Worst, Interview, Ever

I was recently approached by someone from a very big interesting company (won’t say which one, but virtually everyone knows and uses it) for an interesting position and scheduled a phone interview. First mistake, I confirmed the interview time after I misunderstood 11am PST as 11am “Pakistan Standard Time”. This after dealing with countless timezone issues on Linux/UNIX where PKT is always used and PST stands for “Pacific Standard Time”.

So it happened. I didn’t get a call at 11am PKT, as expected, and got it 13 hours later when I was stuck with a problem, half-awake and very grumpy, at a customer’s place and talking to someone else on the other phone. It went well at first, but the first two really simple programming and network questions totally blanked me and I couldn’t answer at all. Some Linux questions alone, that I answered correctly and without hesitation, saved me from utter embarrassment, but by then it was too late. I felt like kicking myself right after the interview when the answers suddenly dawned on me.

Here’s a hint for job hunters: always check and reconfirm the time for job interviews and be prepared. Be very prepared. Also consider switching to decimal time. 🙂