Company car trauma

My mom called to make a reservation to use a company car for a business trip. The response was something along the lines of "you can if one's available then". She thought it was an odd answer as she was booking it quite far in advance, so it was unlikely anyone else had already reserved it. Later she talked to someone else, and the information she received explained everything.

The company had hired a new person to be the courier for the organization. The person had been texting and driving (illegal in our state and downright dangerous of course), caused an accident, and totaled the car. Did she get fired? Of course not. They instead let her use the other company car to perform her duties. Any guesses what happened next? If you said "she was texting and driving and wrecked that car too", you are correct. They did finally fire her after that.

A lawsuit waiting to happen

Friday my coworker was part of the interview team for an IT Manager position. One of the interview questions was a very good one-"Have you ever made a hiring mistake, and if so, what did you learn from it?". Here's what the candidate said:

"I hired an older guy (flag #1) who was (insert protected racial class here aka flag #2). He wasn't getting the job done, but management wouldn't do anything because they were scared he'd play the race card. I learned you need to hire younger people."

Wow. My coworker called it "the interview of the century". After the interview was over and the candidate had left the room, the hiring manager said "This guy will land us" and my coworker ended with "in court". A word on the interview team- all 3 people are over 40 (the threshold for age discrimination law) and my coworker is the same ethic group mentioned in the candidate's response. In addition to this gem of an interview response, the candidate used profanity throughout the interview. As you can imagine, we'll not be hiring him.

Bonus interview story from Friday: I was doing interviews for another position, and a candidate tried to hug me!

Floating is great for the pool but not as a life strategy

In July we were conducting interviews for an entry level professional position at one of our facilities. When I saw the candidate I'm about to describe, I was done. She was wearing shorts and sandals that were only 1 step up from flip-flops. This was definitely a predictor of things to come.

After the interview, one of the interview team said "That's a situation where you think should I rush through the interview or use it as a chance to practice your interview skills." Talking with her we learned that she was 27 (One of the interview questions for this position was "Tell us where you see yourself in 10 years." As part of her answer she said "Wow, I'll be 37.") In 27 years she had managed to:

- Get her associates degree 

- Work 3 years at entry level jobs

That's it. Oh yes, and she's not working now. She lives with her boyfriend and her dog (again, she volunteered this information), so I suppose he's supporting her. The hiring manager said "At 27 I had my engineering degree (bachelor's), was married with 2 kids, and was working 2 jobs." I myself at 27 had a bachelor's degree, had been working a professional job for 4 years and living fully self-funded on my own for 3 years.

I did feel sorry for her in one regard. The day the interview took place was one of the hottest days of the year. When I initially greeted her, I asked her how she was doing. She said not well since the a/c in her car had just died. The poor thing's face was red as a beet. When I was telling my brother the mechanic this story he said "It helps to have a job to pay to fix your a/c." He's not wrong.

When I got home from work I called my mom and left her a voicemail that said "I want to thank you and Dad for not letting us float through life." Of course, she had to call me to hear what prompted this appreciation on my behalf. She, of course, cracked up, and added "Maybe the dog will get a job".

Morale of the story: Floating is great for the pool. It is not, however, a great life strategy.

Weird things that break when your car is old

My daily driver is over 20 years old. Obviously as a car gets older and higher in miles you have to replace things like tires, breaks, belts, etc. However, this year I've had three things break that I've never seen before.

First it was the flasher relay. If, like me before this happened, you have no idea what this, don't feel badly. I'll tell you the primary symptom you'll most likely notice: no turn signal indicators- no lights on your dashboard or the clicking sound when you activate them. My brother the mechanic walked me through the troubleshooting steps: Do your flashers work? No. Do your break lights work? Yes. Thus, he narrowed the likely problem down by phone. Since this is quite the safety issue, I had this repaired quickly.

Not long after I got that fixed, my driver side window would no longer roll more than halfway down. This is really more of an inconvenience than an urgent issue, so I drove it like this for a while. Thankfully this vehicle has manual windows, so it was a pretty simple and inexpensive repair. Fun fact- the car is so old the only place my brother could find the window regulator was at a junkyard.

The most recent item happened this week. I got a new battery for this vehicle on Sunday after it conked out last Friday. Tuesday morning I got in it to go to work and nothing happening. No lights when I turned the key, no low battery clicking sound, just nothing. I was really steamed about this. I just bought a brand new battery, and I'm dead in the water again. I got in my other car and headed to work, fuming as I drove. When I got home I got ready to jump the dead vehicle so I could take it to the auto parts store and have both the battery and alternator tested. As I looked at the battery I noticed the positive cable clamp seemed really high, so I pushed it down before I got the jumper cables. As soon as it was back in its normal position I heard a clicking noise. I got into the car and found out that sure enough, that was the problem. When I looked closely at the clamp, this is what I saw:

It's cracked, thus it doesn't hold the cable on tight. This same thing happened to me a couple of other times this week. Frustrating, but easily remedied in the short term. I did some temporary securing of the cable yesterday, and I'll have the clamp replaced eventually.

Driving old cars can save you a lot of money with no payments, cheaper insurance, and inexpensive registration. It also gives you the opportunity to learn about weird things that go can awry.

What a difference a detour makes

Once of the main roads I use to get to and from work is down to 1 lane for about a half mile due to construction. A half mile isn't much, but the backups it causes are horrendous. There is a back way I can use, but of course that is closed entirely for another construction project. Happy happy joy joy. After taking around 20 minutes to move a mile on the way to work week before last, I decided something had to give before my sanity did. There is an alternate route for the back way that is currently closed. I had tried it before and somehow got turned around. I was now desperate enough to try again.

The next morning I set out a few minutes early with my trusty GPS. Lo and behold, I didn't even need it. The detour was very well marked, and the route was great. It goes through a developing industrial park, and there is no traffic. On the way home that day I found an even better route that is now my daily way to work and back. It is so nice to just get in my car and drive. No traffic, just cruising along. An additional bonus is this route has 1 stop sign between me and the interstate. My normal route from that point has 5 stop lights. The new route is slightly longer but much more pleasant. What a difference a detour makes.

Cranberry Muffins

On the weekends I like to have homemade baked goods for breakfast. Since I live by myself, that means I need to make them. Week before last I was thinking about what to make for my upcoming weekend breakfasts. I saw some frozen cranberries in the freezer and thought "cranberry muffins". A bit of Googling led me to this recipe from Ocean Spray. Here is the finished product:

I made the following changes to the recipe:

1. I used an entire bag of cranberries, so more than 2 cups

2. I substituted white whole wheat baking flour instead of all purpose

3. I added Splenda in place of sugar

They are delicious- they have a nice tartness and aren't overly sweet. They also freeze well. I definitely recommend whipping up a batch for your weekend breakfast.

Instant perspective

Yesterday I was talking with a friend who works at one of my former employers. She mentioned that they recently granted long tenured staffers an additional week of vacation. As one of those employees, she now gets 5 weeks of vacation per year. I told her I was jealous. She immediately put things into perspective for me by asking: "Would you rather have 5 weeks vacation or be somewhere else?" I immediately said "Someone else". I'd love to have 5 weeks of vacation, but no way would it be worth working there to get it.