Saturday, October 18, 2014

The Contradiction that is a Job Interview

I'VE seen this happen time and time again over the decades ----- People landing jobs simply because they do well at job interviews.

All too many employers seem confused and seem to the think that just because someone does well at a job interview process, then they are the best one to hire for a job.

Hello! Unless you are hiring someone to actually do job interviews, that's the fallacy of all too many job interviews today.

I've never been that good at job interviews and in the past some of my references have had to ask my future employer -- "Do you want someone who can do the job you are hiring for well, or do you want someone who is good at sitting through job interviews?"

The two aren't always the same.

Some people have outgoing personalities and seem to always do well at job interviews, even if they aren't the best candidate for the job in actual fact.

So, I doubt employers are going to change their thinking and so prospective employees need to "play the game" well and get better schooled at how to pull off a great job interview.  Sadly, being able to do so is more important than just about anything else you can do in landing a job.

-Also, I've wondered if having the talent of being able to "suck up to," or brown-nose people is another factor of why some people get jobs when they are not qualified, or the best qualified.
EXAMPLE" In the past 6 years this woman I know has landed 2 jobs that she was not really that qualified for. Her greatest talent? Being able to suck up to anyone .....

-AND, while I'm talking job interviews --- anyone with excessive or obvious tattoos should note the downside in this: I was talking to a big company executive a while ago. Tattoos came up. He flat out said that if two candidates for job hiring were evenly matched and one had visible tattoos, it is no brainier which person he is going to hire. I doubt he is alone in that opinion.




Thursday, October 9, 2014

Thermal action ever changing Yellowstone, even its roadways

                                                    Fire Hole Falls on Oct. 7, 2014.


YELLOWSTONE National Park is ever changing, as a gigantic ancient, super volcano, that's not dead yet.

Even the park's paved roads are not immune to geothermal effects: Recent example from an official Yellowstone National Park Service (NPS) news release (and yet apparently NOT reported by news organizations): the Firehole Falls Road. 

Back in July of 2014, extreme heat from surrounding thermal areas caused thick oil to bubble to the surface, damaging the blacktop roadway and creating unsafe driving conditions on the popular, scenic, one-way road, located off the Grand Loop Road, just south of Madison Junction in the park’s Lower Geyser Basin.

So, although the one-way (southbound) road did eventually reopen, the Park Service apparently took most of the parking away at the swimming hole area with log fence barriers, just to be safe. Proves, once again, even nature's treasures are fragile.

When I traveled this road in October of 2012, there was parking for a dozen or so cars right by the swimming hole at Fire Hole. Now, October of 2014, there is essentially none, without blocking the road.





The only parking is 400 yards or so to the south or the north of the Fire Hole "pool," so you have to walk.

(Of course, you could block the road, as I almost ran into a woman who unsafely and un-smartley left her car on the narrow, winding Fire Hole road -- and her door open -- to go meander around, as if she was the only one driving the road!!!)

There is only one other official swimming area in Yellowstone: Boiling River. You used to be able to swim there throughout the summer, but never in recent years.

Now Boiling River isn't open for swimming until mid to late summer, when water is lower on the Gardiner River. Even then, it is a half-mile walk from a parking area to the "hole."
Hot and cold water mix here and it is warm, spa-like water there (as I have been there.)

By the way, the NPS claims the Fire Hole Falls swimming area has no direct thermal input to the river there -- that it is just swimming pool temperature water, heated gradually from elsewhere along the river.

-I'm also amazed how little of Yellowstone's weather or thermal effect incidents go unreported by the media.

EXAMPLE: Mid-June of 2010. An overnight ice storm closes the loop road from Tower Falls to Canyon. The road is closed from morning one day, until late afternoon and required an hour-plus detour.
Also, the NPS doesn't tell (or can't readily communicate with) the ranger at the Mammoth/north entrance to the park about the closure. You only found out about this closure by driving to Tower Falls, as I did, and seeing the barriers on the roadway.


                                               Tower Falls.

This also illustrates, communication wise, how poorly Yellowstone Park could handle a true disaster. The park is huge, rustic and apparently lacks a good communication system.