Do you ever look back at a job or interview you had and think Wtf?

[Sevo7]

Another thread about having to take an object into an interview got me thinking about an interview I had for a well known retailer some years ago.

The role was for a Sales Assistant for a brand new store opening and as part of the interview you had to take in an object that was important to you and do a 5 minute presentation on its meaning. What they didn’t tell you was on the day this was in front of 3 managers and about 10 other candidates You then were given a random object (I got a pen lid) that you had to do a 3 minute sales pitch on before we all sat in a circle and debated politics

I got the job as did about 50 other people who were then expected to build the store from the ground up inside. Every morning we had do star jumps and sing this song that had been made up by the managers with about 8 verses then jog round the store before more star jumps. I didn’t mind so much as I was only about 20 but plenty of people were much older and I remember they looked mortified.

This went on every day for 6 weeks until the store was ready and then at least half the staff were handed zero hours contracts (when zero hours contracts weren’t really a thing) and told they’d be in touch! I worked there for 2 years and none of these people ever did get offered work.

I’ve just been thinking about it for the first time in years and can’t actually believe I enthusiastically went along with it

Sounds like something from a prank show, wtf!

That is... weird!

I once had a couple of interviews for a sales assistant job I really needed at university. First one was ok, although they behaved as if they were selling the crown jewels in there (they weren't 😆) and that I was particularly honoured to be considered for the job and allowed in at all. The second interview, he was weighing up whether he wanted me for the job out loud and among other gems said "what will you spend your commission on?", and "you're an attractive girl, the locals will like that, you know that don't you"... I mean, what do you say to that!? (Reader, I like to think I am not a cave troll but am pretty average looking!). Anyway, I did get the job, but bailed before I got there ok on my first day, I just couldn't face it! I got a similar, but normal, job soon after.

People are weird!

I went for a job interview years ago for a retail manager position, they asked me (on the spot) to sing a song.
I very politely told them I didn’t think this was the right job for me & left the interview.

Nowhere near as weird as yours OP but the shop job where the manager opened with "You'll be working alone but we can't say that on the vacancy, it's not actually allowed but the higher ups don't need to know" Didn't fill me with confidence, I was already working in a different shop in the same centre and knew that shoplifting was high across the centre as a whole so no way was I going to work somewhere on my own!

That sounds objectively evil OP!

I was just going to post about my Uni bar job where the landlord put the porn channel freeview on the tv I'm the bar.

He was noticeably enthusiastic about a certain girls who were all a similar physical type with the regulars and one night we barmaids all looked at one another and realised that we were all that physical type.

And I STILL didn't leave until I found another job.

Maybe it’s retail that makes you do odd things at interview I’m genuinely thinking back to things that happened there and going It was also a well known fact that some of the Mangers were having affairs with each other and that these relationships were often carried out at work. They would have private ‘meetings’ upstairs in the training room and when someone went in afterwards they told everyone the windows were all steamed up and there was distinct smell

Went to a job as an activities co-ordinator in a Nursing Home. Woman interviewing me just spent the whole time going down my CV, saying, "hy did you leave that job" rinse and repeat. I'm an old bird, so had a few jobs. Nothing about what did I think I could offer to the job, just felt it was all negative really... Didn't get the job, and then found out the person who got it only lasted six months. They don't retain staff very well apparently. Was a bit alarmed when she mentioned a resident who wouldn't engage in activities for the care staff, but thought this would be drastically different if approached by someone with a differet job title. #MyDon'tFinkSo :)

Went for an interview in a small shop decades ago and was offered it.
Once i was in post I was told that I'd got the job because I was slim. 'The other candidate was too fat to have got in the stock room,' I was breezily told.

Form a human pyramid.

I absolutely loved that job though, stayed there for the whole 3 years I was at university.

Not a ridiculous thing in the interview but still ridiculous. Went for interview, they kept me waiting for almost an hour (they were running late) I told receptionist I had to pop out to put more money in parking meter. Was literally no more than 4 minutes. Came back & they were ready for me - feedback, I was perfect for the job but late for the interview so I didn’t get it!
I was absolutely livid, I’d sat there like a lemon for an hour waiting & they had the cheek to say I was late!

I had an interview once for a permanent job at a place where I had been temping for 2 months.

I sat down and my manager said "Now Hoohaaa, in the interests of equality we are going to pretend that we don't know you. So, err, Hoohaaa is it, what can you tell us about your current job?"

I was so stunned I didn't get the job!

@nancy75 I’d be mad about that for years after!

@ChavvySexPond- that sounds awful and has just reminded me of another job I had when I was 18 where I worked in a nightclub bar. As part of my interview I had to dance on the podium while the Manager perved on me (so nothing to do with bar work!) and once I had the job he often used to give me a lift home after the club closed to save on taxi fairs but would insist I sat in the front and would try and touch my leg! He also used to play porn in his office. I know it made me really uncomfortable at the time but I never did anything about it!

@Sevo7, it was about 20 years ago & i’m still livid! 😂

I've never had anything like that, but I once went to a job interview where I'd be replacing Claire, their Star Employee who could do no wrong. They spent the entire interview going on and on about how amazing she was, how nobody could ever replace her, nobody could ever be as good as her etc. I just knew that nobody who took over would ever match up to her and they would keep saying "Well Claire would've done xyz so why can't you?" Thank goodness I didn't get the job. I saw it advertised again a few months later.

@nancy75 I’m livid for you that’s just the sort of injustice I’d feel necessary to bring up every time id had a few glasses of wine and someone mentioned anything interview related

When I was a student I worked in the student bar and it was a great job because it got busy only in short and predictable spurts and because I could open and lock up I would get the shifts that included the really quiet times, so a lot of the time I could sit studying. Then the bar got a new manager (all the other staff were students but the manager was a full-time, non-student employee) who banned this, which was probably fair enough except that then he filled this time by coming out of his office to talk to me for literally hours about Warhammer. I used to pray for someone to come in. He then got a girlfriend and switched to talking endlessly about her including, on one memorable occasion, a 40 minute monologue on her breasts and how it was amazing because they were so big she had to go to special shops I ended up turning down more and more shifts until eventually they stopped asking because I was too cowardly to just say 'I quit because I cannot hear one more word about either the future where there is only darkness OR your girlfriend's tits'.

I had a job at Cafe Rouge where my manager was a racist fuckwit. I was delighted to hand my notice in and tell him I didn't like the way he treated his staff.

I also used to work at a call centre that had a cult-like status to it. Whenever you met anyone out who worked there it was like a knowing nod then talk about how we get through it.