Seek the Stars
Jul. 5th, 2015 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyLast night I saw The Internship, which is the story of how unemployed salesmen Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson join a bunch of college students trying to get jobs at Google. It is an odd film. And a bad one. But mostly odd. I felt like I was watching the first draft of the script, the one that said [insert character development here], because they never got around to doing a second draft due to being too busy getting Google on board as a sponsor.
It is allegedly a comedy, but I laughed at exactly one thing: Vince Vaughn attempts to motivate his team of interns by invoking the true story of a little welder girl called Alex who wanted to become a dancer. "She literally had to become a maniac!" That's it. That's the best bit. I have now saved you the trouble of watching the film.
One scene that really annoyed me was their interview to get them into the internship program. I work in a small organisation and I'm the closest thing we have to a human resources department. I'm not an expert, but I have interviewed a few people in my time. (Heaven help the film maker who decides to make a film about accounting. I'll have some notes.). Some companies ask tricksy questions like 'how many piano tuners are there in Australia?' The point of this isn't that the interviewer thinks the applicant should know this. It's to show how they come up with a solution. Show their working, so to speak. Some say Google does this, some say they don't, some they did but don't any more. Regardless, it's in the film.
The interviewers ask Vince and Owen to imagine that they have been shrunk to the size of a nickel and put in a blender. What do they do? Now, Vince and Owen are irritating, but they give a really good answer to this. They say that if there is ice in the blender, they will climb out of it like tiny mountaineers. This irritates the recruiters, who say, no, no ice. Vince and Owen say, well, they'll just kick back on the bottom of the blender and enjoy the breeze until the blades stop. The recruiters say, no, the blades will never stop. Vince and Owen say, actually, we sold blenders and they won't run forever, even the best ones would only run continuously for ten or so hours, so they will wait until it breaks, then they'll climb out - and then they will be two tiny men loose in the world, ready to do good.
We find out later that the interviewers were after a particular answer about scaling mass and density that would allow them to jump out of the blender, but I think that was limiting themselves. I'd expect better from Google. If I was on that interview panel, I'd have given Vince and Owen a good score for that answer for creativity and applying old knowledge in a new situation.
It is allegedly a comedy, but I laughed at exactly one thing: Vince Vaughn attempts to motivate his team of interns by invoking the true story of a little welder girl called Alex who wanted to become a dancer. "She literally had to become a maniac!" That's it. That's the best bit. I have now saved you the trouble of watching the film.
One scene that really annoyed me was their interview to get them into the internship program. I work in a small organisation and I'm the closest thing we have to a human resources department. I'm not an expert, but I have interviewed a few people in my time. (Heaven help the film maker who decides to make a film about accounting. I'll have some notes.). Some companies ask tricksy questions like 'how many piano tuners are there in Australia?' The point of this isn't that the interviewer thinks the applicant should know this. It's to show how they come up with a solution. Show their working, so to speak. Some say Google does this, some say they don't, some they did but don't any more. Regardless, it's in the film.
The interviewers ask Vince and Owen to imagine that they have been shrunk to the size of a nickel and put in a blender. What do they do? Now, Vince and Owen are irritating, but they give a really good answer to this. They say that if there is ice in the blender, they will climb out of it like tiny mountaineers. This irritates the recruiters, who say, no, no ice. Vince and Owen say, well, they'll just kick back on the bottom of the blender and enjoy the breeze until the blades stop. The recruiters say, no, the blades will never stop. Vince and Owen say, actually, we sold blenders and they won't run forever, even the best ones would only run continuously for ten or so hours, so they will wait until it breaks, then they'll climb out - and then they will be two tiny men loose in the world, ready to do good.
We find out later that the interviewers were after a particular answer about scaling mass and density that would allow them to jump out of the blender, but I think that was limiting themselves. I'd expect better from Google. If I was on that interview panel, I'd have given Vince and Owen a good score for that answer for creativity and applying old knowledge in a new situation.