We’re getting closer to pushing our big development piece online. As part of this process, we brought a web designer onboard quite some time ago (previously referred to as Starbeer). Well… he didn’t work out so we had to can him. Point being, we need a new designer.

Finding a “designer” is one of the more frustrating/amusing/enlightening HR experiences I can think of. Take the ten most disorganized and strange people you know and stick them in a room and I guarantee you that half of them will consider themselves designers (much to the detriment of the profession’s good name). Personal favourite applicants from this round of candidates included:

  • the kung fu master who has been working as a gardener at White Rose for the past six years
  • the vice president of a local university’s anime fanclub (whose portfolio included only writing samples and pictures of him at anime conferences)
  • the portfolio that contained only clips of the applicant playing piano and singing spirituals on 100 Huntley Street
  • some poor bastard whose only career highlight was getting a 5 year employee recognition reward from 7-11 at the age of 30
  • the gentleman that applied three separate times and then sent me a personal email asking if I was a real person

But I digress.

We finally found a candidate that seemed interview-worthy and had him in yesterday for a meeting. He looked OK, so we decide that it’s probably a good idea to give him a shot.

We called the Riddler in to discuss next steps. Personal favourite comments from the Riddler’s goals for this designer included:

  • finding the site’s spirit page
  • spreading the spirit found in the spirit page throughout the site
  • completing the skin job
  • identifying universal design truths which are not open to individual interpretation

Apparently we’re hiring an evangelical Blade Runner mystic to do primary neurological research. Should have had that in the posting.