Not that I'd had too many; I was interviewing for my first real job out of grad school, which I had entered right after college. However, even with my limited experience, I knew this was out of the ordinary.

"Could you repeat that, please, Ms. Wilson?"

"Certainly, my dear. I am about to offer you a position with Wilson Consulting. It will put your technology and engineering background to work in a highly successful and profitable company. Our HR research indicates that someone with your credentials and limited experience can easily find a job paying sixty-thousand per year elsewhere, and you have confirmed that.

"I would like you to consider this position with us instead, and consider a salary of eighty-thousand a year. In order to accept this job, you must endure two simple tests. The only way to fail these tests is to ask me to stop administering them. Each should take about ten minutes."

"Okay. I know how to take tests."

"Good. Before we get started with those, I wonder whether you noticed anything peculiar about this company during the tour Mindy gave you earlier."

"Umm, the office is very neat and tidy."

"Yes. What else?"

"Umm, the staff is very sharply dressed."

"What else about the staff?"

"Well, I noticed that they were mostly women."

"Actually, other than Bobby, our mentally-challenged mailroom messenger, and Gus, the seventy-year-old security guard, we are all women. In fact, as a woman-owned business, we get preferential treatment in the bidding process with our primary customers, DoD contractors and government program offices.

"But did you notice anything special about these women?"

"Well, they are all quite attractive." ......(cont)