Penner Family Blog

I’ve been involved with two companies that give formal interviews, both on the giving and receiving end.  Most of you know these; the type of interviews where there are 10 generic questions HR gives you that are loosely related to the job.  Why does HR give the questions rather then the manager doing the interview?  Oh, you have much to learn young one.  This is usually the realm of public sector jobs such as when I worked at the Orange County Sheriff’s Dept.

This is a great example of waste and futility.  For the most part the questions are completely inflexible with little variation for the actual job.  Someone interviewing for a software developer position working on the new accounting system will probably get the same questions as the new website developer.  What does creating financial formulas and graphic design/layout have to do with each other?  Nada.

Because the organization must be fair with each candidate you have to ask each interviewee all 10 questions and are not allowed to ask additional different questions.  This means that each question has to be generic enough to fit all possible situations.

So, I ask, “What large development projects have you worked on?”  The recent college grad replies, “None, I just graduated but I know that I could quickly become an integral part of your development projects. I did have a senior project that lasted 2 months.  I worked with another graduate building an interactive map of the school.”

We’re an inventory/distribution department.  I know that any further questions in this area are completely useless, yet my next question on the list, which I am forced to ask is, “In what ways were you critical to these large projects?”

His reply, “Uh, I wasn’t on any large task, but I know I could play a very critical role.”  Yeah, spin this useless junk if you can.

Next question, “In what ways would you have improved the development of the project?”

College grad, “Uh, I would try to help out where I could.”  Uh-huh.

And on and on.  I can’t even ask about the senior project.  Why?  Because none of the other potential candidates have senior projects which I can ask about.

What do the candidates think of me and my company now?  Wow, what a bunch of unorganized and clearly thick-headed individuals.  Yup!  You’re right, and if you’re lucky enough to work for us, you get to become one of them!

Fortunately, at my last interview where I was on the prospective candidate side, after the barrage of useless questions, “What is your greatest weakness?”, I was informally taken out to lunch by the team I would be working with.  This was just a courtesy, but in actuality, it was the real interview.  This allowed us all to find out more about each other in a very casual environment.  We could talk about past experiences, hobbies, family, etc.

By the way, what was my answer for my greatest weakness? The same canned answer everyone gives, state a weakness that’s actually a strength: “I tend to be a perfectionist.  I may work long hours to make sure that the tasks I am given represent my best quality work.”  Yeah, that was helpful to the employer.  What did they expect?  “I tend to sleep at my desk or play internet video games whenever I don’t think I’m being watched.”

Well, the band seems to be getting a good start. We’ve got a performance next Saturday for a 75th birthday. We’re all pretty excited. The band manager is still looking for some additional singers so I asked Eva about it. She almost exploded when I talked to her. So, she’ll be sitting in with us in a month. Wahoo!

Well, it finally happened.  Our Ford Escort has given up the ghost.

The transmission started slipping a couple weeks ago and Aamco told me the transmission needed to be rebuilt.  They were going to give me a nice discount and do the whole job for no more than $1,900.  Uh, yeah.  And the blue book value of the car was $1,500.  The math just doesn’t make sense.  Also the breaks and the A/C were showing signs of needing service.

So, alas, the search began for a replacement.  I was rather happy with the performance of the Escort.  Eva got it less than a year old back in 1997.  It has 150k miles on it which is much more than all my friends were saying it would last.  So, it’s been a great car but it’s time to move on.

Unfortunately with two kids and Noah starting pre-school soon buying a new car, or a farily new car was not in the budget.  I started looking around for a Honda Accord or Toyota Camry since these are pretty dependable up to 200,000+ miles.  I put feelers out to several friends and family as well as contacted our long standing Honda mechanic and a friend of ours who is a Toyota mechanic.

We prayed a lot about it and finally I told Eva, “You know what?  I’m not going to worry about it anymore.  God knows that we need another car.  He’ll take care of it.”  I stopped praying for an Accord or Camry and I just prayed that God would do what He does best and provide something for us.

We decided that looking in the <$5,000 range was just impracticle.  Potential cars were few and far between at this price and those we did see were definihtely questionable.  So on Memorial day night I called up Jon, our friend at Toyota, and told him that we’re now looking in the $7,000 range.

I got a call around 10:00am the next day from Jon.  His first words were, “Matt, I may be sitting in your next car.”  He was test driving a 1997 Lexus ES300.  A customer had just traded it in and Jon was extremely excited.  The car was pristine.  It had been extremely well maintained and only had 100,750 miles on it.  I told Jon I’d be by the next night to test drive it.

At that time I wasn’t sure if this was really in our budget.  I started to think that maybe I should look at the lower end Camry’s while I was at Toyota.  I also asked God to give me some sort of indication whether this was the car or not.

The car was great!  It’s the same as the 1997 V6 Toyota Camry, but because it’s a Lexus it has all leather interior, power seats, 6 disc CD changer, sun roof, etc.  It was incredible.  It was listed at $9,500, which was a little high but Jon said we could probably work on that.

We talked with the used car manager.  He simply showed hte paper to Jon and said, “We bought it for $5,500 and could probably sell it for $10,500.  I’ll give it to you for $7,500.”  My jaw almost dropped to the floor.  Then Jon said that I had a trade-in.  They looked the Escort over.  The used car manager again said, “Well, we’ll probably get no more than $650 at the auction for it so I’ll give you $850.”  Again, I almost fell over.  This meant that the Lexus I had just drove, which was originally around $9,500, was now $6,650 after the trade-in.  I think this was a pretty good assurance God had picked this car out for me.

I signed all the papers that night and called Eva on the way home to fill her in on teh latest details.  On Saturday morning we picked up the car and traded in the Escort.  It drives like a dream!  I had Jon replace all the belts and as well as the shock supports.  These were the only things it needed.

So, I’m now cruising to and from work in a ‘97 Lexus ES300.  The ride is great and the power is amazing. 

So, thank you God!  A big thanks to Jon for grabbing the car when he saw it, a big thanks to his wife Katie for letting me barrow Jon during all the deal making, and thanks to the friends and family who were looking for cars and keeping us in their prayers.  And, last but not least, a huge thanks to Eva, who is my everything.