Skip The Budgie

That looks like it's going to be a café au lait. What? Coffee with milk? You're sh1tting me right? How very fscking perceptive of you, and what's your lecturer's salary again?

I spend the day confusing and terrifying potential candidates to support me in my new role as Faculty Timetabler. One guy is your typical, terrified youngster, in way over his head with hardly any experience of anything at all. I remember the days, you know - when you're asked if you use formulae in Excel and you don't know what they're talking about. The days when you can't use examples from your job because all you do is file stuff and move boxes around.

The irony is that the candidate we decide on is chosen not for her experience, but for her potential. Plus out of all of them I feel that I will most likely have a laff with her, as opposed to our other favourite, who would probably be fairly boring, although pretty good at the job.

So ends my first foray into the seedy world of interviewing. I am terrible. I have three questions:

1. How much do you use computers at work (or at home)?
2. • Incorporating such joys as what software etc, you fool?
3. Can you give an example of how you would deal with organising and collecting large volumes of data?
4. • I doubt I could answer this, it's a rubbish question - no-one actually gave us a proper answer, but I was told to ask it...
5. What has been the most complex thing you've done using IT?
6. • Ooh I don't know...

My personal favourite candidate is vetoed out of hand for some silly reason and no, it's not because she is young and beautiful - none of them are - but obviously I'm not in a position to divulge such sensitive information.

In fact the end decision is pretty much a whitewash, one panel member overrides everybody else until we all agree with her, but at least she sort of makes me feel like I have a say in things. We'll see how things go.