The Orange Hat

In Kiswahili (the language of the Swahili area) the word job has somehow been combined with slang (shang) and turned into the word joobo. I am now “jooboing”it’s the act of doing your job.

After a long night I went to the LC at the university, and attended the MSS… which is like our GPM’s (general participant meetings) in AIESEC but are Member seminar sessions, I was introduced to the LC, and was going to play “Black Betty,” and do the dance, but somehow I don’t have the song! Someone get those to me (a certain Russian). So I did “GT is OK,” and I don’t think they quite got it, but that’s ok. For the rest of MSS there were lots of quizzes, and general learning’s.

Afterwards we went back to the LC and talked about American politics, which Kenyan’s are very interested in. They love to talk about Obama, but also make general comments on our presidential race, they were all tuned into supper Tuesday to see who would win. I’m not sure if it’s a college campus thing, or an anti-bush things, but every Kenyan I’ve met doesn’t like republicans. We were watching CNN international, and a Chinese mystic analysed all the candidates, had positive things to say about democrats (strong features indicates caring), and had good things to say about republicans too…but they also added in “ his completion means he speaks from the hard but his eyes tell me that he is secretive.” [Guess who I’m referring to and you get … a comment of affirmation]. I went into the fact that there are more than just two parties, and what universal health care might actually mean, and how religion is tied in with being elected- it was neat to hear their questions from only watching the news .

After that I had interviews (the work part) for almost 3 hours for 6 candidates. Four people applied for our projects external relations, one for the exchange relations, and one for the content development team, so it’s a bit off when we wanted 3 in each team. Doing all these interviews makes me wish I did more in my LC, because I really enjoyed heading this up with my team to figure out our resources. In terms of man-power. I’ll get into the actual project later in this post (because I think many of you still aren’t quite sure why I’m here), but right now I want to talk just about the interviews.

I only interviewed six people today, and of those six only two really impressed me. I generally think people have a reason for what there are doing, even if it’s just “what I’ve always done,” or “it seemed like fun.” I met some people today who I’m not sure if that holds true. Don’t get me wrong, I believe they will be hard workers and a valuable asset to my team, but I don’t know if they were quite sure why they were there until we laid the question in front of them. Surprisingly enough, I found myself being interview by one of the interviewers and was very impressed when I found out what he was also interviewing me as a manager.

There were three people who interviewed every person; the VP projects director, the VP projects director elect who will take over in July I believe, and myself. A fourth person was present for the team the applicant had applied for -as that project team’s coordinator (there are three of them, so they rotated).

The first applicant had an idea of what he wanted to do, but when asked the simple question of “name any accomplishment you are proud to have successfully completed,” (in terms of projects not high school or college – something you designed) he could only think of a birthday he planned. This could have been a hell of a party, but he didn’t elaborate so I as the interview don’t know. That he could only come up with that as his proudest achievement, was… kinda disheartening as to his abilities, hopefully we can give him more opportunities to enrich his skill box, but it brings up some concern when that is a response.

The second was shy, but solid in his background. Being shy can be a huge disadvantage. I asked him to do a mock sales call for me (elevator speech) in less than a minuet and he didn’t do very well (mind you it could have been much worse), but here are some things to watch out for when you’re in an interview (bad habits you might have).

Do NOT
-put your hands close to your mouth (or in)
-pick your nose (you know what I mean)
-eat
-say “I don’t know” for a whole question without explaining your self
-talk to the point of your interviewer(s) getting board

DO
-LOOK PEOPLE IN THE EYES
-shake hands
-sit up straight
-explain yourself – multi slayable answers are good
-smile
-ASK QUESTIONS AT THE END, and relate back to the interviewers

The third person interviewed just wasn’t a good match, and didn’t feel believable, the fourth talked too long (it’s not funny five minuets later)[we all agreed, he was nice, just needed to cut down on verbiage-and repetition] and actually had a job which would take up most of his time.

The fifth was great. He was charismatic, friendly, and aggressive when it came to questions. There was one question we asked everybody. “Between people, structure, and completion which would you chose?” Everybody but him chose “people.” Which they then defined the most important because you create a structure around them, but it is them, and then the outcome is related to the people- deal with people and you solve the problems, and not ignore people for structures which might not apply or successes which is interdependent. I had heard it enough times to begin to think this was the right answer, not in a bad way, but it’s neat to see how different people answer the same questions. This individual said the structure was the important item, because if say one person left, and there was not structure or foundation to rely on then the asset that they were is no longer useful or obtainable for someone else. He then cited Kenya’s troubles with putting too much power in a person instead of the institution of government, which would allow for transfer of power to another and keep the system alive.

It made everyone in the room happy that he answered like that, not that he new he was different (as far as we know), but that it was outstanding. The following girl (6th) also had a great interview, answered the question the same as everyone else, but that didn’t hurt her it was still well founded, he just shown a little higher.

About the questions though, after #5’s (Johnny #5! – his name is not Johnny) questions were through we asked him if he had any questions for us. He then proceeded to ask how many projects we’d managed, our problems with past projects, and hearing that -what I, as the project manager, was going to focus on first. I had to think for a second, I didn’t expect to be put on spot in an interview I was doing. It was refreshing to say the least. Once I responded, he then told me he thought I was doing it wrong (very politely) and from his experience he would do it this way. This is exactly what I wanted (especially from a subordinate [as long as he follows when the times comes, but that’s a different story-as in not yet made]). He broke the barrier from question answering machine into real person, who made us look at ourselves and think.

It was a very good day, I then travelled home in the rain, Kenyan’s look at me funny I’m used to it, but it’s pretty obvious I stand out. On the other hand, I don’t dress like a lot of the tourist I see who wear what I wore when I got here – light clothing, shorts, hat, sandals. I go to work, and have to dress somewhat appropriately by Kenyan standards, which means always wearing pants, and something with a choler – also means I need to go shopping in the markets for used clothing.

Anyway I got home and had a long conversation with Pesika (or Priska as she sometimes goes by) about the Maasi and their cow, how to kill, gut, and cook a chicken (which she’s going to let me do), same with a fish. We talked about places I need to go in town, how I can take a hot … bath? It’s a bucket of water I splash myself with in the shower, so I don’t know what to call that, but I really don’t like cold showers- this cold, they’re my only weakness (I stayed in a glacier river longer than I was under that shower.. wtf). We also talked about hair, the difference between braids, weaves, and … wigs or something. I’m blissfully ignorant of the importance of all this to woman, but it does look cool (doubt they were going for that word).