Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Aftermath of Talking to Architects


"So I was talking to two guys. They were very slickly dressed and obviously sharp. One was a little older - I would guess late middle age, maybe late 50s - and the other was younger. I would palce him around his mid forties. They gave me their resumes."

I handed the the two resumes to Lyuda. She started studying them intensely and curiously. She hasn't seen that many American resumes. In some palces she really doesn't understand them. Her reaction to some of it is interesting. One of the things that made it interesting was that she completely missed. There was one in particular on the older gentleman's resume that I drew her attention to.

"See the two years in the 1960s that [the older guy] has that says he was in the US Navy? It says 'Underwater Demolition Team' was his specialty."

An "Okaaaay..." accompanied by an uncomprehending look.

"I think that means he was a SEAL or something like it."

Still a blank look. I thought fast. How to make her comprehend? There's a cultural and knowledge difference here. Ah, I know...

"Spetznaz. He was Spetznaz."

Her eyes went wide.

No, that's not a quote from some book. It's a rememberance of the discussion last night with my wife about the discussion with the architects. Or at least a part of it. The amusing part at least. The discussion in general was pretty straight forward. The pricing was a little higher than expected with the architects, but I at least really liked them. We'll see. I have more interviews to do.

Then some serious decisions to make.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A UDTer might be good at blowing things up, but is he good at putting things together (besides explosives)? Although, if you think about it, sometimes blowing things up is harder than putting it together.

Anonymous said...

Knowing the most efficient way to break something requires knowing how it is put together.

Although I would query whether 2 years in long enough to get accepted into that specialty - less demanding in the 60's, or other relevant experience?

Will Baird said...

I went back to look at his resume. It was 3 years in the UDT as an "officer", 62-65. He had a degree in architecture from Stanford prior.

I can't comment about his military work, but the work I previewed of his architectual was quite good. It wasn't always to my taste, but very well done.

Then again I do have odd tastes relatively speaking