SO YOU DO KNOW COPY/PASTE

I've been thinking that it might be more convenient in the long run to post to this blog on Mondays instead of Saturdays. So onward and outward there will hopefully be some new words on this very page a week from today and so on and so forth.

This afternoon was a lesson in layering. I had two job interviews today rather inconveniently scheduled at 9am and 3pm respectively - one in the East Bay and the other in the city center. Andrew very graciously and wonderfully offered to cover my shift at The Creamery this morning so I had the entire day to devote to these 2 interviews. The first one went rather swimmingly and was with two lovely and professional older women over at Cal State East Bay. I left the house around 8am as I was unsure of morning commuter traffic and also because it took me a good 40 minutes to pick through almost all of my clothing before coming up with an outfit. As it turned out I didn't need to worry much about the commuter traffic. The freeway was practically empty! That alone put me in a good mood because once you've repeatedly put up with the 405 you never want to experience anything like it ever again. The campus itself is your typical Cal State mix of contemporary with Cold War doom and gloom and the views of the bay were gorgeous. I think I held my own pretty well and they said they would be contacting my references so I choose to consider that as a good sign that I didn't fuck it up.

I stopped for gas (3.71 not bad) and a coffee (4.75 hmmm) and then came back to the house to prep for the next interview and catch up on True Blood. Tre dramatique. I watched 3 episodes back to back before catching the bus to catch the Bart to get to the city. I had on a skirt so that my nice pants wouldn't be wrinkled, flip flops, a nice lacy top and an elbow-length coral sweater. The sun was shining and I was feeling confident. When I emerged at the Civic Center stop in the city it was grey, misty, and chilly. I walked through a semi-shitty city block and ducked into a coffee shop to have some fruit and tea and to change into the nice pants. The buildng where I was told to go was on Mission between 10th and 11th street and was about 6 stories. I made my way up to the 4th floor and was immediately handed an application like you would get if you walked into a store at the mall and asked if they were hiring. I was a little taken aback because they already had my CV and cover letter and I'd had a phone screening interview back on Tuesday while at San Francisco Airport with the director and two of the financial analysts. Why did I have to fill this paper out? I sat down all the same next to a grad student who was talking about going to a Buddhist retreat up in Portland next week and the receptionist who was asking about good yogis in New Mexico. Oh, did I mention that CIIS was founded by followers of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother?

Finally the director comes to get me and takes me back to a board room for the interview where 4 people are already sitting. It looked like a freaking intervention was about to be staged. If I had a dinner party this very evening I don't think I could get 5 people around the table. It was intimidating. To make it worse, the very first question I was asked was "how did I prepare for this interview." What? I have never been asked this question before. Why would it even matter? There are so many other questions to get an idea of someone's work flow and personality. My answer, according to the random older dude on 14th and Broadway should have been "picking out this outfit" as he was quite inquisitive as to how long it took me to get so pretty and that he was not being fresh just admiring my beauty, mama.

Anyway, the absolute worst part of it was dished out from the only dude in the whole bunch. It seemed like the interview was ending (I assume since the last question had been if I was a Dodgers or a Giants fan) when the dude says that he wants to ask some Excel function questions. This I also find strange and off putting. He first asks how I would toggle between windows on a PC without using the mouse. I tell him I don't know since I always very conveniently click on the window tab at the bottom of the screen and, seeing his unimpressed and pinched expression, I graciously comment that he must have another way. He answers curtly that he does and leaves it at that. The director woman then says, "well why don't you tell her the command function so she knows it", which he begrudgingly does. His next question is how to select all the cells on a spreadsheet, which I tell him I would click on the A1 cell and then the latter most cell to the bottom left while holding down the shift key. He laughs and huffs and says that would be a lot of scrolling if I had columns A-Z filled in. I query as to whether holding down ctrl+A as he suggests would select everything and not just the active cells that I would probably want. He looks at me like I don't get it. The final question is how I would remove previous formatting from something that might have embedded photos or something in it and move it into a Word document. I tell him ctrl+tab, ctrl+A, ctrl+C, ctrl+V and then select "match destination formatting" when the copy wizard tab pops up. He smirks and says haughtily "Oh so you do know copy/paste" then proceeds to "inform" me that they don't have that tab on the computers at work nor has he ever seen it on his home computer. I ask what version of Office they have because it's been on 2004, 2007, and the 2010 versions I have used, douchebag! The last word I omitted.

Honestly, I don't know if it was a combination of solo male chest beating or if this dude is just naturally douschy by nature, but I did not appreciate the schoolyard bullying technique he was using. It just left a sour taste and was the first thing I told my mom about when I called her on the walk home. Thanks mums for telling me he was an idiot and that you had used that format wizard this very day.

Now I just want to finish Mary Ann in Autumn and maybe go buy a midnight Dark Knight Rises ticket over at the local theater and then grab some grub.

The Last Two Weeks at a Glance

Seriously great food - everyone needs to come visit so we can have gelato, authentic Chicago pizza, sustainable espresso, hand-crafted burgers, and dance and drink the night away at really cool downtown Oakland bars and lounges.

Really cool happenings - I watched 4th fireworks on a 38 foot sailboat at Pier 39 with about 24 cool strangers and then experienced the mad rush and fabulous energy that is the First Friday in downtown Oakland and I am talking thousands of people taking over the street jamming to live music, watching films projected on buildings, looking at classic cars and local art, and eating great food.

Wedding! My dad got married on Saturday to a wonderful lady and I flew down and joined in the festivities with a lot of other Walkers and fabulous new family members.

Have pictures!