When I received a job posting from Grassroots via LinkedIn recently I was entertained by their request for the following:

– What’s the second coolest thing you’ve ever done?
– Write a haiku about online technology.
– What’s your slogan (or soundtrack)?
– What would you do with an extra 6 hours a day?
– What question should we ask you in an interview?

Although I’m not in a position to consider the position, I did decide to complete the questionnaire:

– What’s the second coolest thing you’ve ever done?
This changes depending on mood, but it might be:

* refilling portable generators with gasoline in order to keep Yahoo’s back end search engine, The Open Text Index, on the Internet during a four day power outage in Mountainview while the soon-to-be billionaire David Filo sat on the floor of Yahoo’s ISP next door screwing plugs onto electrical cables (1995).

The coolest was probably…
* videotaping Johnny Rotten’s screen test for the lead role in The Who’s movie Quadrophenia (circa 1977) – he didn’t get the part.

– Write a haiku about online technology.
(inspired by Ian Fleming…)
Spring only comes twice:
First the Internet Bubble
Then Web 2.0

– What’s your slogan (or soundtrack)?
Everybody… wants my body… sometime.
(to the tune of the Sinatra’s Everybody Needs Somebody…)

– What would you do with an extra 6 hours a day?
Convert my meeting schedule to metric time.

– What question should we ask you in an interview?
Ans (recursive): “What question should we ask you in an interview”

Cheers,
-pmh