Brief Blog Semi-Break/Open Thread

I’m going out of town for a long weekend, leaving Thursday and coming back Sunday. Our neighbors are looking after our home and our cats while we’re gone, but I may or may not have reliable Internet access. If I do, I’ll do a blog post or two; but if you don’t see me until Sunday or Monday, don’t be surprised.

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves. Let’s pretend it’s a job interview. Where do you see yourself in five years? What do you think is your greatest weakness? And if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

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Brief Blog Semi-Break/Open Thread
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11 thoughts on “Brief Blog Semi-Break/Open Thread

  1. Ola
    1

    Ha! If I answer these questions honestly, I won’t get the job…
    No, seriously, they ask these kind of questions in a job interview?! Wow.
    OK, I understand the first one, it is kind of relevant (“In five years, I see myself as the general manager of this company”), but ‘greatest weakness’?

  2. 2

    Please have a safe trip! I hope it is for fun and not an emergency or business.

    Where do you see yourself in five years? Retired.
    What do you think is your greatest weakness? Wishful thinking.
    If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Banyan tree.

    Since I’m 55 and due to my fondness for optimisim (wishful thinking) I’d like to be retired in five years. I’ve already cut back to only working two days a week, so it does seem to be within reach since The Countess’ writing gigs are picking up steam and she’s having a ball with them. She’s been in eMags, print mags and ebooks, and now she’s finally broken into a real live print book, YAYAYAYAYAY!
    I really enjoy being at home and I love cooking sumptuous meals for ourselves. What’s nicest of all is that she’s done writing around 11am/noon and we get to spend the afternoon together. I absolutely love being with her all day and from this new perspective I look back with regret at the standard job paradigm which separated us for 11+ hours a day.
    The Banyan tree choice is because I grew up next door to a botanical garden and these huge trees were very impressive to my young mind. They looked like they were trying to walk away, oozing roots from its high branches. It was also fun to play around the trunk and roots since they had so many nooks and crannies to hide in. So, I would choose to be a Banyan tree to hopefully give joy to another generation of children.
    The Countess just breezed by, I told her what I was doing and she said she’d be a Whomping Willow, without skipping a beat.

  3. 3

    Five years? Mmmm, very stressed as my eldest will be sixteen. Hold me, I’m scared. 😉
    Weakness? I’ve been taught to lie at interviews. I’m therefore going to claim that my greatest weakness is my honesty.
    Tree? WTF? Um.. apple tree. Not only is it attractive and useful but you can eat the wood too.
    Make what you will of these answers.

  4. 4

    In five years, I plan on being in some developing country, helping out and spreading the goodness that is Americanism (she said tongue-in-cheek) via the Peace Corps.
    My greatest weakness is probably my shyness and introversion. I’m not very good at socializing, and I don’t really like to most of the time, either. I also have people-pleasing tendencies that bother me sometimes, because I would prefer not to care about what people think of how I dress or what I say. I’m very non-confrontational and argumentative, and most of the time I refrain from saying what I really want (which makes me a little wordy when I do get the chance to express myself).
    If I were a tree, I would be a monstrous one, with lots of nooks and crannies and hidden places, like a giant pine tree or a weeping willow (I guess I can add indecisiveness to my list of weaknesses, lol). Although I’d really rather play in trees than be one.

  5. 5

    5 years: traveling, writing a thesis, and starting a family, whichever comes first or hasn’t happened yet (and they would tend to interfere with each other all at once).
    Weakness:
    Straightforward answer: Chronic procrastination, and I can be a pushover.
    Interview answer: Because of my enthusiasm for people and projects, I have had a tendency in the past to take on too many tasks at once. I have learned valuable lessons about managing my time through these experiences.
    Tree: Ginkgo–not for any particular reason so much as that I like them.

  6. 8

    This wouldn’t get me a job, but it’s the truth.
    In five years I expect to be on the other end of the circle of life- food for the worms.
    I pondered for several minutes trying to decide what my greatest weakness is, so I’m going to have to take that as proof that the answer should be ‘indecisiveness’.
    If I were a tree, I’d like to be a fig tree. Yummy fruit with a long history and possibly an aphrodisiac to boot.

  7. 9

    I asked my partner to answer these questions. He said:
    Ireland.
    You are too nice.
    Redwood. Tall, strong, constant.
    He’s a flatterer, I think that’s his greatest weakness.

  8. 10

    In five years? Hopefully working a decent job, maybe in grad school, maybe working on what I actually want to do with my life (start a secular humanist political org in Chicago).
    Greatest weakness? In job interviews, I say that I’m a bit of a perfectionist and over-focus on details. ‘Cause then my weakness is still a strength for my employer! Aren’t I wonderful.
    In honesty, my greatest weakness is that I’m too non-confrontational. I’d rather just keep my mouth shut about something that’s upsetting me rather than start a fight. This is something of a problem that my therapist and I are working on.
    Type of tree? Hm. I think an oak tree. They’re tall (like me), and really strong, and good for climbing, and acorns are fun.

  9. 11

    In five years I will be a middle school dean. Heaven help us!
    My greatest weakness is that as I get busier, I get more disorganized and when I’m not busy I procrastinate, creating business later on.
    If I were a tree, I’d be a bay laurel.

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