Inspired by the “strangest question you’ve been asked” thread- Title says it all.
Mine was probably when I had my first (and to date only) Skype interview. It was during my lunch break so I just took it at my work desk.
I was an academic reference librarian at the time. You never know from one day to the next WHAT you might have to search for as a reference librarian.
During the interview I was asked to demonstrate a particular search on the computer (they wanted to see my explanatory ability). The sample search question they got was something like “is running a good exercise for people over 50”.
They could see my screen.
I started to type in running.
Flashback to earlier that week:
A student (who was African-American I mention for a reason) had been doing a report on blaxploitation movies and had asked me to print color copies of the posters for some of them from my computer since we didn’t have wireless printing for the color printer. I had done so.
Back to interview:
I had typed as much as ru when the autocomplete function autocompleted to
run n&gger run
but without the ampersand.
And of course the chair of the search committee was black.
And we’d already talked about the negative connotations people have of Alabama.
They hung up. They claimed later on it was a technical error, but I really don’t think so.
(I could have explained, but, I think it was kind of sunk by that point.)
What embarrassing experiences have you had?
My shoes weren’t old and ratty or anything. One of them just chose that particular moment to come detached in a way that was seen by everyone and made me look like a pauper. Didn’t get the job.
Wow nothing that dramatic.
My shoe came to pieces, the sole became detached from toe to middle. I walked into the room with it flapping and making a racket. Yep I am poor and need a job!
On my interview for my current job my shoe string on my black leather lace-ups broke while I was getting ready. Luckily I had a couple of minutes to spare and made the quickest surgical strike venture ever into a cheap shoe store for a pair of generic black leather slip ons- literally beat the clerk back to the cash register- and got to the interview just in time.
I was running late because I was lost, finally found the parking garage, tried to park but didn’t end up straight in the parking spot. I was very flustered already so I threw my SUV into reverse and backed out quickly to try again only to drive straight over the hood of a passing brand new BMW 7-series driven by one of their executives who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The entire front end and hood of that poor car was destroyed at least cosmetically and I don’t even want to know how much it cost to fix it (my SUV decided it wanted to be a monster truck that day and was barely damaged at all).
We exchanged insurance information and the executive was nice enough about it but the people I interviewed with were not at all. I told them why I was so late, they didn’t believe me so I showed them my copy of the insurance information we had just exchanged. I can’t say I completely blame them but the two people interviewing me became complete assholes after that. I should have just left at that point but I made a half-hearted attempt to complete the interview for a position I knew I wasn’t going to get. It ended up being more of a long argument with two people I had never spoken to before than an actual interview.
At the conclusion of an interview, I tripped over a cord on the floor in the interviewer’s office and fell, awkwardly, face first. Knowing there was absolutely no recovery from this moment, I righted myself, said ‘excuse me’, and left.
To no one’s surprise, I never heard from then again.
Years later, when I think about it, I should have pressured them to hire me to avoid an unsafe working environment lawsuit. lol
Some years ago, I related a job interview on this board. I was sick with a really bad cold on the day of the interview, but drugged myself up so that I could function (I thought), and drove there in a ground blizzard. After finally getting inside and up to the CEO’s office, I was feeling pretty crappy and spacey, and more than a little feverish. There were two people interviewing, and the CEO started in asking a question in corp-speak, using buzzwords that I might have been able to suss out had I been firing on all eight cylinders, but as it was I just sat there at the end of her question, breathing through my mouth and staring stupidly at both of them.
Suddenly realizing that they were glancing at each other in concern, I blurted out “I’m really sorry, but I’ve got a really bad cold and I’m afraid the drugs are addling my brain. Can you rephrase your question?” :smack:
I can’t believe I actually got hired for that job. Six months later, I was downsized; seems karma was trying to send me a message.
I was being interviewed in the President’s office at a company that was in a building with mirrored-glass walls. The outside looked like a solid mirror, and you couldn’t see in. The President’s office was on the ground floor.
In the middle of the interview, a robin hopped up to the glass wall. Of course, he didn’t see us – he saw his reflection in the glass. Apparently he thought it was some rival, trying to horn in on his turf, because he began frantically attacking the wall. He was really getting into it, pecking away at this determined opponent, who wouldn’t give in, but pecked right back, beak to beak.
It was kinda hard to continue the interview while that was going on. Or even keep a straight face.
My maiden name (the one I was going by at the time) is a very, very common name in Black communities, and not so much in White. No ghettotastic, just Blackish. Something like Felicia Jasmine Jones. I filled out the application and waited a few days until I got a call for an interview.
So my very blonde, blue eyed ass walks through the door, and the store manager’s got his nose buried in his clipboard and says my name, and I say, “Hello,” and he looks up and literally does a spit take. Coffee all over the floor, and me. Looks down at the clipboard, up at me, down at the clipboard.
And that’s when I looked around at the staff behind the counter and figured out what was going on. The store manager called me for an interview because he thought I was Black. He only interviewed Black girls, specifically Black girls from his Kingdom Hall. He was expecting an entirely different, blacker, Felicia Jasmine Jones.
I did get the job. The other girls called me Token. We had a blast.
Back when I was about 20 I drove to a big factory, filled out an app and got an immediate interview. I was pretty qualified and would have had a good shot at the job. Unfortunately…, I was confused about the company I was applying to. During the interview I expressed a great desire to work for Company X, not realizing that I was at Company Y.
Pretty embarrassing.
Company Y went through a nasty strike and then closed about two years later so no great loss.
I laughed at your story, Sampiro. Academic reference librarians really deserve a break when it comes to search histories since the job entails working with all kids of nutty people.
I turned down the job, and the interviewer started crying.
The hours were something like 11-2 on Monday, 1-8 on Tuesday, 9-1 on Thursday - something ridiculous like that. I politely told the lady that I wouldn’t be able to work within that schedule, and I thanked her for her time.
She started crying.
“We were really impressed with your qualifications. We really need somebody.” And so on.
The worst part was that the interview was way back in a remote part of the building, and she had to walk me to the front door to let me out.
A company actually FLEW me from Montgomery Alabama, where I was stationed, to Arlington, Virginia, for a job interview, put me up in a hotel overnight, and paid for my meals. The person interviewing me took me out to lunch and paid for it. I told him that the company was paying for my meals, but he insisted. I didn’t get the job.
Should I have insisted on paying for my own lunch?
No, that would be extremely odd if you did and a strike against you. They just picked someone else. It happens to everyone.
The general rule in business is the same with dates. The person that invites pays. It is an even more strict rule in the corporate world. The boss (hiring manager, HR or other representative) always pays. You should not even offer to pay but you should thank them for a nice meal, coffee or whatever else they give you as a simple courtesy. It is just a recruiting expense and they are not paying for it personally.
Mine’s not nearly so fabulous as some of these, which have given me a great laugh.
I was interviewing for a promotion within my organization. I pretty much knew the fix was in for someone else, but I really wanted that job and had an edge on qualifications over the person they wanted to promote. I was determined to give them no reason to promote her over me.
This was mid 90s, so cell phones weren’t near as common as they are now. I’d called my mom over lunch to say hello, but she was away and I just left a little message. I don’t really use cell phones and forgot to turn mine off.
Sure enough, part way through the interview, my cell phone started ringing in my purse. I just ignored it and carried on with the interview… seemed like the right thing to do. But… awkward.
Later, I check my voice mail. It was my mom, calling to wish me good luck in the interview.
I was going for a job interview on a fairly large campus of Defence Dept. buildings. The instructions were to go to the security desk at Building 1, call the phone extension from the courtesy phone and wait for someone to come down and get me.
Made the call and after a “I’ll be right down” sat and waited…and waited…and waited. After maybe 15 or 20 minutes with the security guys eyeing me suspiciously I called again and was told they couldn’t find me.
Me (To guard): this is Building 1 right?
Guard: No, Building ‘I’.
Shit
Back on the phone: “I’m in the wrong lobby, will be there ASAP!”
The building I needed to be at was about 3.5 Km (about 2 miles) away!
On the way out I checked the building and sure enough what I though was a large numeral ‘1’ on it could also have been the letter ‘I’ - there was even a small building/shed next to it with a ‘2’ on it. Of course the entire campus was connected to the same switchboard so my call just went to the correct office.
Got to the interview, which was for a traineeship, and about 1/2 way through had a revelation that this wasn’t the career I wanted to follow and ended up purposefully answering a few very simple questions that I knew the answers to wrongly.
While I was typing my shoe story yours was posted.
