gotten the idea) and made a date with her to go to the Blanton Museum.  This was a non-starter, since the Blanton closes at five every night except Thursday.  Instead, we went out to dinner at Romeo’s (good, as it usually is) and then prowled around West Sixth for a while, ending up at Molotov Lounge for drinks and talk.  I was surprised at how empty and how (relatively) quiet the place was, but I later decided that was because it was Sunday.  We called it an evening early, and Hero Woman drove me home, in the process scaring the pee-wadding out of herself (but not me) when she ran a red light at 12th and Lamar because she was looking at the wrong one of two signals right together.  We got home safely nonetheless.

(The phone just rang, and Hero Woman invited me to a movie night tomorrow with her and Shiny Woman to watch Main Hoon Na, which I’d never heard of before yesterday.  She says it’s over-the-top Bollywood and fun in a “kitchen-sink comedy” way.)