Turnbull began by asking her the same questions she always heard at these interviews: what made her decide to go to Penn State, what she had accomplished at her last job, what did she think her strengths and weak-nesses were, and so on. She recited the answers she had prepared in advance, taking care to make eye contact with everyone around the table. They seemed satisfied with her answers, so Sarah’s anxiety began to ebb.
Then the man who had poured the water set down his pen and pushed his pad away. “Enough of this beating around the bush. How are your math and reasoning skills?”
Sarah started, not because the question was difficult but because until then no one but Mr. Turnbull had addressed her. And Mr. Turnbull had been much nicer. “I feel that they’re quite good,” she replied, trying to look confident. “As you can see from my résumé, I have a three-point-nine GPA in my accounting courses and experience in—”
“Yes, yes, I can see the résumé. That doesn’t answer my question.”
Sarah hesitated. Why did he look so annoyed? “Well—”
“Can you, for example, tell me how many grocery stores there are in the United States of America?”
“How—how many grocery stores?”
“Yes. How many grocery stores. You can include convenience stores if you need to water it down.”
Sarah stared at him. “Grocery stores. Sure.” She decided to take a drink to buy some time. She watched as her hand lifted the glass in slow motion to her lips. It trembled dangerously, and for an instant she imagined it sending a shower of water in all directions. She tried to smile as she carefully returned the glass to the safety of the tabletop. “I was probably sick the day they taught that.”
No one smiled.
Okay, wrong answer. “I guess I could try to figure it out.”
“Try.” The man on the end shoved his pen and pad at her.
“Okay, well, the population of the United States is about a quarter of a billion, right?”
No response.
“Okay, a quarter of a billion.” She scribbled the number on the pad, her heart sinking when she realized they weren’t going to give her a single hint. The interviewers’ silence made her nervous, so she described the steps in the problem aloud as she worked through them on paper. First she estimated the number of aisles in a typical grocery store, then the amount of time an average customer spent in line. As she used those numbers to calculate the number of customers per store per day, she knew her figures could be off by several thousand or by several hundred thousand, but there was nothing she could do to verify them.
She plowed on doggedly, since she had no other choice. As she worked, her nervousness hardened into anger. It was an unfair question, one with no relevance to the job she sought, one she had no chance of answering accurately. She had researched PennCellular, she knew everything there was to know about the latest trends in the profession—but none of that made any difference. All they cared about was this ridiculous grocery store tally.
The man on the end rolled his eyes and shook his head when Sarah had to double back to correct a mistake; she had been working with the number of people in the country rather than the number of families, which was a more appropriate figure since usually one person did the shopping for their household. She tried not to let the man’s disdain bother her, but she felt her cheeks growing hot and she wished she had never come. She raced through the last calculations. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could leave.
“Okay,” Sarah said at last. “If we have sixty-two million five hundred thousand shoppers—”
“That’s a pretty big ‘if,’ ” the man on the end muttered.
Sarah took a deep breath, fighting to keep the tremor out of her voice. “If that’s how many shoppers we have, we would need, um … four thousand, one hundred thirty-three and a half grocery stores. Except there wouldn’t be a half of
Then the man who had poured the water set down his pen and pushed his pad away. “Enough of this beating around the bush. How are your math and reasoning skills?”
Sarah started, not because the question was difficult but because until then no one but Mr. Turnbull had addressed her. And Mr. Turnbull had been much nicer. “I feel that they’re quite good,” she replied, trying to look confident. “As you can see from my résumé, I have a three-point-nine GPA in my accounting courses and experience in—”
“Yes, yes, I can see the résumé. That doesn’t answer my question.”
Sarah hesitated. Why did he look so annoyed? “Well—”
“Can you, for example, tell me how many grocery stores there are in the United States of America?”
“How—how many grocery stores?”
“Yes. How many grocery stores. You can include convenience stores if you need to water it down.”
Sarah stared at him. “Grocery stores. Sure.” She decided to take a drink to buy some time. She watched as her hand lifted the glass in slow motion to her lips. It trembled dangerously, and for an instant she imagined it sending a shower of water in all directions. She tried to smile as she carefully returned the glass to the safety of the tabletop. “I was probably sick the day they taught that.”
No one smiled.
Okay, wrong answer. “I guess I could try to figure it out.”
“Try.” The man on the end shoved his pen and pad at her.
“Okay, well, the population of the United States is about a quarter of a billion, right?”
No response.
“Okay, a quarter of a billion.” She scribbled the number on the pad, her heart sinking when she realized they weren’t going to give her a single hint. The interviewers’ silence made her nervous, so she described the steps in the problem aloud as she worked through them on paper. First she estimated the number of aisles in a typical grocery store, then the amount of time an average customer spent in line. As she used those numbers to calculate the number of customers per store per day, she knew her figures could be off by several thousand or by several hundred thousand, but there was nothing she could do to verify them.
She plowed on doggedly, since she had no other choice. As she worked, her nervousness hardened into anger. It was an unfair question, one with no relevance to the job she sought, one she had no chance of answering accurately. She had researched PennCellular, she knew everything there was to know about the latest trends in the profession—but none of that made any difference. All they cared about was this ridiculous grocery store tally.
The man on the end rolled his eyes and shook his head when Sarah had to double back to correct a mistake; she had been working with the number of people in the country rather than the number of families, which was a more appropriate figure since usually one person did the shopping for their household. She tried not to let the man’s disdain bother her, but she felt her cheeks growing hot and she wished she had never come. She raced through the last calculations. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could leave.
“Okay,” Sarah said at last. “If we have sixty-two million five hundred thousand shoppers—”
“That’s a pretty big ‘if,’ ” the man on the end muttered.
Sarah took a deep breath, fighting to keep the tremor out of her voice. “If that’s how many shoppers we have, we would need, um … four thousand, one hundred thirty-three and a half grocery stores. Except there wouldn’t be a half of
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