Yet another contractor--this one representing the owner's insurance company--walked through our rental house today, taking pictures of the water damage and expressing shock that nothing substantive has been done to take care of the problem. "They didn't drill holes in the walls and blow hot air in?" Nope. "They didn't remove the wet insulation?" No on that, too.
You could probably fill two fat photo albums with the pictures that have been taken in the last two months by various contractors, insurance adjusters, and staff from the property management company. Very little has actually been done to ameliorate the problems, although the living room ceiling and walls now sport five large holes. Those holes, ranging in size from 4x6 inches to 18x72 inches, are covered in clear plastic stapled to the surface, lending the house the ambiance of a lean-to.
Although we've approached the owner about buying this house (lunacy, I know, but we adore our neighbors), we've also kicked our search for a property to buy into high gear. We drove by over 40 houses in the past week, walked through six of them, and have showings scheduled tomorrow for another eight or nine. Of the houses we've toured, only one is even a possibility, mainly because it has a kitchen that looks like something out of a home decorating magazine. (The rest of the house needs updating, unfortunately.)
I had an interview last week for a part-time reference job at a local public library. It was one of the most bizarre interviews I've ever had, in part because the three librarians in the group interview gave no indication that they had ever seen my resume or cover letter. (All the applications went through the city's HR department.) They had a three or four page list of questions that they trudged through as though their lives depended on sticking to the script.
As I told my friend Sheila, who's also a librarian, some of the questions made me think that I was interviewing for the presidency of the American Library Association. "What kinds of Web 2.0 technologies could you use to attract teens to the library?" "How can reference librarians prove that they're still necessary when 85 percent of people say that they just go to Google to get their questions answered?" "From the following list of technologies (which included everything from PowerPoint presentations to wikis and RSS feeds), please tell us which you have worked with and describe how you have worked with them."
By the time they got to questions about traditional library services ("What books would you book-talk for young patrons? Please provide titles for both children and young adults."), my brain was fried. Sheila said that she probably would have walked out mid-interview, and, in retrospect, I probably should have done just that. At least then I wouldn't feel so astounded that they didn't even have the courtesy to send me an e-mail, much less snail mail, thanking me for my time, but notifying me that they wouldn't hire me if I were the last librarian in the solar system.
5 comments:
And, I just had a telephone interview that lasted one hour and forty-minutes. The person who interviewed me very obviously had not read my cover letter or my resume. Really, how long does it take to do that?
And, Katie, actually what I said to you is much easier said than done. I might have been in too much shock to up and walk from your interview!
Sounds to me as if the owner should pay YOU for taking it off his hands!
They'd be crazy not to hire you. I'm glad you sat through the entire interview even though it was aggravating.
Maybe tolerance for stupidity was one of the things they are looking for! In which case, it sounds like you passed with flying colors!
hang in there ms kate...would type more but foxy just sat on the computer.
In this field some are found cheater. Before selecting these, always try to find the review of works done by them.
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