Month: November 2002

One of the great things about having a weblog and friends with lots of Googlejuice pointing to your blog is that old friends from way back can find you. One such person is Rob “King Floyd” MacDougall, a guy who used to write with me at the Queen’s University humour newspaper, Golden Words (My good pal George Scriban also wrote for the paper). Rob was one of the paper’s best writers, and unlike me, he never wrote anything that ended with threats of libel suits (I got four in my seven-year career, one of which was from the leader of a group called “Students for Free Speech”). When some of our other writers were falling back on jokes about getting drunk or the tired crutch of top ten lists, Rob was writing clever little articles that made you laugh and think at the same time. He found me through the The Adventures of AccordionGuy in the 21st Century and sent me this lovely picture:

Hello again, Rob, and I’ll write soon!

Update (Wednesday, November 18th at 4:00 p.m. EST): see this entry to see what happened afterwards.

On the day of my birthday, I had an 11:15 interview with a recruiting company up in the office park wasteland where I used to work. In fact, their office was in the same building as OpenCola, my former place of work, the place from which I was unceremoniously let go because they “couldn’t find a role for me.”

“You don’t remind returning to ‘the scene of the crime’?” asked the headhunter.

Not if it increases the odds that I’ll be earning a living soon.

I drove up there in the Birthdaymobile. Until Sunday, the black ’98 CR-V that I’ve been using since the start of the year was a spare car that my parents had. It used to be Dad’s, then my sister’s, then passed over to me on a sort of extended loan. The lease period had expired, and Mom bought it outright and gave it to me for my birthday. Thanks, Mom!

(I might “Chinamize” it slightly once I’m employed again. I am, after all, an Asian boy. Perhaps a little tint on the window, and Bad Badtz-Maru seatcovers…)

In order to secure this interview, I answered 12 essay questions emailed to me. I presume that these were meant to see what kind of programmer and person I was. I answered questions from technical critques (“What do you like about .NET?” “What don’t you like?”) to geek-cultural knowledge (“Who is Kent Beck?” “Who is Don Knuth?”) to philosophical (“What is it about programming that draws you to it?” “What is your interpretation of the meaning of life, the universe and everything?”). Nine pages of answers later, I had secured this interview.

The company for which the recruiter is looking for candidates is a nice one with a long history, very big American clients with deep pockets and almost no chance in hell of ever disappearing and is run by incredibly smart people. They treat their employees well: well-appointed office spaces designed for actual productivity, sensible 40-hour weeks and a policy of avoid heroic hours, a comfy lounge with pool table, and every week a chef comes in to prepare a gourmet lunch for the staff. Best of all, they’re crawling distance from Big Trouble in Little China, my house.

About fifteen minutes into the interview before my Schmoozer-Sense told me it was time to close the deal.

Me: I think I’m the guy for the position. Would you agree?

Headhunter: I’m going to recommend you for sure. I think you’ll do well over there.

Me: So what happens next?

Headhunter: Well, standard procedure for them is to have two interviews. The first is a simple get-to-know-you. It’s all personality, to see if you fit with the rest of the team. They’re strong on personality. That’ll be the easy one.

Me: I take it that the second interview is the technical one.

Headhunter: Probably not “technical” in the way you’re thinking. The second interview is an hour-long presenation. You make one in front if the president and some higher-ups.

Me: An hour?

Headhunter: Well, it depends. The Q&A sessions could go long. I think one presentation took up to three hours with the Q&A.

Me: Uh, do I get a budget for this presentation, or do I recoup my time costs by selling a “Joey’s Interview: Behind the Magic” TV special?

It’s certainly a hirer’s market out there. I don’t ever recall having to jump through so many hoops to get a job. I’m half-expecting them to make me walk across burning coals, face off against other candidates in the evening gown competition or challenge one of the Iron Chefs as the final trial.

(If we do the Iron Chef thing, I’m going to pull a Bobby Flay and stand on the cutting board and claim victory. Hell, I’ll pee on the losing chef’s face too.)

Photos of me and my friend Katie in her “Marge Simpson” wig, taken at a Hallowe’en party at my friend Liz’s place last Friday.

Prepare to get cosy!

88 people have responded “yes” to the invite.

Bring booze, folks!

If you’re interested in human rights in China, be sure to check out the latest two entries in The Happiest Geek on Earth:

• Mr. Baranowski Goes to Washington: Paul goes to D.C. to make a statement in front of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
• You’ve Got Dissent!: A RAND paper on Chinese dissident use of the Internet and Beijing’s counter-strategies.

A monthly headache with which I must contend is my depositing my housemate Paul’s rent cheques.

They’re drawn from a U.S. bank in U.S. dollars, so I can’t simply deposit them into the nearest bank machine — I need to stand in line at the nearest branch of my bank, which also happens to be one of the businest: the Royal Bank at Dundas and Spadina, deep in the heart of the downtown Chinatown.

This branch’s services are geared towards the neighbourhood — a lot of the signage is in Chinese, and most of the tellers are fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin. The clientele seems to be made largely of people who own businesses in the area, and naturally, they make heavy use of teller services, spending up to twenty minutes at the teller. The lineups are long; the monotny is broken only by the reading material I usually bring when I go there and the occasional Chinese old lady who says to me “You look like nice Chinese boy. You come to my store, meet my daughter.”

(When they find out I’m Filipino, most say “Ay-yah. Too bad.” Let it be known that “They’re okay, but you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one of them” isn’t solely the province of the round-eyes.)

I have three problems depositing Paul’s cheques. One is that the Royal Bank has a policy of holding cheques drawn from U.S. banks for twenty-five business days. I’ve had relationships that didn’t last that long!

The second problem is that Paul’s cheques have the name of his bank printed on them. That may seem perfectly natural, but the problem is that his bank has such an embarassingly dorky and incredibly fake-souding name: “The First Internet Bank“. The tellers always do a double-take when they see this, and some have made a phone call just to verify that a bank that sounds like it belongs in a bad sci-fi TV series really exists.

The last problem is cultural. Paul makes out his cheques, quite naturally, to “Joey deVilla”. Of course, my bank account is in my “real” name, Jose Martin deVilla. I never have any trouble depositing cheques made to “Joey” in the ATM, but with the tellers at the nearby branch, it’s another story. Here’s my last encounter with a teller:

Teller: This not your name on the cheque.

Me: Yes, it is.

Teller: No, this say “Joey deVilla”, but account holder name is Jo-say deVilla.

Me: It’s pronounced “Ho-say” [actually, the really proper Spanish/Filipino way is “Hoh-seh”]. It’s Spanish for “Joseph”, and you get my nickname “Joey” from that. “Pepe” or “Pepito” are also acceptable nicknames for Jose in Spanish.

Teller: “Jose” not sound like nickname for “Joey”.

Me: Um….[getting an idea, looking at Teller’s name badge] — Edwin, right? That’s your English name?

Teller: Yes.

Me: What’s your Chinese name?

Teller: Wing Tak.

Me: How do you get “Edwin” from “Wing Tak”?

Teller: It make sense to me. Ed-WIN. WINg Tak.

Me: I think that’s a bit of a stretch.

Teller: It sounds okay to me. But “Jose” and “Joey”? No.

Me: You get the internet on that other terminal there?

Teller: Yeah. That’s just PC.

Me: Could you do me a favour? Do a Google search — use “Jose” “Joseph” and “names” for search terms.

Teller: [Thinking about it] Okay. But only if it make this quick.

The teller Googles and finds this page.

Teller: Ay-yah! “JOSE: Spanish form of Joseph, ‘God increases.'”

Me: So can I deposit the cheque?

Teller: Sure. Let me put note in your file so this problem not happen again.

Me: Thank you.

Teller: You know, this cheque will be held by Royal Bank for…

Me: …twenty-five business days. I know.

Teller: Oh, and tell your housemate to get bank with name that not sound like bullshit.

I just got a PayPal account — I think I’ll have Paul pay me his share of the rent that way.

It’s in my other blog. Check it out.