and I'm back.
9 Jun 2011 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigou1. I really hope that wasn't supposed to be authentic Korean food, because if so, bibimbap has about as much taste as rice and vegetables. When the biggest flavor is coming from tofu, I'd say there's something wrong with the picture.
ETA2: I have been reassured I could not possibly have been eating the Real Thing, and I have also been taunted with several mouthwatering recipes. Fortunately, my step-dad spent a lot of time in Korea and knows his Korean food, so maybe when I'm home visiting I'll finagle him into getting us lunch from his favorite little Korean diner. So no fear, I will not remain ignorant forever!
2. It's really fucking hot out there, so I categorically refused to wear black interview slacks. I wore jeans. I did not wear short-sleeves or open-toed shoes, however. I do have my standards.
3. I talked to the recruiter before the interview, and told her that this would be a pointless exercise on my end. Why couldn't I see the work environment? What information could I possibly get from a single person in a restaurant that would give me any idea of whether I would want to work there? Her response: "Actually, that's a really good question."
4. If I do end up taking this contract, the first words out of my mouth may possibly be: "for the love of all that's holy, do not put someone else through that, or at least take the fucking hint when they say they can't make it for lunchtime."
5. The high point: walking to the address and passing a guy on a big fat low Harley. He starts up the engine and immediately the car alarms go off on the little hatchbacks fore and aft of him. And me, my inner 18-yr-old just thought that was awesome.
6. Do I want this contract? Let me put it this way: I have bills to pay, so I wouldn't turn it down. But it's nowhere near the top of my list, either.
7. If that really was authentic Korean food, then I am the victim of a massive PR conspiracy or something.
[Also: apparently when this town says a place has "atmosphere", what that really means is, "we don't have a big television but it'll still be so damn loud you'll need to yell at your lunch partner". Why can't I ever find out these local translations before the fact?]
ETA2: I have been reassured I could not possibly have been eating the Real Thing, and I have also been taunted with several mouthwatering recipes. Fortunately, my step-dad spent a lot of time in Korea and knows his Korean food, so maybe when I'm home visiting I'll finagle him into getting us lunch from his favorite little Korean diner. So no fear, I will not remain ignorant forever!
2. It's really fucking hot out there, so I categorically refused to wear black interview slacks. I wore jeans. I did not wear short-sleeves or open-toed shoes, however. I do have my standards.
3. I talked to the recruiter before the interview, and told her that this would be a pointless exercise on my end. Why couldn't I see the work environment? What information could I possibly get from a single person in a restaurant that would give me any idea of whether I would want to work there? Her response: "Actually, that's a really good question."
4. If I do end up taking this contract, the first words out of my mouth may possibly be: "for the love of all that's holy, do not put someone else through that, or at least take the fucking hint when they say they can't make it for lunchtime."
5. The high point: walking to the address and passing a guy on a big fat low Harley. He starts up the engine and immediately the car alarms go off on the little hatchbacks fore and aft of him. And me, my inner 18-yr-old just thought that was awesome.
6. Do I want this contract? Let me put it this way: I have bills to pay, so I wouldn't turn it down. But it's nowhere near the top of my list, either.
7. If that really was authentic Korean food, then I am the victim of a massive PR conspiracy or something.
[Also: apparently when this town says a place has "atmosphere", what that really means is, "we don't have a big television but it'll still be so damn loud you'll need to yell at your lunch partner". Why can't I ever find out these local translations before the fact?]
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no subject
Date: 9 Jun 2011 08:13 pm (UTC)Re: Interview - Ugh. I hope you get the other one!
no subject
Date: 9 Jun 2011 08:20 pm (UTC)Also, that was seriously some of the worst miso I have ever had, and I do at least know good miso. And that stuff was... well, the stuff you add to boiling water tastes better than their miso. Very disappointing.
no subject
Date: 9 Jun 2011 08:19 pm (UTC)http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/bibimbap
That said, last time I made Korean bbq with banchan, I noted that the dishes tended towards the same flavour profile - garlic, chili, spring onion, fish sauce, ginger, sesame oil.
no subject
Date: 9 Jun 2011 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Jun 2011 09:10 pm (UTC)I'd try to make it at home -- the problem is that not knowing what it should taste like, I'd have no idea if I just made something really good or totally screwed it up. (Which would be fine, if it were always me, but knowing me, I'd screw it up and think it tastes good, then try to eat it in a restaurant and not like it at all, and not be able to hide my confusion and end up insulting my hosts, and that wouldn't go well, so best to eat the real thing and learn its good parts instead of eating the fake and not knowing the difference.)
What I want to know is
Date: 9 Jun 2011 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Jun 2011 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Jun 2011 02:27 am (UTC)Did you at least get some kind of idea whether the job would be bearable as a short-term gig?
Also, things got crazy-busy on this end, so I didn't have a chance to reply to your previous note about why bar food was objectionable to you, but until you mentioned the intimate/eroticized aspects of eating with fingers, I hadn't even considered that aspect. Mostly I was just hearing my very proper German grandmother saying, "Civilized people don't eat with their fingers!"
(I eat finger food all the time, having grown up in California, but am very careful not to do so when I'm visiting Germany.)
My favorite Korean dish is spicy pork bulgogi, which my neighborhood restaurant serves on a sizzling iron platter with onions that slowly caramelize as you dig into the paper-thin slices of melt-in-your-mouth sweet chili goodness.
no subject
Date: 10 Jun 2011 02:47 am (UTC)It's not technically contract -- it's C2H, which hasn't fallen in popularity at all. The contract is almost always a formality, and just a way to pay the recruiters/headhunters instead of paying a flat finder's fee. Shrug from me, it's all cash in the end.
It took an older (male) friend pointing out the finger-food aspect to make me sensitive to it. But in a business meeting? I still wouldn't eat with my fingers unless I'm really good friends with everyone at the table. Certainly not in interview.
Eh, doesn't matter anyway. I couldn't hear most of what the guy said. Place was so damn loud. No television, but no soft surfaces, so all the noise bounced -- and we ended up with a table of four almost literally in my freaking lap, and boy were they having a lot of fun! Very noisy. I may not have heard a lot of what the interviewer said, btu I can assure you that at least someone had a lot of fun at lunch today. *eyeroll*
Really so very NOT what I'd ever pick for an interview, and I told the recruiter that afterwards, quite bluntly: "I haven't a clue if I even answered the questions he asked, because I could only catch half of what he said, if that much. And for that reason, I haven't a clue whether I want to pursue the position, because I haven't a clue what they do or what they're really looking for."
What I could understand/catch, sounded more like a sales pitch than a job description, and I really hate getting sales pitches. I just plain hate hype, is what it really is, and I hate feeling like someone's trying to snow me. Thing is, he might not have been snowing me in the parts I couldn't hear... so I have no idea.
Regardless, I have interviews tomorrow, elsewhere, and they're higher on my list. Fingers crossed, especially since we're back to sane professional interviews where food is not involved!
no subject
Date: 10 Jun 2011 03:00 am (UTC)And noooo, that's not how bibimbap is supposed to taste, horrors!
Take it as a bad reflection on the employer's taste in recruiters.
no subject
Date: 10 Jun 2011 03:18 am (UTC)You mean the sales pitch part? No, that was from the employer himself. Recruiters usually take one look at my resume and know I'm pretty much immune to that now. It's only employers -- especially, if not exclusively, young white males -- who try to do the sales pitch crap on me, and I never take it well.
This is so OT but
Date: 10 Jun 2011 06:09 am (UTC)bwahahaha
Date: 10 Jun 2011 06:29 am (UTC)*blamesyoutotallyforruiningtheicon*
Re: bwahahaha
Date: 10 Jun 2011 06:34 am (UTC)*looks innocent*
no subject
Date: 11 Jun 2011 06:26 am (UTC)Yesterday's interview sounds like an absolutely dismal experience, and I hope today's interviews were a bit more professional, at least. Good luck with the job hunt--I find they're usually really draining, with bonus whacks to one's self-esteem.
no subject
Date: 10 Jun 2011 05:35 am (UTC)Now I'm craving Korean. I don't think there's a Korean place within 60 miles of me. Woe.
Speaking of Korean food
Date: 10 Jun 2011 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 10 Jun 2011 08:40 am (UTC)