January 25, 2016

With your eyes closed, tell me how to snark

I randomly picked an interview question to answer badly. The permission to give awful answers allays the terror of not finding the perfect and true answer, which can paralyze me to the point I never answer at all. The question I got was a lot more random than I anticipated... I answered it anyways.

With your eyes closed, tell me step-by-step how to tie my shoes.
  1. first reach down to your feet.
  2. check if you have shoes
  3. check if your shoelaces are untied
  4. if they are, tie your freaking shoelaces you're an adult gosh
Note, that's pretty uncharitable. What if it's a job interacting with disability or children? However trivial the example, plenty of jobs need you to demonstrate a strong ability to break down tasks into concrete parts and deliver them as clear instructions. Not to mention, some people just don't appreciate a good snark and/or will count my unwillingness to jump through dumb hoops on command like a purebred show-monkey against me.

In any case, showing the concrete steps and practicing each part with on-the-spot corrections would get the point across much more clearly. I have to know my audience to tailor my instructions. I won't pretend that I'm amazing at this task in the best of circumstances, it's worse when you deliberately deprive me of the tools I'd usually use to do it.

And I still like the snark answers better.

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