rSlash - r/Askreddit What's The Worst Job Interview You've Ever Had?

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

r/Askreddit In today's episode we've got stories of people who endure some of the worst job interview experiences imaginable -- including some stories from yours truly, rSlash! I once got dragged around a strange town for a whole day, unpaid, while some guy tried to convince me to do a sales job after I expressly told the interview people that I do not want a sales job. Do you have any terrible interview stories? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Our first reply is from Bibbity Bobbityboo. I had an interview where I knew the answers that I gave were good, solid examples. I understood the technical side well, but the interviewer kept sneering and being rude and saying, really, an escapical tone, and I got the distinct impression that he hated me. About 20 minutes in, I thought about politely calling it a day and leaving, but in my innocence I thought that it would be good practice to say. Forty minutes in, it's like a light switch goes off inside this guy and he becomes the

nicest guy. His eyes light up and he started hard selling the role in the position to me. He introduces me to the team. The director interviews me and he and the team are lovely. Apparently, their interview technique is to be rude to see how you perform under pressure and they'd all been observing using a camerawra and were impressed that I remained so polite and calm throughout. They couldn't understand why I declined.

So what they thought they were testing was to see how well you hold up under pressure. But what they were really testing was to see if you would tolerate a toxic work environment. Our next reply is from I forgot my first name. I was in an interview to be a county street sweeper and the guy asked me if I have a girlfriend and proceeds to rant for 5 minutes about how young people don't get married anymore. Then he asked me what I wanted to avoid at the job. At the time, I had no idea how to answer because I'd never been asked that in an interview before. So, I asked him to clarify and he just repeats the question over and over until he gets super angry that

I don't know how to answer that, then he asks me to leave. To this day, that was the biggest WTF interview I've ever had. Beneath that sloth of dooms as what I was thinking, what would I like to avoid? How about stupid questions? Our next reply is from Pomegranate Planet. The interviewer put candy bars on the table to open the interview. Have a candy bar. Do you want her shoes or sneakers? Neither, thanks. Go ahead, pick one. I don't want to be candy now. Thanks. Take one. Hershey's or Snickers? Okay, I'll take the Snickers. No, I want the Snickers. You take the Hershey's. No, thank you. Our next reply is from El Toborino. I was interviewing for a job in Houston,

lived in Austin about two and a half hours away. I drove to Houston for the first round of interviews and they said it went well and wouldn't you bring me in for the final interview so I drove there again. It seemed like it went well and they told me they had one more interview to conduct and would have a decision tomorrow. So the next day came and went and I emailed the manager to ask

if a decision had been made and I got nothing. I waited a couple more days left to voicemail, nothing. Then a couple of days later I just called the main number for the company and told the reception why I was calling. She was like, well someone just started in that job yesterday. They ghosted me after I drove a total of 10 hours to interview twice. I'm still salty about that 11 years later. So this reminds me of the worst job interview that I ever had. This happened during my first couple of years in college and I didn't have a whole lot of experience with this type of thing so I kind of got played and part of that is on me. So anyways, I was looking for jobs online, and after contacting a couple of people about

their positions, it became clear to me that some people had sales jobs, but they were intentionally writing their ads to make it look like it wasn't sales jobs. And back then, I just wasn't interested in being a salesman. I didn't want to have a commission-based salary, I just wanted a steady salary so I could pay my rent at the time. Anyway, after wasting tons of time with all these job interviews that turned out to just be door to door salesman interviews, I finally got a call back from this one company. A couple of things in their job posting were kind of sending up red flags, but I was still kind of new to identifying the real red flags, so I basically asked the person, hey, so the

job description is a little bit vague, and I wanted to ask that this is a salesman position because I just don't want a salesman job. If it's not a salesman job, then cool, I'm happy to come in and interview, but if it is a salesman job where you go from place to place trying to sell stuff, I'm just not interested. The person on the phone absolutely assured me that it was not a sales position. So I show up at the address they give me and they ask me a couple of questions, and to start off, it was all pretty normal. But then the interviewer said that he wanted to drive me and everyone else interviewing for the job to another location. Looking back, I was an absolute idiot to get in that

guy's car. Let this stranger drive me to a secondary location, what am I an idiot? Yes, the answer was yes, I was really young and dumb and desperate for cash. However, the three or four other guys that were also there for the interview didn't seem to be bothered by it, so I was like, okay let's see where this goes. Anyway, the interviewer puts us in a car and drives us to this store like 30 minutes away. Then he's like, okay, so basically watch me because this is what you're gonna be doing. He goes up to the counter, asks to speak to the owner,

and then spends about 30 minutes trying to sell the guy some sort of product. That's when I realize this is a frickin' door-to-door salesman position, even though the person on the phone told me that it wasn't. So I was like, okay, I'm here, it's fine, I'll just sit through it and then I can go home. However, after that, the guy put all of us back in his car and took us to another store and did it again. Now, keep in mind that this guy drove us, so I'm in a place that I've never been before. I have no idea even the town name where I am at this point. This is before the time of Uber, so I can't just pull out my phone and get a ride back to my car.

This guy basically has me and the other interviewer's hostage. He drives us from store to store to store. This thing takes six hours. This absolute douchebag basically kept me and four other guys hostage for six hours while he drove us around and did his job for a day. I will say in his defense that he bought us all McDonald's, so I guess it wasn't a total loss, but still, it wasted my entire day. Finally he drove us back, and I jumped in my car and fled the scene. The next day he called me back and said he wants to bring me in for round two of interviews. I said, no thanks.

I'm only about five stories into this thread so far, but so far I think that my story is the worst story of them all. Also to everyone else out there, especially younger people, don't let your interviewer drive me to a secondary location. It's stupid, dangerous, dumb, stupid, and oh, did I say stupid because it's really stupid? If that had been some kind of scam, then I would have fallen for it hard, so if you're ever in that situation, please don't fall for it yourself. Our next reply is some hardware.

I had an interview that went well. I was off with a job in the spot and I accepted. The HR manager went to get the needed paperwork, came back 10 minutes later and said, I must have forgot that we already built this position, I'm sorry we don't have an opening. I could call you if something opens back up. I said no thank you. Then beneath that propaganda pogo to add to the story. Oh my god, this unlocked one that I'd forgotten about. I left work during a long lunch to interview because they flat out refused to interview me at a time that I wasn't at work. That sounds somewhat reasonable, but I had occasional weekdays off.

There was also a convoluted process for validating my parking, which I did. I showed up a bit early, waited about 40 minutes for someone I was told definitely was in, and apparently she was just eating lunch or something, because on my way back to work I got a call from her asking where I was. She tried to reschedule. It was stressful enough the first time I'm not going to jump through hoops if you don't value me as a prospect enough to keep your own freaking appointment. Our next reply is from Peace andospits.

It was a video chat interview. Red flag number one was the interview with 10 interviewers. I was told it would be a one-on-one. Red flag number two. Towards the end they asked if I had any questions. When I asked, do you all enjoy working here? They all looked at each other nervously for about 20 seconds until someone said, sure, I mean, as much as you can enjoy work, I guess. Nope. Our next reply is from lobster nixin. I told them I told them I couldn't answer the... All right, I can do this.

I told them I couldn't answer their question. Okay, I'm a professional. Come on, R-slash. I told them I couldn't answer their questions. I told them I couldn't answer their questions. Farded audibly out of stress and thank them for their time. So I'm guessing this would sound like, sorry, I can't answer your questions. Thank you for their time. So I'm guessing this would sound like, sorry I can't answer your questions. Thank you for your time.

Our next reply is from PM Skunk. My personal favorite bad interview. I had been unemployed for a bit and was desperate for a new gig. I had gained a lot of weight living off of fast food so my pants didn't fit me very well. I sat down in the interview chair as the person was walking around to their side of the desk. And the button on my pants popped off, did a one hopper off the desk and right into their coffee cup. It swished, nothing but net. For the entire interview, they were sipping their coffee, and I was sitting there with my pants on button waiting for the big reveal. I left before they got to the bottom of their coffee, but they had to have put two in two together.

This narrowly beats out the time that I was offered water from a craft in an interview, dropped it, and soaked both interviewers. At least that one wasn't as psychologically tense, and to clarify, no, I did not get the job. Enjoy the classic taste of the holidays at Tim's with the new non-alcoholic Bailey's flavored holiday menu. Whether you're hanging holiday lights or driving up to your folks, you can enjoy your Tim's and Bailey's anytime, anywhere at participating restaurants in Canada. Childhood vaccines have been around for decades and are safe and proven to help protect children against 14 preventable diseases.

Learn more at Canada.ca slash childhood vaccines. A message from the government of Canada. Our next reply is from your marvelous. I went into apply for an administrative assistant position and the guy kept asking me questions about liking kids and are my past ports up to date. I was so confused. Turns out, what he really wanted was a nanny for his two young kids to travel with him and his wife back to India.

I was so pissed that he wasted my time. I knowped right the F out of there. This is so weird. Who's going to go to a job interview and then be like, surprise the job is in India and you're like, oh cool, I guess I'll just go to India. Our next reply is from Fireworkon. Yeah, I have one that sticks out. I applied to a government branch as a network admin.

The newspaper ad asked for a bachelor's degree. When I got there, the first thing the interviewer said was, we wanted someone with a master's degree. Why did you apply? Now I wanted to get them to benefit of the doubt. Maybe they had other interviews that day and got them mixed up. Things happen. I just informed the interviewer that the ad I applied for requested a bachelor's degree and confirmed the position I was applying for. No, we definitely wanted someone with a master's degree. So again, why did you apply? I asked, if you wanted something with a master's degree,

why'd you bother calling me in for an interview? You're very rude and unprofessional. Yeah, you're the one who screwed up at every junction thus far, but I'm the one who's rude and unprofessional. Our next reply is from Rhino Solon. It started as the worst, but ended as the best. The beginning started like this.

I'm so sorry to inform you of this, but we pulled the wrong resume contact information. We didn't mean to call you for an interviewer. Before leaving, the interviewer gave me a brief tour of the company grounds because they felt so bad for wasting my time. They introduced me to the department head that I would have been working for. If that department was actually hiring. I had a great conversation and the department head was convinced that I would be an asset to them and hired me on the spot.

I just wanted to add that I've been with this company for over 8 years now and there are an awesome bunch of people. It was a very lucky slash unlucky day for me. Beneath that we have a similar story from DMS1. I had something similar happen to this but with not as good of an ending. I got an email asking to do an interview for a company, but it was addressing somebody else. They were emailing me, but they meant to email someone else. I tried to play it off like I did notice and thought maybe they'd be cool about it and let me come in for an interview anyways.

They weren't having it. Our next reply is from Offbeat Life. I applied for an internship at a human rights law office. They gave me questions on the spot to debate with them, like, should people accused of rape remain anonymous until convicted, and is bribery acceptable if it's for a good cause? It was me versus a panel of five senior human rights lawyers for a whole hour, who just ripped me apart from start to finish. Everything I said, they made sound like the dumbest response with their rebuttals. By the end, I was a nervous, babbling wreck.

I did not get the internship, but I did appreciate the experience and retrospect. When they got back to me, they told me, Your resume was fantastic, so we were quite disappointed without poor your interview was, Burn. Beneath that, Phantom Tissues says what I was thinking. That seems kind of cheap. Give you questions that you've probably never thought about and ask you to debate with five people who've probably researched the question inside and out, that's literally

setting you up for failure. Our next replies from Freshly Delivered Egg. I had five interview rounds with the last interview round being with the CEO offering entry-level customer service job. During the last interview, the CEO said that you weren't allowed to get sick and you weren't allowed to leave at the end of the day until all the work had been done. So, even though the jobs had 8-4, the CEO said customer service reps often stayed until 6pm or later. She also asked if I would become triple secretly reporting to her about what the customer service team was up to. I declined the job offer and the company

harassed me with emails asking why and what they did wrong. I was really glad I didn't take that job. This reminds me of another terrible job interview experience I had. So before I was a YouTuber, I had a normal 9-5 job, but I got fired from that job. At the time I was working on becoming a full-time YouTuber, but I hadn't quite hit that level where I could comfortably go for it full-time. So I figured that I would look for another job, and in the meanwhile I would keep grinding out YouTube. So I come into interview for a creative writing job for this company. They asked me if I was doing anything creative, and I said, yeah, actually, I've got a YouTube channel with over 100,000 subscribers. They were absolutely

blown away by that and were thrilled to see this creative person who has a background in writing because that's what I got my degree in. So, a week passes and they call me in for a second interview. This time, a completely different set of people interview me and they're like, hey, so they tell me that you have a YouTube channel, tell me about that. So, I told them about it and once again, they were absolutely thrilled. They were really interested, they asked me lots of questions and the interview went really amazingly well. I go home, a week passes, they call me in for a third interview. This time I've been interviewed by the managers and the managers like, so they tell me you have a YouTube channel.

I say, yeah, I've got a YouTube channel and I explain it a third time to this third person. Once again, they were thrilled, they were excited, they saw this as a sign of me being really creative so they thought that I would be a great fit for the company. I go home. A week later, they call me back for a fourth interview. This time with the CEO of the company. Now keep in mind that it's almost been a month. Oh actually I forgot. Before they even called me and I had a phone interview. And then after the phone interview there was another week delay. So it was like a full four week delay between my first interview and my fourth in-person interview. And during this time, I had kept grinding out YouTube videos and my channel was getting bigger and bigger and it was kind of getting to the

point where I was like, screw this, I don't need this job. But in the interest of closure, I went and the CEO interviewed me. The CEO asked me if I was doing anything creative and I said, yes, I've got a YouTube channel. He was asking me questions about it and I was like, yes, so I just really like making things. As near as I can tell, this pissed the CEO off. He started basically like lecturing me, saying that if he hired me for this position, he wouldn't want me to just make whatever I wanted. That the whole point of this job is that he or my manager would tell me what to do and I would write it.

So I would have to write what they want me to write, not what I want to write. And I was like, yeah, of course, I know that. And the guy cut the interview short and decided that I wasn't a good fit for the company. Like, dude, you called me in four times for an interview. The people I'd be working next to wanted to work with me. My manager's manager wanted to work with me. But because I didn't come into your office as some kind of like boot-looking yes-man, you're deciding that I'm not the right fit for the company. At the time, I was super pissed off at them, but actually they turned out to make the right call, because if they had hired me, I would have quit in like two months so I could be a full-time YouTuber. Our next reply is from Freddie Greg. I interviewed for what was my dream job, something that I have a ton of experience in in two degrees,

including one from literally the most prestigious school in my field. They liked me so much in my first few rounds of interviews that they asked me to fly across the country for the final one. So I go through easily the worst travel day of my life, a ride for my interview, and the interviewer takes one look at my resume and says, I don't know why you came all the way out here, you aren't qualified for this. Suffice to say, I will never work there. OP, I feel like that kind of behavior is something that we should literally be allowed to sue over. Our next reply is from Redbeard. I went into a family-owned custom furniture

shop that had several openings in the Carpenter department. Red flag number one. When I arrived, I spoke to the person at the front of the house stating that I was there for an interview. The conversation went as follows. Note, the owner's office was directly behind the front desk. He was watching us through a two-way mirror. Hi, I'm here to interview for the Carpenter position.

I saw your post online. The owner storms out of his office, points his banger at me with his face full of anger. This was red flag number 2. Are you experienced? Yeah, but I have 7 years of experience with carpentry, but I'm new to furniture. Are you experienced? Red flag number 3. Yeah?

Fine, I'll get the lead carpenter and he'll talk to you. At this point, I should have noped the F out of there, but I've been unemployed for some time and my savings were running on fumes. So I assume that he might have just been in a bad mood that day and I waited for the lead carpenter. The lead carpenter comes out and we have an interview on the sales floor. The interview goes normal until he asks me about my experience. So tell me how you have experience with woodwork, but not with furniture.

I build musical instruments, I'm familiar with all power tools and measurements required. The carpenter looks at me like I have two heads while I'm explaining this, but the rest of the interview procedure is normal. He said that he'd start me off at 10 bucks an hour as a proportional hire for two weeks to see how I fit. Then the part of the interview comes when he asked if I had any questions. I asked, so, is the owner having a bad day? The carpenter said, no, that's just how he is. Red flag number four. We have an awkward silence staring at each other for about 10 seconds.

Then without saying anything, I just walk out. I found out a few weeks later from a friend who's a woodworker that that place is known amongst furniture woodworkers is the place you want to avoid. And he mentioned that a few days before I interviewed, the entire Carpenter staff of about 8 people minus lead Carpenter walked out. I now live about a mile from that store and pass it on my daily commute. Every 5 to 6 months they put up a now hiring all positions sign up front. I can't imagine how many people have cycled through there at this point. That was our slash ask reddit and if you like this content check out my patreon where I publish extra episodes.

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