On the month of April, I’ve gotten desperate. My unemployment is about to run out on the first week of May. So I ended applying for anything that remotely fits my skills along with the jobs I wanted since I was unemployed. Help Desk, dispatcher, office assistant, technical writing, anything. One of the positions I’ve applied was with another IT Federal Contract that is in the same area where I used to work at: The USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office).

But as usual, despite a booming economy I’ve never heard back.

It was not until the first week of July that I’ve heard back. They want to schedule a interview. At first glance, I thought why are they’re skipping the phone interview and want a in-person interview. Have I found a unicorn company that is actually desperate for workers? It had to be. So I’ve scheduled the interview for wednesday, and the interview coordinator was quick to reply within a hour.



Wednesday came and I’ve finally made to the area early, one hour early. I visited the USPTO to see what changed. Mostly, little has changed except the gift shop which has expanded outside the the actual USPTO museum, and the entrances themselves have changed.

15 minutes before the interview was about to begin, I’ve started making my way to their offices. The actual office where the IT Contractor is located was on the second floor. I pressed the buzzer, I was let in and looked for a bunch of chairs to sit on and waited. And waited… and waited… for 25 minutes.

The actual interview was at 1pm, but I ended up waiting until 1:15pm for the interview to start.

The actual person doing the interview came to me, introduced himself and I introduced myself. I tried getting him to shake my hand, but I could not reached his hand, and he did not notice that I wanted to shake his hand so I’ve forgotten.He then proceeded to read from a sheet of paper he was holding to.

He was reading it as a script, describing the company, the role I would be doing, the attendance policy, and the benefits and pay I would be getting if I was selected.The first question he asked was “What is your background?”. I told him that I have several years experience in Linux System Administration, IT Asset Management, Quality Control and Assurance, and computer troubleshooting.

I’ve have previous experience with being with the USPTO via my previous IT Contractor that worked here before 2017 and experience with all three tiers of support (Tier 1-3).



The next question he asked was: Why do you want to work in this position? I explained to him that I wanted to work in this position because I want to support the company’s mission and goals and to learn new skills.

The next two of the questions were more personal in question, like Tell me how would do deal with a frustrated person or tell me how do you deal with a angry person.

The remaining questions where more technical. Some of the questions I could not answer like “What does OWA stand for” because I’ve never heard of OWA, which was Outlook Web App, and “show me how to test a network connection on the command prompt without using ifconfig”. The remaining questions I easily completed them to the letter. But to the interviewer, they’re not the result they like.

I’ll give you a few examples like: Show me how to get to adjust screen settings without going through the control panel. I had prior knowledge of doing so, as you right click on the desktop and click on “Screen resolution”. The interviewer was not satisfied by it. Same thing with “Show me how to get to Task Manager without using the Control, Alt, Del keys.” I right clicked on the task bar and click on Task Manager. He was not satisfied despite e following the letter of the technical question. Same thing for “show me how to get to network troubleshooting without going through the control panel”, he was not satisfied.



After I’ve answered most of the questions, he thanked me for my time and said that he will make a recommendation. I was then told that if I do not hear back by Monday, contact the person who gave you the interview.

Monday after the week of the interview, I sent them a thank you note. That’s when they admitted that I was not selected for the position. Despite the fact that I signaled that I was ready to learn new skills and most of my skills I’ve learned in my years of IT can be transferred to this position. They did told me that the note would be passed on.

So in practice, the company was not that desperate for workers. They were just picky like every other company, despite a hyped up booming economy. Despite the fact that they could have easily teach me how to do the job they want them to do in their own way. Because they want candidates who can already know how to do the job and at the same time, they want it done in the exact way the company wants them to do.

If the interviewer or the company was not actually picky, they would have hired me anyway. Basically this is an example of: “We are desperate for workers (who can be paid less and fulfill our requirements, and demonstrate their skills in the exact way the we want).” Employers want employees but the employers themselves are inflexible, even for a position where they explicitly require you to use their knowledge base before helping a customer with their IT tech issue.



Anyone can do help desk. Just tell a person their basics of the job, customer service, and have them always use the knowledge base when helping the person, and document the issue until it’s solved. Basic stuff. But no, employers are inflexible in this “Booming Economy”

Oh and here’s the list of questions they asked me in the order I remember them in:

What is your background? Why do you want to work in this position Tell me how do you calm a angry customer down Tell me how do you deal with a frustrated person. A Role play session about a customer wanting to set up a second email account with Microsoft Outlook. He wanted me to solve the problem and document it as if this was real. Tell me what does the initials OWA Stand for? Show me how to get to adjust screen settings without going through the control panel Show me how to get network troubleshooting without going through the control panel Show me how to get to Task Manager without using the CDL keys Disable Widows.exe via Task Manager, then reactivate it. Show me the device manager and tell me how to disable a piece of hardware. Show me how to repair software. Open the command prompt. Show me any command Show me how to check a network connection without ifconfig Research how to solve a problem: Monitor not showing anything

The real reason why I could not get the job is because he was not satisfied with my answers to questions 7, 8, 9, and 12. Along with my inability to answer questions: 6 and 14 possibly led to me to fail the interview. And I could easily tell because he was putting X’s on the numbers where I could not answer or failed to answer in the interviewers prefered way.

If the employer was that desperate, they would have hired me anyway. But training a new employee who actually wants to work is expensive, and thus a lot more cheaper to be inflexable not to hire a unemployed person.

But my experience means nothing, because I’m a worthless entitled millennial.