anupturnedsoul

SYW: I refuse to answer that question…

Imagine that you’re almost at the end of a job interview and things have been going rather well, all the questions have been answered with professional expertise, the other person seems…

Well, that’s just it, that’s what’s bothering you…

What if they’re not who they seem to be?

The interviewee has answered all the questions which you’ve asked them rather too expertly and professionally as though they knew what they were going to be asked and they had researched to find the exact correct answers to give, practiced their routine… they appear a little too perfect.

What if their appearance is deceiving? What if they’re not who they say they are?

What would they say if you asked them: “Are you who you say you are?“

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer”

― Douglas Adams

What happens if you hire them and they turn out to be the employee from hell? Or just not right for the job.

What if you ask them a question or two which they couldn’t possibly have predicted they would be asked and therefore they couldn’t have researched and practiced to give the right answers?

  

  

Or maybe you’re interviewing prospective candidates for a date.

You’ve been on some terrible dates, had some scary experiences… and those people had at first seemed fun, friendly, perfect, not psychos at all until…

   

  

and so afterwards you decided to ask the people you met a few questions they weren’t expecting to see how they’d handle what they hadn’t prepared for in front of a mirror over and over again.

Of course there is that tiny matter of the flip side…

If you ask an interviewee an unusual and unexpected question, they may run away from you screaming, think you’re a psycho, decide that you were not who you seemed and appeared to be, they don’t want to work for an unprofessional nutcase like you…

but then again they might date you because if you’re a freak in speech you may also be freaky between the sheets.

  

  

If you’d like to use some unusual questions in your interviews, but can’t think of any to ask and don’t know where to find such weird things, don’t panic…

Melanie of Sparks From A Combustible Mind has collected a few for you in Share Your Thankful World. Thank you for sharing, Melanie 🙂

  

  

Are you an Early to bed, early to rise person, a night owl and day sleeper/dozer, or an ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’ person?

This may not seem like an unusual question, but… that’s its genius. Ask an innocuous question and a person will relax their guard. This one is easy peasy to answer – they’ll innocently think.

Knowing about someone’s routine may help you stay on the side of that matter of life or death which you prefer.

  

  

What are some misconceptions about your hobby, should you have a hobby?

Perhaps there are some people who really should not have hobbies…

  

  

…or perhaps we’ve just not taken the time to understand what it is they actually do as a hobby, and our views and opinions of their hobby are…

“…just faulty logic postulated on imperfect data collection.” – Alice Morgan, Luther.

  

  

“That’s something we all do, isn’t it, in the end? Judge who’s worth more than whom?” – Alice Morgan, Luther.

A penguin walks through the door right now wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he here?

I did a bit of research on this question, and apparently the right answer to give when someone asks this of you is:

“My penguin is going to come in the door and say, ‘You should hire Amanda – she’s organized and she has her stuff together. You want her to lead your team,“

Uh, yeah, but what about the sombrero?

“He had a margarita before he came in!“

– cheat sheet answer via HITC: 25 of the most outrageous interview questions

Okey dokey… but whoever asked me that question might be a bit stumped by the fact that my name isn’t Amanda.

Which means I’m actually recommending that they hire someone else called Amanda.

Gosh, I’m a rather magnanimous person!? Or that might be a Machiavellian move… or a really stupid one on my part if I genuinely want to be hired as the office engineer at Clark Construction Group (considered to be the original source of that penguin question).

However if I was the interviewer and Amanda said that to me… I wouldn’t hire her, especially not after that margarita bit.

So, Amanda, let me get this straight, a penguin who has been wasting away in Margaritaville, nibbling on sponge cake while searching for his lost shaker of salt, has recommended you to lead my team… at Clark Construction Group we’re committed to safety above all else, and that penguin blew out his flip-flop, stepped on a pop top and cut his heel. Sorry, Amanda, you’re just not quite who we’re looking for… Next!

  

  

Aliens have landed…do they come in peace?

We’ll never know because we cut them into pieces to… um… understand them better…

  

  

What are you really incredibly thankful for this week?

“Arthur Dent: What happens if I press this button?
Ford Prefect: I wouldn’t-
Arthur Dent: Oh.
Ford Prefect: What happened?
Arthur Dent: A sign lit up, saying ‘Please do not press this button again.”

― Douglas Adams

…

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it!

…

  

  

*Featured image comes from The Humor Weakly: Updated Version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy Now Warns Earthlings “DON’T DON’T PANIC”



17 comments

  1. I have a question for you: All you posted (Patrick Bateman, Alice Morgan, Hannibal Lecter, Oswald Cobblepot The Penguin, and Zephod Beebelbrox) were at a dinner party you hosted, what would be their conversation?

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    • Haha 😀 Omg, Scherezade, you have a wonderful mind, that’s such a Mad Hatter’s tea party question!

      Well, let me see now, I reckon Patrick, Alice, and Hannibal would probably be silent, staring and glaring at each other and the others. Waiting to see… observing, sizing the others up, thinking thoughts but not quite ready to share or give themselves away.

      Oswald would either be sulking or yapping away nervously – but is he really nervous or is it just an act?

      Zephod, since he’s not human, wouldn’t be the slightest bit bothered or all that interested in the others and their human nonsense, and would be channeling words just to hear them come out of his mouth, he’d be his own entertainment system. And he’d most likely say something like this: “If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.” (― Douglas Adams).

      Since I’m the host… I would probably be wondering how on earth I ended up hosting this party because I don’t recall having sent out invitations or even having the idea that I should host a dinner party. Maybe it’s all in my imagination and I’ve finally lost the ability to distinguish between imagined and real.

      But since I’m also an INTP, I’d most likely get up to some verbal shenanigans just to see what happens if…

      And also because I’m an INTP, there’s no food or drink except stale bread and tap water… so I give you a quick call on the bat-phone, trying not to get mad at you for getting me into this bizarre mess as I know you only did it to see what would happen if and I love you for that even though… why aren’t you here or are you… hmmm… are those your eyes peeking out from behind the painting on the wall?

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      • HAHAHA…yes definitely I would be peeking and laughing my tail off😂😂😂 But somebody needs to watch Alice though, she definitely likes to pit weird sharps in people’s food. LOVE YOUR ANSWER!!

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  2. The image of Louis… Tristan is so much like Louis i. This is one of the memorable movie I still have in my memory 😖

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    • That is one of the few films I’ve seen more than once – saw it twice at the cinema. Loved the book too! I also felt a bond of recognition with the Louis character. My favourite character in the film though was Kirsten Dunst as the child vampire, she was superbly acted and portrayed.

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  3. Priceless. Truly the most innovative Share Your World I’ve EVER seen…..amazing!! Thank you for participating!! (and as an odd little side bar: I had a co-worker named Amanda and she was the candidate for top two face b*tch of the ENTIRE PLANET. Evil, evil, evil. Now if I’d ever been in a position to interview folks for some job or other, and their name happened to be Amanda (or Debbie) — guess what? NEXT PLEASE. Thanks for playing. No job for YOU!) I enjoyed your use of Hitchhiker’s so much, I’m re “pressing’ this so others can come, read and be amazed. 🙂

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    • Thank you very much, Melanie 🙂 Love your SYW’s and I had great fun doing this one!

      Haha! It’s weird the way one person can ruin a name by giving us a bad association with it. I only can remember meeting one Amanda, she was a bit like a character out of a P.G.Wodehouse novel. She was rather fierce, brusque, but very kindhearted. I’ve met quite a few Debbie’s they’ve all been rather different perhaps because they used different versions of the name (as in Dee, Deborah, Debs, etc).

      Luckily I’m very forgetful… except when I’m not 😉

      I did once online-meet someone with the same name as me (my real name not my nickname which I use on my blog) who inspired in me a desire to slap them… but then I realised that I’ve been like that person too. It’s weird when we meet someone who is similar to who we were in the past, it makes disliking people difficult 😉

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  7. I have lately turned from interviewee to interviewer. It’s interesting to be on the other side of the fence and already encountered those overly practised responses. Told me I needed to change up the file questions. 🙂

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    • It’s strange isn’t it, when you cross over to the other side and suddenly have a new perspective on a familiar scenario. I think the practised responses show that someone has put in the work to research what is expected of them so it’s a sign of someone who puts in the effort to do a job, and try to do it properly. It also shows that they want the job, which is a good sign. However it’s also useful to throw them a curveball as it shows who they are when the unexpected happens, and the unexpected happens quite a bit on the job.

      Have you added any questions which reveal possible N traits?

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      • Agreed. It does show someone who has done a lot of work to prepare and has put in extra effort. I’ve done that myself. But I had also thrown a couple of questions of my own invention into the file the day before and the candidate fell apart completely on those. They were questions that should have been relatively easy to answer. Made me a little suspicious.

        I am adding narcissist revealing questions; questions that should highlight empathy. Hard to get them right although I’ve been doing some research on it.

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