>how much was it for the 6 day tour from Alice Springs to Adelaide? About $1700 I estimated? Well, its going to have to wait a while now, regardless. I spent $1500 on a laptop today. Not on a whim, believe you me. I had a phone call yesterday regarding a possible job. Thing is, it wasn’t just a straight forward interview. Oh no. That would be too easy. They wanted me to take a test – a programming test no less. So having visited most of the internet cafe’s I could think of to see if I could set up a small development environment I ended up buying a laptop.

It was no mean feat either. Most of the stores here don’t open until 9:30-10am and even then the shops around capitol square I mentioned in an earlier post were not open by 10. So after seeking out laptops in those shops which were open I settled on a sony viao VGN-C21GH/W. Has to be the most expensive prep I’ve done for a job interview.

Now I hear you ask what are the chances of securing this role? Good question. I honestly don’t know. The problem I had to solve was pretty straight forward. It was to write a small program that would translate a numberical number (up to 1 billion) in dollars and cents. I set out to do this but then recalling something in the brief about balancing time, cost and quality, I decided to abandon my reinvention of the wheel and sought a solution online. I found one on code projects which I had to tweak to get it to produce the desired results, but it’s the solution to the problem. I compiled the amended code, created an executable and sent it off with the code for examination by the software development manager and his team. I did highlight in the email that I had decided to not reinvent the wheel and my reasons for doing so. It is in his hands now as to whether he thinks my solution of seeking an answer from google to be acceptable within the brief of producing an elegant solution within time/cost. Time will tell if my upfront, and dare I say, a little lazy, approach to problem solving wins through. If it does the laptop will be paid for within a week. If not….then I have lots of coffee’s to serve; dishes to clean; roads to sweep…or get an early flight home :O

If I don’t get the job at least I have a[nother] laptop now :p

UPDATE:

I had a reply from the development manager (name of agent removed):

Thanks Lee, I’ll be liaising with xyz on the outcome of this

Hmm….doesn’t sound too promising. I guess my upfront, resourceful approach backfired, and I ought not to read too much between the lines of briefs lol