@ PMC
That's rotten luck, man.
Hope you managed to get some bucks from home quickly and then maybe get a taxi to the interview. Edit: oh it is rescheduled.
I went for an interview a few weeks back and part of the interview process was I had to do a 10 minute Powerpoint presentation on what I perceived as the immediate plan for the organisation and its new computer system.
I spent two weeks raytracing some fancy animations of the organisation's logo, and also making some really good pictures for transitions. In the end I had quite a good presentation.
So off I went merrily to the interview and there they had a laptop for me to give the presentation on. I transfered the files and started the thing. Everything was nice...initially. There were oohs and aahs as the logo appeared in three pieces and came spinning together in the middle of the screen.
Next animation: was stretched so that only half of it could be seen. Yep, only half the graphics and half the text. It looked so fuc*en stupid.
I turned to the boss-man and said "Hmmm, it plays okay on my setup, I don't know what's going on."
So he looks at the boss-lady and the boss-lady looks at him, and then at me and then at the screen where it was being projected, but doesn't say anything. The boss-man looks at me and then at the screen and then at the laptop. He doesn't say anything. Then after a pause he says "just carry on the best you can."
Nice, eh? That feels reeeaaalll good.
Thankfully most of the other animations were okay, but I don't relish the thought of that happening again.
A mate of mine was in an even worse position at the beginning of the year. He was presenting a brand-new X-ray archive system at a conference in Belfast. All the hospital CEOs, IT managers and healthcare bigwigs from Belfast and beyond were there. This system was on a billion pound contract and this was an ice-breaking demonstration for my mate.
Sooo, what happens? Well first of all they introduced him as Doctor Jones (not his real surname). Well he isn't a doctor, so that was a bit of a surprise to him. When he started the presentation on the live system he had there, the company logo (the vendor's logo) appeared and my mate said "Here at Company X, we always strive for reliability and solutions that have a proven track record. And that's why we are pleased to introduced Product X which is an advanced and rewritten implementation of Product Y which is installed in the majority of London hospitals today."
And as he said that the demo system crashed. An error message came up directly underneath his company's logo and he couldn't get rid of it. All these professors and CEOs were turning to one another with raised eyebrows. The dude who had introduced him was very sympathetic and begged the audience's patience, saying that Dr Jones had a technical problem and would surely have it fixed soon.
Unfortunately he couldn't fix it and had to step down :oops:
His company went ahead with the installation but he tells me he felt quite bad at that point and wouldn't wish it on anyone.
I had a very bad experience even worse than this one, but I refuse to mention it here :sealed:
All you need to know is you are not alone when there is a big screw-up :lol:
