Drink

Did you know that about 3.5 million people die every year from dirty drinking water related diseases [source,sanitation, etc]?  World Vision digs wells for communities in need at a cost of about $13,700.00 per well.  Those wells will help get clean water for 300 or so people a day.  Children who used to go collect water may be able to go to school at that point in time or do other essential tasks for their households.  They’re also much less likely to die from water related diseases.

The US federal government has earmarked about $1,000,000,000.00 dollars a year for the TSA to help save people from dying from terrorism.  I know I’ve been on a tear about the TSA in the last few months, but I was beginning to wonder what would happen if we started to think about really saving lives in a very effective, provable way.  What if we stopped funding the TSA with $1 billion and instead moved to a different, less expensive system (that could be more effective)?  What if we used half of that money to dig wells?

That would be about 36,496 wells (possibly too many).  What if we saved the lives for sure?  Those wells (in just one year’s budget) would provide jobs for the well diggers, provide water for people, and help feed through agriculture in some cases, too.  That could be water for up to 10,948,800 people.  This Christmas consider donating to World Vision at the link above to help support water rights.  Also, if you don’t mind me asking, contact your political officials to let them know that the TSA’s invasive scanners are expensive and don’t save enough lives.  Then be thankful for your glass of water.

Detoured

This morning on the way to Abby’s school drop off we had a bit of a shocking experience.  We drove about a mile out of our way to detour around the three lanes that were blocked (the entire northbound side of a 3 lane road).  The police had flares all over the road and many cars were routing elsewhere with a lot of confusion.  Abby was worried she’d be late.  She wouldn’t be my daughter if she didn’t worry about things that were not important 🙂

After dropping Abby off we headed south on the very same road we had to route around.  It turns out that we were not too far behind an accident where a woman was hit by a van.  She was crossing outside of the crosswalk wearing dark clothes.  The driver didn’t see her.  While the woman died the surviving driver will be impacted for days and weeks with great emotional trauma and months and years with emotional trauma.  It was a bit of a shocker as death often is, but it made me think about the families impacted by this massive change to two lives.

This Christmas – aside from thanking God for sending His son – take a moment to love your family.  Take a LOT of moments.  As of now there’s no time traveling so we can’t go backwards and make up for lost time.  My hope and prayers are that the folks who are reading this (and everyone else) would not go through such a huge event, but be grateful for the time you have – tell someone you love them one extra time today.

Tips for Job Interviews

I’ve helped execute a few job interviews for work this last week and I wanted to pass along a few tips for my readers here who for some reason may not have heard these tips:

  1. Only be yourself if that’s good advice.  If you’re really a jerk, don’t be yourself.  Everyone else: don’t be fake.
  2. If the end of each of the answers you have to any number of questions concludes with something like, “…and that’s why I think I’m perfect for this job,” then you’re more than likely not perfect for the job.  That is of course unless they ask you over and over why you’re perfect for the job.  If they are asking that one question over and over you probably have found a job that is not perfect.
  3. If someone asks you to tell them about yourself, tell them briefly about yourself.  Do not tell them almost about yourself, about what your department does, your sex life, or anything else that is either far too explicit or not actually about yourself.
  4. If someone asks you when was the last time you were dishonest at work the correct answer is always one of two things: 1) I am always honest or 2) When I didn’t tell them I was coming to interview for another position.
  5. If you are asked about your career aspirations give something concrete.  We don’t care if you want to be the first person to discover a unicorn’s remains in the mid-layers of the earth’s crust, but we do care that you have a solid, clear answer.  Dancing around the answer to the question because you’re not sure is way worse than saying you’re not sure.
  6. Use Google to determine even more about the company you’re applying at.  In our case knowing roughly what our company produces (besides a tremendous amount of awesome) will get your far with almost all the leadership.  If there’s a product you can touch, find it to touch if at all possible.  If it’s software, install it.  If it is anything you can look at or experience in a safe, legal way – get it and look at it and experience it!
  7. Be ready to give feedback about the product or products you interacted with.  Be nice, though.  A lot of blood sweat and tears goes into different products so ripping into them is worse than just canceling the interview 🙂
  8. Know the key, broader principles that you operate by so that you can address issues you’re less specific with as specifically and effectively as possible.  Example: I know that there are a tremendous number of programming languages that are available today but I’m competent in a few of them and the principles behind good, clean software development apply to all of them.  If I get asked about C# (which I’ve only tinkered with) I can at least tell the person I’m familiar with Java and would be willing to learn C# if the job required it.
  9. Be punctual – don’t be late, but don’t be 30 minutes early
  10. Come prepared with questions for the interviewers.  They’re going to interview you, but return the favor.  Think of a past job that stank because you didn’t have a great relationship with a manager, or you hated a certain process.  Avoid repeat situations by asking questions about specific details that you either are very familiar with or are able to speak to knowledgeably.  This is probably better than a 2 page resume (with too much information on it) for revealing your competency.

What are your tips, readers?