Brio

Sammy had proven she had plenty of brio in the physical trial, but now it was time for her to undertake the mental trial. The emotional trial had to be saved for last. After she was worn out from all the other trials was the only way to truly get the best measure of her emotional responses.

For the mental trial, Rupert had invited all of the surviving council members to sit and watch the trial and afterward he would gather their feedback and add it to his own to determine if she’d passed or not.

Once everyone had arrived, Rupert called for attention. Turning to Sammy, he explained, “We’re not just looking for the solution. We want to hear your thought processes, so please describe what you’re doing out loud so that we can all follow.”

Sammy nodded in understanding.

Seeing the comprehension in Sammy’s eyes, Rupert continued, “Please walk us through how you would make a cash register application with the following requirements. One, Prices need to be updateable to handle specials. Two, prices need to be updateable to handle damage or other one off price changes. Three, price changes for specials or other one off changes need manager approval. Four, the items available need to be changeable. Five, an easy way to mass update the items and prices.”

Sammy’s eyes had gotten a bit huge as she tried to absorb all the requirements.

Rupert glanced at Sammy’s expression and gasped in dismay. “I almost forgot. Here.” Rupert shoved a sheet of paper into Sammy’s hands that detailed out everything he’d just stated. Each of the judges already had their own paper, so that they could take notes on how well she did with each requirement.

Rupert headed to take his own seat amongst the council members, gesturing for Sammy to start.

“To start off with I’ll write a function to add an item and initial price.” Sammy demonstrated with some pseudo code as to what she was thinking.

Once that function was finished she moved over to a clear section of the white board and offered, “Next, I’d create an update price function that takes a new price, a permanent flag that would indicate whether this is a permanent price change or a temporary price change and an approval token for the manager approval.”

In this manner, Sammy worked her way through each requirement emphasizing her reasons and the pros and cons of each decision she made. The council members periodically nodded their heads and jotted down notes as Sammy made particular statements that they deemed important.

Finally after many hours and as thorough an explanation as she could manage, Sammy stopped talking. Rupert roused himself from the stupor he’d fallen into a couple hours back when Sammy had far succeeded his expectations. Clearing his throat, he muttered. “Well thank you, Sammy. Feel free to return to your rooms we’ll let you know the results after the final trial.”

Tony, not having any say so as to prevent any claims of prejudice, had sat in the back and watched. Most of the humans he interacted with on earth didn’t realize just exactly how talented he was with computers. Especially not since he’d stopped making it obvious to allow McGeek to shine.

As Sammy walked past him, he stood and patted her on the back. “You did good.”

Sammy smiled at him in thanks for trying to make her feel better before continuing on her way.

Tony stayed to watch the others deliberate. Not above pointing out key ideas if needed, he didn’t expect to have to try and sway anybody no matter how sneakily he could do it. Still if there was one thing he’d learned from his time with Gibbs, it was to always verify.