We Bring Good Things to Life

dit-tit-tit-ting!

dit-tit-titi--dit-diti-ting!

I look upstairs..Uh Oh! I got IM's on MSN. I'm watching the end of Scrubs.. just a couple more minutes...

dit-tit-tit-tit-ttiiit-titiit-ting!

oh man..this one's aggressive. So I pause my Scrubs, thanking the engineers who invented the DVR. Best new invention since flip-top ketchup bottle!

I reach upstairs to my room, and see my computer.. flashing icons.. hmm, i got messages.

The first of them reads... "Dude, I just got the offer!! in spite of that crazy interview...its sick!"

I smile. My buddy up in Canuck land just got a job offer, after going through a wierd interview of sorts. Suddenly my mind moved back to when I was interviewing for internships & full-time jobs, and remembered some of my crazy interviews.

like the one my roommate at that time had to go through..

"Sorry, Mr. Roommate, your interviewer is running late...like 4 hours late. Can you keep waiting?"

4 hours later, the guy shows up. He's wearing a leather jacket and chaps... To an Interview!!!

"sorry, messiuer, I was ryding up eeere on my motoorcycil.. it waaaz a lawng day, you know...bien sur, i'll interview you now...sorry about that..."

My roommate started laughing at the french accent...or at the attire... or maybe he just got the joke he'd heard on Conan the night before.

he didn't get that job!

I walked into an interview with GE. Met with a portly man of about 50. "Mr. Canuck, pleased to meet you... why do you want to work for GE".

I gave him the usual spiel, and then ended with "I want to bring good things to life!" chuckling away in my mind. That coulda sounded way funnier if I brought it up with the rest of the guys drinking up in the dorms.

"So Mr. Canuck, I did not have time to prepare for this interview, so I just picked up this list of Interview Questions that we had kicking around at GE. Lets go through them, shall we?"

"sure, Mr. Interviewer"

"Tell me about a time when no one in your group liked you"

sigh!.. where do i start! I navigated through that one

"Tell me about a time when you were the most unpopular person at work"

hmm. has he met me before??

"Give me an example where you had to make a decision against the will of your teammates"

I'm thinking.. what kind of interview is this? I'm applying for an engineering internship for a summer... .these questions don't sound very typical.

This one, too, passes.

"Tell me a situation where you had to refuse accepting a kick-back and took the moral high-ground"

excuse' moi? kick-back? to a student engineer in his 2nd year of undergraduate study? wow, i must been working in the wrong industry!

"No sir, I have never had a situation where I was offered a kick-back for anything I did, or was asked to do. My wages/salary offer me the compensation I'm looking for"

Mr. Interviewer looked shocked... and then disappointed. Maybe he was looking for a juicy story. maybe I should've given him one.

Then I glance at the interview sheet. The title of the first page had been at a bad angle from me all this time.. but now I could read it.

"General Electric Interview Questions for External Executive candidates"

you're kidding! Jaw... meet floor!

"Mr. Canuck, these next two questions don't seem very applicable to this position, so lets skip them"

and the previous four were???? I'm now rolling my eyes.. I'm not getting this job, might as well enjoy the interview. It was an hour long interview too, almost twice the normal length of interviews i was used to.

"How would you impact the bottom line of the company?"

"Mr. Interviewer, I would come up with a complete plan to overhaul the sales of the company"

"really, how would you go about that?"

"I would start selling GE as a package deal for both commercial and residential deals.

If you buy a house, it should be GE approved. In that house, you would have GE appliances in the kitchen, laundry, electronics. All the set-top boxes for the cable shows would be GE, and the default channels would be NBC (also owned by GE). The Gas & Electric utilities would be through GE wholesalers. I would make sure that all commercial companies get their real estate through GE real estate, and their commercial aviation needs go through GE Air."

At this point, Mr. Interviewer has his eyebrows raised, and is beaming.

"you know a lot about our company. Its clear you've done your research. Listen, we're going to be meeting at a local watering hole next week. There's gonna be beer and wings, its meant for our current and future employees..." and he gives me a huge smile.

I'm pretty shocked at this point.. first time i ever got offered booze at an interview... and that too on an interview that i had no hope of passing!!

I get up from my seat, thank him and shake hands with him.

"Before I let you go, Mr. Canuck, What are your opinions on some of the political avenues they're trying to take on"

I'm stumped..what's he talking about?

"Mr. Interviewer, I think GE should plan an anti-abortion rally, and broadcast that to themselves. Pro-choice goes against their motto of 'Bringing Good things to Life' "

Now its the interviewers turn to Jaw meet Floor!

He clears his throat...
"Mr. Canuck, I was referring to their Congress involvement in the proposed acquisition of Honeywell"

awkward silence!

"Oh that... ya, they should do it.. thanks for the interview"


Next week, I went for the beer and wings. I enjoyed them.. I thought it was great. I probably got a bit mashed too.. Free suds are tough to turn down.

I didn't get the job! :)