Questions, questions

I had an in-person interview last week, for a product marketing position with a company that’s in the Big Data space. (Yeah, I know: that’s like saying “for a company in Texas”—it covers a lot of territory. But that’s all I’m going to say.)

On the up side, when I pulled out possible outfits to wear, there were a whole lot more interview-worthy garments that I could get into than I could nine months ago, including several suits. So my exercise program is obviously having positive results.

On the other hand—you know, it’s just so hard for me to read how well I’ve done in these situations. Plus—well, if I played poker, which I do not, I wouldn’t want to be at the table with this guy.

He asked me questions like, “What’s the Cloud?” and “How do you define SaaS?” (Software as a Service allows you to use software that’s hosted by the provider, so you don’t have big up-front purchase costs; have all the tsuris of installation on your own, expensive, hardware; or have to employ an IT department to maintain and upgrade it. The Cloud is where you can keep your software and data, so it doesn’t live on your own servers or hard drive, and so you can access it from whatever device you have, from wherever you are.) So far, I was with him.

Then he asked for an example of enterprise SaaS. Well—Salesforce.com; kind of the “duh” answer, but it counts. But then…he wanted an example of consumer SaaS.

Well, blow me—no freaking idea, Jack. I kicked around a couple of possibilities, but I really just didn’t have an answer. I said I was going to go looking for it; but I have to say that I still don’t know. Maybe TurboTax; possibly something like online photo-editing software; personal healthcare record (PHR) portals, perhaps. Some sources tell me Facebook is SaaS, but I’m not seeing it, and the SaaS experts I consulted had mixed opinions on that, too.

Anyway—that’s one horror. But where I really tanked was when he asked, “What do you like to do when you’re not working?”

I hate—no, I loathe talking about myself. I am the dullest dog on the face of the earth (okay, technically, that would be dullest bitch; but that's probably another story, if not an oxymoron). No one wants to know what I do on my own, including myself. My life would put you into a coma; it certainly puts me into one. So I never have an answer prepared for that question. And so I completely screwed the pooch again.

What did I say? Oh, I travel when I can. I’m a photographer. And I’m researching and writing a novel. He waited for more. He obviously has never tried writing a novel—he must think that’s a 15-minute-a-day kind of thing. (I didn’t mention the blog. I never tell anyone who might be in a position to influence a hiring decision about the blog. I may be quirky, and dull; but I’m not actively suicidal.) I didn’t bring up gardening, or book club, or hiking local trails, or ballet, or whisky-tasting meet-ups, or anything else (you decide which would be, strictly speaking, truthful and current), because my mind just emptied like a power toilet.

So now I have to make a list of acceptable answers to that question and commit it to memory.

And I also need to come up with a definitive monologue on where “web applications” leave off and “SaaS” picks up.

It just never ends.