So we are hiring a lot of folks at Half Off. It's all across the board. Accounting, customer service, development, marketing, and sales. Our company wiki has 36 people in the directory now, but I suspect we have more then 40. And from time to time we do a little cross department interviewing.

Such was the case when James Nail came to me and asked me to interview one of the more semi-technical online marketing experts we were looking to bring on. I assumed that if James liked the person they had the specific skill set needed to fill the role. As I agreed to interview her I asked if it would be ok to do so while building the conference table in the room affectionately known as The Microwave. The Microwave gets a little hot in the afternoon. And the afternoon it was when I met and escorted this new recruit and introduced her to the task at hand. 

It was a team building exercise. In The Microwave. We worked together well. She read the instructions, told me what to do, and lent a hand in the assembly as I asked her a bit about her background. After about 45 minutes of this I told her I really did not have any more questions. I also told her she was free to go if she wanted. Then after a noticeable pause added "or that could be the real test of this interview."

It was. She passed the test. She stayed and finished the conference room table together. We hired her. And she and I are going to autograph that table one day with a Sharpie.