Saturday, November 12, 2005

A new students interview

J came to class one day and said he had a friend that was interested in joining. Everyone thought this was a good idea. The men's group was small, only 7 or 8 people. Extra people would be a good thing.

As with my entry to the group, J's friend was going to go thru the interview process. It did not matter that he was a friend of J's. The meeting was set up to be at J's apartment. J, myself, G, L, T and A were all there. We stood around talking and discussing what people would say to the man when he arrived.

The room was set up so that all of us faced J's friend. There was a small table between us for tea. The tea was an icebreaker kind of thing. It was hot tea in a pot with the traditional small japanese cups. Very sophisticated and Asian. ;)

J's friend arrived. I cannot recall his name. He was tallish and thin. I do not want to be rude but geekish might be appropriate. He wore thick black rimmed classes and had his hair cut short in an unfashionable way.

We introduced ourselves and then we all sat down. The purpose of the meeting was to sound the man out for suitabilty to join the group. J and/or L might have made a small speech about what our goals for the meeting were. J's friend was then invited to speak about himself so as to give us an idea of what kind of person he was.

This was the first one of these interviews I had been to. I did not like the adversarial nature nor the testing nature of the interviews. I listened to what the man had to say. I did not think much of it one way or the other. I felt that if he was J's friend, and J was willing to introduce him to us, that the man was a suitable candidate. There was no cause for the interview. The man would have to have been screaming epithets or something equally outrageous for me to reject him.

When he was done, the various men from the group then began to question him. I cannot tell you what any of the questions were. I think most of the other men felt as I did. That the interview process was a formality. That there was no reason to think the man would not be admitted to the group.

The questions ended shortly and the interview adjourned. We all said goodbye to him. Afterwards people remarked that he had not drank any of the tea. This was humorous because I was told that in all the interviews to date, not one of the interviewees had drank the tea. They asked my why I did not drink it. I was too nervous. I was concentrating on the interview. Who wanted a drink?

It was generally agreed that the man was acceptable to us. It was not our decisions really. Dr G. was the instructor who would be training the man. Dr G. was the one who made the decision whether or not the man would be joining or not. The interview process was to verify that the new students could get along with the long time students well enough so that the class could take place harmoniously.

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