Frequently Asked Questions
The following are questions that I am asked on a semi-regular basis or that I feel need to be addressed. They come not only from emails, but from people who have known me in person.
Would you interview with us?
That depends on the position, location, etc., really. Feel free to contact me and ask. It can’t hurt.
What is your biggest weakness?
My horribly debilitating fear of clowns. Oh, and interviewing.
In all seriousness, my biggest weakness is probably that I tend to focus on the details too much on occasion. I know that, at first glance, this does not seem like a problem, but if you fixate on the details, you never finish the actual implementation and, if it gets really bad, sometimes you don’t even get started.
The way I got around this was to start making it a habit to create a strategic plan for the projects I work on, trying to plan for major problems along the way and then making myself deal with the smaller issues as they came up instead of trying to nail down every last brass tack ahead of time (which never works no matter how good you are).
What have you done that you are proud of?
There have actually been quite a few things that I am proud of.
I guess it really comes down to saying that I feel as though I have, in at least some small way, made a difference.
What kind of skills do you have with people? (Alternately, have you had much experience dealing with people from other backgrounds?)
I tend to fall into the role of older brother in most teams that I am a part of because I have the habit of being the mediating person in the group. As long as the other members of the team aren’t hostile, things tend to go pretty smoothly.
I’ve worked alongside of, and have been friends with, people from a wide selection of disciplines - Everything from other technical people and management/director level positions to general office staff and domain specialists (health care, statistics, GIS, research, and various other fields) as well as people from geographic regions including Russia (and several of its former states), the vast majority of western Europe, the United Kingdom, India, several regions of Southeast Asia, and various countries in both South America and Africa.
Let’s just say that I don’t tend to have too much trouble with concepts outside of IT or with accents for that matter (“Where Am I From” became a popular game to play with me. The only accent that I wasn’t able to guess was South Africa and that was because she was the first person from South Africa that I had met.).
Do you have any management experience?
As a team lead, I had anywhere from two to five or six people reporting to me (depending on the time in question). I was responsible for assigning tasks to meet and increase their skill levels as well as bringing them together as a cohesive team instead of a group of individuals. I was also responsible for strategic planning of IT related projects within the Center.
How would you use bash to scrub the carpet?
While this is not a frequently asked question, it has to be one of the weirdest interview questions I’ve been asked. The real question is why would I want to use bash to scrub the carpet?
We’ll need your client list before we give you an interview.
Let me put this as politely as possible – if you attempt to ask me this, I do not want to work for or with you. This is a sign that you are looking for more customers and want to get them under the guise of looking for new employees. My client lists are confidential, and they shall remain that way. Asking for such things is not a standard industry practice, and I feel sorry for the people that you have convinced that it is.
Before we decide to hire you, we require that you do a project for us taking $X hours
You’re not looking for an employee. You’re looking for someone to do free work for you before you “decide” that you aren’t interested in them. This is one of the most unethical (not to mention at least borderline illegal) things which you can do when you are “interviewing”.
Requiring candidates to answer questions or even take a programming test is one thing. Asking that they do work for you for free is something completely different. I have to say that I didn’t think companies like this existed until I encountered one. The fact that they tried to bully me into thinking it was an accepted industry practice when they were informed that what they were doing was highly unethical was just icing on the cake.
When can we see the fish tank?
As I said in the Programs section, I can’t find the source for the projects I was involved in while I attended Ohio University. I’d also probably have the compulsion to re-write the programs due to the fact that I know more now than I did then. At any rate, it wouldn’t do any good to let you see the tank because, according to the friend who worked on the graphics portion, some of the things from OpenGL that he used changed and the code would have to be re-written anyway. However, I may make a new, less complex (at least in the beginning), fish tank in the future.
Why are so many people interested in the fish tank anyway? (No, that is not one of your questions. It’s one of mine.)
I don’t believe you. How can you have done so many things?
I didn’t say I did them all at once. I have, however, done them (as well as some things not listed). Some of them were passing interests and some of them have been a bit more long term. I do, however, find the mental image of repelling down the face of a cliff while riding a bicycle, forging a piece of decorative steel work, and performing a soliloquy to be rather an amusing one.
My many and varied interests caused me to be dubbed the Center’s Renaissance Man and the GVC Ninja (though the ninja part also had to do with my habit of not making any noise) while I worked at the Voinovich Center. It also caused my input to be solicited on a lot of non-technical projects while I was there.
What are you? Some kind of genius?
That's what they tell me. After I was poked, prodded, liquefied in an industrial blender, mixed with a few compounds that I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce, extruded into interesting shapes and then baked at high temperatures, they came to the conclusion that my IQ is somewhere in the top 1%.
The only reason I even care is because I think it's funny since my parents were told by guidance councilors in grade school that the best I could ever hope for was to be of average intelligence and that I would probably be a lot lower. What made them come to this conclusion? I didn't crawl as a child. I went from scooting around to running across the floor. Why they thought this has any bearing on my intellect, I have no idea. Apparently the fact that I was already telling time and reading when I got to kindergarten didn't matter, but the fact that I never crawled did.
Of course, they also said that I had no imagination. The improv songs are all just an illusion, folks.
Blacksmith?
Yes. I was an apprentice blacksmith at a working historical-recreation Appalachian village named Robbin’s Crossing. It was rather a lot of fun and I miss it.
Why did you want to be a blacksmith?
It was a hobby. I found it rather relaxing, not to mention one heck of a workout. Originally, I started because I wanted to be able to make my own weapons. Unfortunately, time and the fates have thus far conspired against me in that respect.
Make your own weapons?
I’ve trained martially since I was a kid (see the “About Me” section). In that time, I’ve learned to use many kinds of weapons from all over the world. I wanted to be able to make them as well. I couldn’t think of any better way to be one with a tool than to be the person who not only uses it but makes it.
Is that why you have so many weapons on the wish list?
There really aren’t that many things weapon-wise on the wish list. You should see what I already have =]
Are you going to kill people? (Yes, I was actually asked this; several times, in fact)
While we all have that urge on occasion (especially when cut off in traffic), I’d have to say that the short answer, for the time being, is no. Barring someone being dumb enough to try to assault me, I don’t see myself needing to in the foreseeable future. I tend to be a pretty mellow person, actually. Besides, where would I hide all of the bodies? =]
What’s with the zombie song?
It was just one of those things that my warped sense of humor came up with. Consider it an attack by the Brain Eating Muse because it took all of an hour to write from start to finish. I actually had to force myself to stop because it was turning into an epic.
I have an interesting sense of humor that runs the gamut from slapstick to really bizarre. I think it has to do with past experience and interests (linguistics, music, drama, martial arts, etc). My current girlfriend (as of writing this) is often amused, and sometimes frustrated, by my twisting of phrase and especially the impromptu songs. Apparently it’s difficult to be angry at someone while you are giggling uncontrollably. =]
What’s with all the weird books?
Most people who ask that mean the books on philosophy, military strategy, and political strategy. I don’t consider them particularly strange, but apparently some people do. I’m a student of strategy. It has applications far beyond the battlefield and political arena.
You seem to be getting a bit of a fan club. Is there a T-shirt?
No, there is not a t-shirt and the fact that I am developing fans is just weird. However, on an interesting note, a friend and I have been seriously considering a business that makes shirts (and it came up quite a while before this was asked). If it happens, I’ll be sure to post it on this site.
Degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon?
3
Will you marry me?
Probably not.
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