Month: November 2006

For whatever reason, I have found myself involved in a number of search committees over the years. I rather like it, but I always feel responsible to the organization to make sure that I’ve done my due diligence.

Here’s some things I’ve learned over the years:

Be on time, or a few minutes early. If they’re scheduling back-to-back interviews, it’s likely that the latecomer will get the short shrift.

If you go into an interview, they ask you what you know about the organization, and you reply, “Not much”, they’ve already decided to pass on you, even if they talk to you another 30 minutes. Look at the website of the company you’re seeking to work for.

Interviewers really like it when you remember their names. Writing them down is O.K., if your memory is poor in that regard (and they have seven people in the room!)

If they tell you they’re hiring for a particular time frame, and you tell them you’re available in that time frame, and then you decline because you’re really not, you’ll tend to really tick off the interviewers for a good long time.

Don’t be surprised to hear the standard interview questions such as, “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” You might seriously consider at least mentally preparing an answer for that one.

In general, answer the questions you are asked, rather than the one you want to have asked. But don’t go on too long.

Certain foods should be avoided before an interview, foods that can land on one’s clothes or stay in one’s breath.

If you seem bored at the interview, assume your boredom is contagious.

There’s a subtle difference between looking people in the eye and staring them down; one is good, the other, not so much.

Confident is good; cocky – “I’ve already got THIS job sewed up” – is not.

There are lots of places with Job Interview Tips. Consider actually using them.

Only recently had I heard about Performance Based Interviewing. This includes sample questions that are dependent on the level of the job.
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Ed Bradley of “6o Minutes” was cool. No, it’s not because of the earring, or the huge ‘fro he had as a younger reporter.

It was because when the CBS News reporter did certain stories with musicians or other creative people – his piece on Lena Horne was his favorite – you felt the affection he felt for the artist and the respect the artist had for him. Yet he could also do the hard news interviews, such as Timothy McVeigh, with directness and passion. Ed never seemed full of himself, unlike some in the news industry.

To the voters, disgusted with negative ads: You may not know that in 1800 Thomas Jefferson’s opponents claimed that the anti-Federalists would “burn churches and murder opponents” to get the White House. So, those promises that negative campaigning will go away? Don’t believe ’em.

To Donald Rumsfeld: I’m sorry, Mr. Secretary. This will sound harsh, and probably ageist to boot, but when I’d see you on those Sunday morning news programs, you’d use words, but they didn’t SAY anything. I started to think of you as a doddering old fool. So, enjoy your retirement. Here are some well wishers.

To the President of the United States: Your ability to baldly prevaricate about Rummy’s status in your administration, even as you were planning his departure, gives me some…apprehension.

To What’s-His-Face: THANK YOU, THANK YOU for your attack on Michael J. Fox. You’ve gotten Democrat Claire McCaskill elected Senator from Missouri.

To Michael J. Fox: THANK YOU, THANK YOU for your classy response to What’s-His-Face.

To Tennessee Republicans: Thank you for reminding us that race still matters in America. (Wink, wink.)

To Nancy Pelosi, incoming Speaker of the House, and third in line to the Presidency come January: I’m happy for you. You wrangled Democrats to have some party discipline. My wife, I must say, is THRILLED with your upcoming new job, as I suspect many women (and men) are.

To Howard Dean, chair of the DNC: Congratulations on the 50 State Strategy, without which the Democrats would never have won the Senate in 2006.

To Bernie Sanders: Congratulations on your election to the Senate, the only independent. (Joseph Lieberman belongs to the Connecticut for Lieberman Party).

To Congressman-elect John Hall (D-NY, via Orleans): I read that you didn’t want to play your guitar much in public during your campaign, for fear that people wouldn’t take you seriously as a candidate. Well, go play your guitar, since it’s a stress reliever for you.

Do you ski? Since you are now going to be in the tradition of singer-songwriter-politician Sonny Bono, PLEASE be careful around trees.

To the press release: a belated 100th birthday!

Yet, I’ve never actually been interested in actual cars, and I don’t know cars. Few questions do I duck if I can at work, but ones about motor vehicles -unless it involves statistics or regulations – tend to make M.E.G.O.

At least when I was a kid, I knew that all the Chevy cars started with C, such as Chevette and Corvair, and even I knew that Ford made the Mustang (“ride, Sally, ride”). Now, if you give me a car model, my chance of correctly identifying the make is about 1 in 5. Maybe. I loved the VW Beetle because it was SO easy to identify – the old one, not the new one – but I knew people who could tell the difference between the 1964 and 1966 model, e.g., unfathomable to me.

My wife has had this 1997 Ford Taurus since she was working for a credit union association, traveling all over the Northeast. When she left in early 1999 to go back to school – and not so incidentally, to get ready to marry me – she bought the car with 50-something thousand miles on it. It continued to serve her, and us, well.

But somewhere north of 120,000 miles, small things started taking place. First, a lot more dings, and a little rust, then more substantial things (don’t ask me what – she told me, but I have no memory of car stuff).

So, it came to pass that Carol found herself in the market for another car this fall, when a series of knocks, electrical problems, and notably a gas leak would cost about $2000 to fix.

My wife began studying cars with the passion I associate with a horse racing handicapper. Not one generally known as one to use the Internet, except as it specifically applied to her job, she was spending so much time online that it was becoming difficult for me to even blog. (Horrors!) She looked at Carfax, the Kelley Blue Book Cars.com, Enterprise Car Sales, plus dealers’ websites.

She went to at least three dealers, test drove at least a half dozen cars. She asked if I wanted to go along. Not particularly. I DID care about how much it would cost, but she is the far better fiscal agent in the household, so I pretty much trusted her to determine what kind of car she wanted and whether we could afford it.

Ultimately, in September, she bought her first non-American car. Truth is, I simply cannot remember the model with remembering that it has something to do with Bryan Ferry – oh yeah, the Avalon. By whomever. And it’s a good car.

There’s a part of that old Taurus that I think Carol misses, though. And even I was a little sad to discover that the Taurus is no longer being made. How the most popular car turned into an automotive also-ran would be astonishing to me if I understood cars at all.

14. Detroit – Yeah, I know it has the second-highest murder rate, after St. Louis, but when I went there in 1998, to visit a friend, I went to the Motown Historical Museum, a bunch of Henry Ford-related exhibits, and got to see a rather desolate Tigers Stadium before it was torn down.

13. Cleveland – When I went in 1998, it was a LOT cleaner than I would have imagined. Loved the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and to be able to see into the Jake, when the city’s baseball team used to sell out for the whole season.

12. Boston – Even though I’ve had some problems there, I enjoy the whole historic Revolutionary War thing. Last there in 1994.

11. Philadelphia – Haven’t been there in 25 years, though I went down several times between 1975 and 1981, as a matter of affairs of the heart. I’m a sucker for the Liberty Bell.

10. Concord, NH – A lovely little city that Carol and I visited in 2003, and did the historic touristy thing.

9. Galveston – It’s an old rundown city, but I have wonderful memories of waking up at 5 a.m., and watching the tides thunder in towards the piers. Also enjoyed the conference in 1995 tremendously.

8. Madison, WI – Went to a conference there in 1988, organized by Capital City, the comic distributor at the time. There were beautiful little lakes abounding. Reminded me a little of Ithaca, NY, a college town I enjoy visiting.

7. San Diego – A bit of a surprise for me, in that I used to HATE the place, when I’d tool around the place in a car, having no sense of where I was. But since they’ve installed light rail that goes practically to Tijuana, my respect for the old Spanish charm outweighs the generally conservative political climate (and boring 72 degree meteorological climate). Been there several times – my sister lives in the area – most recently in 2005.

6. New Orleans – I’ve only been there once, in 1995, but had a grand time with some folks from Michigan. A decadent place; I mean that in a good way.

5. New York City – Considering it’s only 150 miles away, I don’t go there nearly as often as one would think. As a kid, I was down there all of the time visiting relatives, and family was the motivation for two of my last four visits; another was to see a Broadway show, and the last time was to go to an antiwar demonstration in February 2003. I lived in Jackson Heights, Queens for four months in 1977, and I would take the subway often, just to see where it would take me.

4. Washington, DC – I’ve been to Washington a lot, once as a kid doing the tourist thing, then several times at demonstrations (antiwar, antinuke, an anniversary of the 1963 March). Most recently in 1998 to take the JEOPARDY! test, to do the tourist thing again – notably the FDR Memorial – and to visit friends.

3. Portland, ME- Carol and I went there in March 1999 and got snowed in. We really enjoyed a movie and lunch place, but generally, it was the whole nautical feel of the place.

2. Savannah, GA – I went to a work conference in 1998 or 1999, and my father drove down from Charlotte, NC and we got to just hang out with a few of my friends, walking around the historic city – easy access by foot to a lot of interesting places, eating good food, and having a great time. My father seriously thought of moving there.

1. San Francisco – Only been there once, with my sister Leslie, in 1987 or 1988, but I remember traveling all over the area on the BART, seeing Chinatown, taking a cable car, and looking down Lombard Street, about which Bill Cosby did a famous routine I used to listen to as a kid: “They make Lombard Street go straight down, but they’re not satisfied with you killing yourself that way. They put all these twists and curves in there. Then they put flowers in the road where people have killed themselves [trying to drive down].” Though not in the city, I did get to go to the Oakland Coliseum that year and see the A’s play.
I like the area, too. My niece graduated from Berkeley a couple years ago, so some of the family got to hang around there.

I noticed – no surprise – that most of these places are on bodies of water. Must be the Piscean thing.

So, I took one of those online tests and got this:

Anyway, when you’re behind in reading the newspaper, people say to you, “Oh, I read that thing you wrote in the paper,” and I say, “Say what?” The local paper has this Times Union Reader Network, and seven of us had our answers printed: “The most important race is the 20th Congressional District between U.S. Rep. John Sweeney …and Democratic challenger Kirsten Gillibrand – alas, not in my district – because it’s a competitive race, a lot more so than I would have imagined, which may influence whether the Democrats will capture the House.”
This is a particular nasty race, in which the incumbent is, among other things, indicated in ads that his opponent is getting 88.4% of her campaign moneys from outside the district. Assuming that this is true, what percentage of HIS campaign money is coming from beyond the district? Truly, it’s easy to imagine that most of the money to BOTH campaigns are coming from outside. Look at the map, and you’ll see Albany, Schenectady and Troy just west of that indentation. With no competitive race in their/my district, those people who are seeing these ads are likely contributors to one or another candidate in the neighboring CD, not to mention the national Congressional campaigns from both parties. I won’t even get into the 911 call that Sweeney’s wife apparently made last December that the Sweeney camp is claiming the Gillibrand camp leaked to the press. Oh, here’s another take on this race (Nov. 2).

I also wrote in the paper: “The most important issue is whether the Republicans can hold onto the state Senate. Based on his recent pouting, I sense the majority leader fears that this will not be so.”

Then there’s a school board election tomorrow here in Albany as well as the more visible races. In New York State, most school boards are elected in May, along with the vot on the budget. But in Albany, while the school budget, the library budget, and the library board are voted on in May, the school board race can get buried in the larger races of November.

So who to vote for? It happens that my wife heard one candidate, Mark Barth, speak, and she was very impressed. Then I find myself easily influenced by people who are involved, such as my friend Leah, who sent out a gushing endorsement for Mark Barth. Then my friend Leif noted that all the right yards (i.e., the lawns of the progressive folks in town) have Mark Barth signs. So, sometimes, I cede finding out all I can and end up up voting for people who people I trust recommend. Here’s one good example of that. Still don’t know who ELSE I’m going to vote for (3 candidates for 2 positions).

Also, Pete Seeger called to urge me to vote for the Working Families Party. O.K., his recorded voice. I will, but it’s not because of Pete. Eliot Spitzer is cross-endorsed on the WFP, a peculiarly NYS thing, cross-endorsements. The number of votes each party gets determines the ballot position for the next four years. More importantly, it determines whether a political party is actually a recognized party or not. This is why the Green Party ran Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis for governor in 1998, not because he would win, but because he would likely assure that the party would automatically be on the ballot from 1999 to 2002; he did. (The 2002 gubernatorial candidate didn’t get 50,000 votes, but I think the Greens took some sort of legal action to stay viable.)

Tony Bennett also “called” me, to get me to vote for Hillary Clinton. Sorry, Tony, I have a number of your albums, I saw you at Tanglewood a few years ago with Diana Krall, but I think I’ll be voting for a minor party candidate this year. Thanks anyway, Tony.

So, right now, I’m voting for 6 or 7 WFPs, 2 Greens, and 1 Democrat. Still don’t know who I’m voting for in the comptroller’s race, the incumbent Democrat Hevesi, who may be forced to resign for his improprieties, or Callaghan, the Republican, who all my friends in the know think would be TERRIBLE. The rationale for voting for Hevesi is that he (they fervently hope) would resign after being re-elected, or failing that, removed. In any case, the Democrats would be able to replace him. The technical word for this is YUCKY.
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Your Vote Score: 26% Republican, 74% Democrat

While you don’t always agree with the Democrat party, it’s a pretty good match for you. Do be sure to research each candidate. A liberal Republican or independent candidate might fit you better at times.