Life | Basement Light Design

July 21, 2014July 18, 2014

6 interview questions

It is commonly understood that during an interview, both potential employer and interviewee are imagining a good fit.

While salary ranges, benefits, and schedule flexibility are important details you deserve answers to, hiring managers don’t appreciate questions like those until at least your second interview (or maybe even after they make you an offer).

Here are six questions to ask at the end of your interview that will help you master the twisted tango of getting hired.

01 “If I were to start tomorrow, what would be the top priority on my to-do list?”
The answer to this question will give you more insight into the current state of the position while showing you’re invested in learning how you can start things off with a bang.

The added bonus lies in the Jedi mind trick: You already have your interviewer picturing you as the position holder.

02 “What would you say are the top two personality traits someone needs to perform this job well?”
One can translate “creative” and “intuitive” to mean you will be on your own, while “patient” and “collaborative” could mean the opposite.

Not only will this question point to whether you’ll be a good fit, it will get your interviewer to look past the paper résumé and see you as an individual.

03 “What improvements or changes do you hope the new candidate will bring to this position?”
This answer can cast light on reasons why the last person lost or left the position, as well as tip you off on the path to success. Asking this shows an employer you are eager to be the best candidate to ever fill this position.

04 “I know this company prides itself on X and Y, so what would you say is the most important aspect of your culture?”
This question is sure to impress. It shows you researched the company, and gives you a chance to gain insight into what values the company holds highest.

05 “Do you enjoy working here?”
The interviewer’s answer will be telling: A good sign will be a confident smile and an enthusiastic “yes,” paired with an explanation as to why. Consider it a red flag if he shifts in his seat, looks away, coughs and starts with “Well…”

Employers appreciate the chance to reflect on their own opinions, and it turns the interview process into more of a conversation.

06 “Is there anything that might indicate that I might not be the right fit for this job?”
Asking this question can be scary, but also beneficial. Not only does it give you a chance to redeem any hesitations the employer might have about you, it demonstrates you can accept constructive criticism and are eager to improve. These are valuable qualities in any candidate.

What other questions wow interviewers?

This story, written by Kelly Gregorio, first ran on PR Daily.

July 19, 2013July 25, 2013

Arro French Restaurant

Chef behind 24 Diner and Easy Tiger brings French-country restaurant Arro to West Sixth Street

The Arro logo takes its inspiration from Bayer’s aspirin tablet (apparently)

Opening July 20, 2013 in Austin, Texas, is a casual French restaurant from the ELM Restaurant Group (24 Diner, Easy Tiger). Chef Drew Curren and his group have had great success with their mash-up bakery/artisan sausage/beer garden Easy Tiger on East Sixth Street downtown, and round-the-clock 24 Diner on Lamar Boulevard next to Waterloo Records.

They enter the world of French bistro food this week with Arro, located in between their two existing restaurants, at 601 West Sixth Street in the old Haddington’s location. The restaurant, which has undergone a transformation to open up the previously compartmentalized space, will open Saturday.

Arro French Restaurant, Austin, Texas

Their Facebook page displays some impressive branding imagery, including hand-brushed calligraphy (seen above) and the elegant script channel letter signage on the building (below).

Arro French Restaurant, Austin, Texas

Courtesy Austin360 and Austin Eater

Arro French Restaurant
601 West Sixth Street, Austin, Texas 78701
(512) 992-2776

March 8, 2011July 15, 2013

The Black Keys rock ’n’ roll marriage

The Black Keys are a rock duo from Akron, Ohio, and recently won two Grammy Awards, including the best alternative music album prize for their latest album, “Brothers.” I was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, a former industrial town on the bank of the Ohio River. It’s at the southern tip of the state, bordering on Kentucky and West Virginia. I never actually lived in Ohio—my father relocated our family to Chicago, and my mother returned to her Ohio hometown to finish the final trimester of her pregnancy with me. But feel an affinity with the state. It’s not a glamorous place, and I follow with interest the careers of Ohio artists and applaud any artist able to earn a name for themselves.

I remember clearly when the Black Keys’ first album was released, 2002’s “The Big Come Up.” At the time, drummer Patrick Carney was married to his teenaged sweetheart, Denise Grollmus. Grollmus is an excellent writer, and detailed in a post for Salon her love affair and ultimate painful divorce. It’s a moving story, and humanizes her relationship with a rising rock star through reminiscences of the Black Key’s first appearance on “Conan,” and she describes a poster for a band she and Carney formed before the Black Keys.

February 14, 2011July 15, 2013

Snow in Texas

Happy (brrrr…) Valentine’s Day! Since last week, most of the United States has been in the throes of icy winter weather, closing airports and leaving motorists stranded in snow drifts. This typical scene plays out every winter, threatening to upset life and commerce in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Boston, and New York. But one doesn’t often consider Texas a target for blizzards. On February 4, several inches of snow fell on Austin. That weekend, I drove up to Dallas to visit a friend. Icy road conditions forced an added hour to what is usually a three-and-a-half hour commute. Road conditions were fair until crossing the Dallas county line, where ice coated the main interstate. I passed Waco—a sizable city— that managed to treat its roads with sand. What happened, Dallas?

That Sunday the Dallas area (Arlington, actually) hosted the Super Bowl. While I did not attend the game, I was witness to a city of over 6.5 million totally unprepared for big crowds and icky weather. Brought to its knees, the Dallas police department seemed hapless to protect and serve, and many Dallasites grumbled—inconvenienced by the weather, 100,000 out-of-towners, and a paucity of taxi cabs. Public schools closed for days due to buses unequipped to deliver students.

Jennifer Dunn, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, admitted that the “first band caught us a little off-guard.” This week’s snow will likely push the season total into territory not seen since the record-setting storms of the 1970s.

Downtown Austin, Texas, February 4, 2011

February 7, 2011July 18, 2013

Au revoir CAPS LOCK

Google recently launched its new Chrome OS laptop with one important new feature added… and one missing. The Caps Lock button has been deleted! In its place is a Google Search button, signified by a magnifying glass symbol. By changing a few settings, users can switch the Search key back to Caps Lock. But by default, those preferring to “shout” by typing all caps must hold down Shift.

It is surprising the Caps Lock button has lasted this long. It has its roots in late-19th-century typewriters (manually operated, of course, not electric). In those days, without italics for emphasis, typists used all caps. The Shift key had to be held down—not an easy thing to do for more than a few letters. So manufacturers added the “shift lock” button.

These days, typing in all caps is considered offensive, its usage reserved for the very elderly or looney ranters. Will other manufacturers choose to banish the Caps Lock button to thrift shop obscurity in favor of the 21st century-friendly Search button?

October 4, 2010July 16, 2013

R.I.V. (Rest in vinyl)

Rather than having your ashes hidden away in a jar in the cupboard, why not have them pressed into the grooves of a vinyl LP? That’s precisely what UK company And Vinyly is offering. Who wouldn’t want a custom vinyl recording of their own voice, their favorite tunes or their last will and testament? I can’t think of anyone. Perhaps my wife wouldn’t.

The company was founded by techno musician Jason Leach, influenced by two events. After his mother was hired by a funeral parlor in England, he viewed an American tv program where someone launched fireworks filled with their beloved’s ashes.

But how to get the ashes in the record? The process involves sprinkling ashes onto the raw piece of vinyl (known as a “biscuit”) before it is pressed by metal plates. The basic package costs £2,000 (today about US $3,100) and includes standard artwork—a black sleeve with the legend, “Rest In Vinyl,” with the deceased’s name and birth-death dates, as in the image above—and up to 30 ash-flecked discs with whatever sounds you choose, lasting a maximum of 24 minutes. Leach’s company offers premium services such as custom sleeve artwork, a portrait painted by UK National Portrait Gallery artist James Hague, using your ashes mixed into the paint, and custom songwriting by Leach himself (called “Bespook Music”).

The hardest part is choosing the audio for your LP. Leach says: “It’s difficult to think of what to put on your record because you want it to be the best album you can imagine.”

September 27, 2010July 16, 2013

Unsuck-It.com

A team of graphic designers at San Francisco design studio Mule had had enough of obfuscating corporate jargon, and decided to demystify those annoying phrases, allusions and metaphors commonly heard by anyone working in a “cube farm” (Unsucked: an office containing many cubicles). Unsuck-It.com works like any online dictionary. Enter a phrase, such as “idea shower” (Unsucked: using your imagination), “dog’s breakfast” (mess), or “low-hanging fruit” (easy goal), and it is instantly “unsucked” in simple English.

If your phrase is not in the database, a “you define it” button appears allowing you to be the douchebag jargonist and provide your own definition, and of course, you must use it in a sentence. I searched for “paper tiger,” which is frequently abused by the tech industry. Alas, it was not in the database, so I unsucked it. It means, “something that appears threatening but is not,” or more commonly, “its bark is worse than its bite.” Used in a sentence: “Organizations often make investment decisions on the basis of tight budgets and business cases that are actually paper tigers.”

I urge you to share the Unsuck-It link with all your d-bag friends.

May 6, 2009July 16, 2013

Why I support West Ham United FC

It’s too easy to be a New York Yankees fan. (The same goes for perennial winners Manchester United—that juggernaut of English football that each season glibly stuffs its trophy cases). What these clubs have in common is massive worldwide support with smug followers and bandwagon jumpers alike. It takes much sterner stuff to support West Ham United FC, an unfashionable club that plays well enough to maintain its “sturdy middle-table” place in the English Premier League but hasn’t won a trophy since 1980-81. A typical season has “The Irons” (aka “The Hammers”) finishing 10th among 20 clubs.

Since 1904, “The Cockney Boys” have played their fluid style of football at the Boleyn Ground, in the working class East London borough of Newham. The 1966 World Cup-winning England side featured several West Hammers, including legends Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. In the 1970s, many punks carried the Hammers’ banner. One East End tradition was to blacken a pair of Doc Marten’s cherry red boots with shoe polish, allowing patches of the club’s dark red colors to show through. Astonishingly, since the club’s 1901 inception through 1989, the club has had only five different managers—12 overall—and 10 of them have been English. Some notable players have served the Hammers with style, including Carlos Tévez, Yossi Benayoun, Joe Cole, Julian Dicks, Paolo Di Canio and Trevor Brooking.

So how did I become attached to this homely club? As a youth in Florida I played “under-16” football with a club that had a sister-relationship with WHUFC, mirroring the claret and blue team colors on its kit. We were awful; I was awful—an awkward and shabby defender. But my loyalty to WHUFC ne’er waned (even during occasional relegation setbacks throughout its history). Expectations are never high, freeing one to follow the club’s fortunes with wanton abandon and little regret.

So, you can keep your silverware. My heart (but not my money) will forever be with West Ham. “Forever,” as the club anthem goes, “blowing bubbles/Pretty bubbles in the air…”

March 4, 2009July 16, 2013

What, another blog?

Austin, Texas, 1960 — Construction of I-35 at East 6th Street

Welcome to Basement Light’s spanking new blog. I already know what you are thinking, yet another blog? By keeping posts succinct, my aim is to keep my public up-to-date on the studio’s latest projects, while commenting on the design world around us (as well as Austin, Texas goings-on). Return often, and, most of all, enjoy!

—Scott M Deems, proprietor