To ask if you would leave your children in the car whilst you had a job interview..?

[TheNewClassic]

My work place are hiring. A lady came in and had a job interview which consisted of her doing an assessment then an interview. She spent pretty long in the interview room. Even came out to move her car at one point.

Today I asked if she got the job and I was told no because as the manager was seeing her off she saw two children (toddler and a child between 6-8) in the car!!

I was shocked and remembered an american lady whose children were removed because of a similar situation.

AIBU to ask in which situation would this be ok! I think in NONE.

Is the manager going to tell her why she didn't get the job?

"I don't think that is equivalent."

Why not? I used a deliberately inflammatory profession to illustrate that leaving your young children alone for a period of at least an hour puts them at serious risk of harm. What you are doing during that hour does not reduce that risk.

Nowhere did I say that the fictional prostitute regularly left her children alone- you made that assumption.

I'd like to think that I wouldn't, but who knows?

Maybe childcare let her down at the last moment?

I think bringing them in wouldn't have looked good & neither did them being in the car.

What? I'm lost.

I don't even understand why you think anyone would think that.

How does your manager know their wasn't someone else in the car, a non driving adult who had just left the car to nip to the shop.

Easy to judge. Maybe she was just desperate to find work and had no childcare?

I know what this feels like. When my ex H left me and I was desperately seeking work I often used to drop my DC at school, get on a train to London from Derbyshire to attend interviews, with a really tight schedule to get back fro school pick ups. I had no income and no help at all as we had just moved to a new area before he left. I really needed a job.

My DC were 7 and 9 and I used to just about get back on time to pick up. Looking back I shudder to think what would have happened if I missed my train or was delayed. FWIW as regards employment, no one who knew that I was a single parent would employ me in a senior role. Eventually I put my wedding rings back on and pretended to be married until I got a job.

"I don't even understand why you think anyone would think that"

Would think what?

Leaving pre school children alone in the car for an hour places them at risk of harm, and is unacceptable. It does not become acceptable if the mother is doing something worthwhile (or not, as per my example).

They would still be at risk and it would still be unacceptable if the mother was feeding the homeless for an hour.

"You could apply the same logic to a prostitute who leaves her children alone in a car whilst she sees a client."

Erm a bit random, not sure where that came from.

Personally I would apply exactly the same logic and add the fact that if a woman is working as a prostitute she might well be extremely desperate to get money to keep herself and her children afloat and also add that clearly she can't take them into work with her.

Were we all supposed to jump up and down and say oh well if she was a prostitute seeing a client that would be worse? Why?

Strange.

I still don't understand how the OP came to see the woman who came in for the interview, a few days later.

Bit confused.

Also what kind of interview stops part way through to allow the interviewee to go and move their car?

Baffled.

Anyone got any ideas?

I get that an hour's worth of risk is an hour's worth of risk, regardless of how worthy a mission the parent is on. I don't know why you chose a prostitute in an attempt to explain how bad this situation is, now I just feel bad for the prostitute too, why didn't you chose an hour in the pub or Ladbrookes?

Anyway, I can see how she may have thought an hour's worth or risk in a car might beat hunger, homelessness or whatever else you might want to throw into the mix.

I still don't understand how the OP came to see the woman who came in for the interview, a few days later.

I don't think she did, I think the OP asked her manager today if the woman had got the job. That's how I understood it anyway.

Sorry if it wasn't clear. I did not see her. I asked the manager if the lady had got the job and she said blah blah.

Regarding moving the car, I am not sure why but I am guessing she was blocking somebody in.

I don't know if the manager told her why she didn't get the job.

Apologies for random apostrophes and poor spelling

I think the op asked at work who got the job, not that she met the woman in the street. I was a little surprised that she was able to leave and move her car but maybe she was keen to see that the children were ok.

Its very easy to judge someone on these things if you haven't been in a similar situation yourself. Children all over the world have to fend for themselves every day and don't have the luxury of sitting in the car for an hour once in a blue moon.

Ah gotcha.

Was extremely flummoxed!

I chose a prostitute deliberately as an example of a desperate situation which would fit the logic of Kleine's post; that the woman had left the children in order to earn the money to feed them. I'm sorry if anyone thinks that's strange, but my point was and is that what the mother is doing, however desperate she is, does not change the fact that the children are at risk and leaving them is unacceptable.

I'm still not going to judge her on this one.

Agree with other poster that said how did your manager know she'd left them in the car? There are any number of scenarios that could have occurred. Someone sat with them in the car for example while she was inside or someone had taken them to a cafe then dropped them back to her when she came out of the interview. Things are not always as they seem, if she was the best person for the job it seems really harsh for her to lose out just because your manager saw her in a car with children with no real idea of what the situation was.

I think it's unacceptable that we live in an age where some people are so isolated that they have no one to call for help in an emergency.

I used to leave my DC in bed early in the morning to walk the dog. I guess that makes me a bad parent too.

Yes xici for all the manager knows their dad may have been behind a bush having a wee.

Well I don't know that. I wouldn't know what my manager does or doesn't know. Hopefully she tells the lady why she didn't get the job and then if that is the situation then the lady can say that.

I have a lot of sympathy for the lady if she was in a tight spot childcare wise, but no, I wouldn't dream of leaving kids of that age in a car alone for that length of time.

And if she doesn't ask and that was the case then thats pretty bad.