Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Questioned if I noticed little patterns in the data, I asked back about little tools.

Several decades ago, I interviewed for a job in some sort of computer center that processed some sort of data. The descriptions were intentionally vague because the person speaking to me felt that it was all too classified to discuss. I thought that odd as I had all the necessary security clearances, but his “yes, it is classified to your level but we are more secretive than everyone else, i.e., superior to everyone else” attitude was common. But I digress…

Eventually, the person reached what he felt was the key question:

How are your analytical skills?

Again, I thought this odd as I was coming directly from grad school where I had done PhD research on programming computers to analyze data auto-magically. Therefore, I asked for clarification on his question.

“Well,” he replied, “if you are looking at a page full of numbers, can you see decimal 32? That’s the space character. Can you see carriage return-line feed decimal representations?”

I thought this question odd as well as it was child’s play to write a program that “looked for” spaces, carriage returns, line feeds, and just about anything else you wanted to “look for.” These little computer programs wouldn’t fatigue and fail. The “little computer programs that wouldn’t fail” was the wrong answer as the person didn’t hire me. I suppose my “analytical skills” weren’t good enough for him.

It was several decades before I got a feel for “analytical skills.” I suppose the basic questions are:

Do you notice things that are noticeable?

Do you notice the things worth noticing?

My answer now is, “Yes. I am quite good at noticing things that most people don’t notice.”

An addendum that I don’t say aloud is, “I am even good at noticing silly questions that people like you ask.”

Another unspoken addendum is, “I even notice when people like you cannot ask the questions you want answered so you ask other questions instead.”

Since no one will hire me for any type of analytical job, I suppose I don’t have good analytical questions. I’ll have to continue my sideline career analyzing just about everything worth analyzing. I find there to be too many such things to analyze in one lifetime.