Questions For the Interviewer

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy they’re talking about tongue-in-cheek questions to ask when the interviewer asks you if you have any questions.

The Conspirators are all lawyers or law students, but some of the questions would be good for the rest of us:

• “How would you describe the atmosphere here — Is it more like a labor camp or a slave ship?”
• “I heard there was this guy who came here and only billed like three hours a week. They say it took the firm two years to kick him out, and they gave him a nice bonus to leave, too. Is that true?”
• “Is it as bad as they say?”
• “How many partners here are still on their first wives?”
• “Is the firm’s suite at Wrigley or Comiskey?”
• “Will I be allowed in the same room as a client? How about if there’s a client walking down the hall, can I take a look-see?”
• Look at them quizzically. Then lean back, look up into the air, stroke your chin, and pause for a long time. Then sigh deeply. Repeat until they interrupt.
• “Say I have a “friend” who’s embezzling money from the law firm where he’s a summer associate. Is that so bad?”
• “What’s the absolute fewest number of hours an associate can work, and still not get fired?”
• “Is that your wife, or your grandmother?”
• “Is that your wife, or your granddaughter?”
• “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
• “How much errors and omissions coverage do you have?”
• “Am I expected to check my Blackberry at 3:15 a.m.?”
• “There’s not a drug test or anything, is there?”

Here are the ones I suggested:

1. Will the size of the book shelves in my office depend on my title or on the number of books I need to do the job?
2. If you move a department with four executives to a floor that has five executive-quality offices, does some lucky staff member get the good office or do you remodel it back to the lower quality level even though that costs more?
3. If you can’t afford to remodel the office in question 2, do you move the copy machine in there rather than give it to a non-executive?
4. Hypothetical question: If there’s not enough money in the budget for more filing cabinets, but meanwhile we’re buying another company, can we have their filing cabinets?
5. Everyone working in this office has a college degree and has passed a background check. If I go to the restroom, will I find that the toilet paper is inside a gadget that allows you to pull the paper out the bottom, but requires a key to open, because you don’t trust your employees with unlocked rolls of toilet paper?

(Yes, all based on something that happened, but not necessarily to me.)