[Publib] Belated Friday: Favorite Interview Questions

[Joe Schallan]

My favorite interview questions:

1. Your well-equipped janitor's closet
contains cup, bell, and taze plungers.
Which is the best to use on the clog in
the toilet in the women's restroom?

2. On which day is your OPAC server most likely
to crash?  How likely is it that your system
administrator will be available to fix it?

3. More is understood about the behavior of
subatomic particles than about the behavior of
HVAC. If the building thermostat is set to
72 F., what is the temperature in the staff
workroom?

4. You have missed the deadline for a project
for your director.  Where is the best place
to hide from her?

5. A patron is disgusted and can't believe
that your branch library doesn't have a
book she needs, and wonders what she is paying
taxes for. What is the book she can't
believe you don't have?

6. How many badges and/or IDs do you need to
wear to get people to stop asking if you
work here?

7. What is the most universally useful tool
for working on library computers?

8. What, with 100-percent certainty, is the
least busiest time on the reference desk?

9. It is two minutes until closing. A patron
tells you he just needs to print a few pages
from the computer. How many pages does he
need to print?

10.  A patron sits down at a public PC and
logs on, and is immediately confronted by
a desktop littered with pornographic images
left by the previous user.  Who is the
astonished patron's employer?

- - - - - - -

ANSWERS

1.  The bell plunger.

2.  Saturday. There is no likelihood that
your system administrator will be
available to fix it, because he is attending
a SysAdmin Conference in Saskatoon.

3.  49 degrees F.

4.  Any public service area.

5.  Green, Samuel S., Frederick Taylor, and
Alma Werfel, MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF MEMBRANE
PERMEABILITY FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH TERATOGENIC
AROMATIC HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS, Berlin and New
York: Academia Arcana Press, 2007, 1437 pp.,
$495.00.

6.  The number of badges needed for the desired
effect is not known.  Experiments conducted
in a double-blind study at the University of
Washington I-School involved as many as 37
badges on a single librarian, with no
discernible decrease in the frequency of
"do you work here" inquiries.

7.  A dinner knife. ("Letter opener" or "jumbo
paper clip" also acceptable.)

8.  Whenever a manager appears, especially one
with authority to fund or defund your position.

9.  He needs to print 178 pages, most of them
in PDF with heavy graphics.

10.  The astonished patron's employer is the
city council.  If he does not work for the city
council, then he works for the local FOX
television affiliate, or is a close relative
of Dr. James Dobson.



Feel free to use!

--Joe Schallan, Phx



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