I recently had an interview at a local software company and it ended with a phenomenon that is becoming more popular according to my peers - the trick question. How did my interview go? I thought it went smashing but I didn't get hired.....there. This striped bass might be heading back to a small pond though in two weeks. More details later in the week. Anyway, I don't want to get into the specific question I was asked or the giant holes I was able to shoot in the interviewer's logic on my drive home. Why I didn't think of them there I'll never know. For the first time in my life I felt like George Costanza: "yeah, well the jerk store called and they're running out of YOU". I thought about creative ways I could come up with to email the guy back and let him know I came up with holes in his logic, but both Still A Wife and Still A Sis thought for once I should let go and not look back. For heaven's sake - for all I knew, I landed the job. I wanted to be like "um, hey, mister giant I didn't know the answer either until I read the book hiring person, um, my wife hires a ton of people and she was wondering where you got such a clever question and she's looking for more and oh, by the way, did your stupid book consider THIS.....". Then I would pounce on his faulty logic like Rosie O'Donnell on a sand crab during Survivor Celebrity Edition. Whatever. I can lose a battle every once in a while. In my mind I can still win the war by landing a better position at a higher salary than what Alex Trebec was offering. So, that story really has nothing to do with the post. Just a huge back story to say I was book shopping online after talking to a good friend of mine whom we'll call "Missuer Wolf", for the book in the picture above. He recommended it because he too had his brain teased by an interviewer who smugly sat and watched for beads of sweat to start their long trip from brow to chin. Amazon only had paperbacks and I've started building a nice collection of business book hardcovers so I went to ebay to continue my quest. Finally - and this is the true subject of the post - why do people feel the need to claim that a used book is "unread"? I was able to buy a used "but never read" copy of the hardcover for $4.50 plus $4.00 shipping. Not too shabby, but quit the lying for goodness sake. Sure, they might not be lying if only one out of every 100 used books made the claim, but for the 31 used copies of this book on ebay - I think 25 of them have never been read. If I read a book, thought it served no purpose on my shelf and I wanted to sell it on ebay, I might say "No Dog Ears!". I might say "Perfect Spine!". I might say "No rips, tears, markings of any kind!". I might say "I read this book without ever having the read and unread portions farther than 2 inches apart making it damn near impossible to read what was close to the middle". However, I don't think I would ever claim that I didn't read it. I have books that I've read three times that look brand spanking new, pages as tight as a frog's waterproof anus.....guaranteed. I just can't imagine myself looking for a used book and everything seems perfect until I see "Read only once!". Well, Shit. That's a deal breaker right there. Mother Hubbard read the book and he's trying to sell it? Why would I want that?
