AIBU to find supermarket job interviews oddly demanding and irrelevant?

[Unlisted]

I am a so called professional who has just had enough of one restructuring after another. I have handed my notice in.

I want a part-time job in a supermarket not as a manger but as a shop floor/warehouse worker.

Last month I had to do a psychometric test I kid you not, and was emailed to say I was through to the interview stage and I had to book an interview. All of the interview slots however had been taken in spite of the email only having been sent fifteen minutes before!

Having complained I was offered an interview but for a store a little further than I wanted.

There were three of us, we were given a little tour, then a group exercise, a small Functional skills test, then individual interview.

The questions:
Hobbies etc
One thing others would be surprised about me.
What would I do if I won the lottery.

Seriously, what bearing would these answers have on how I could do this job?

What would you say to the question about something someone would be surprised by me. I had absolutely no idea.

What answers would you have given?

What are they looking for? What answers do they want?

I disagree.

They're easy in that they don't require much brain power but, depending on what you do, they can be physically exhausting, mind-numbing and mentally draining.

I'm not saying those things don't exist, but let's not pretend stacking shelves and lugging boxes around for 8 hours is easy. I worked on the hot food counter for years and I was physically wiped at the end of a shift. It was hot, relentless work and I often had sore knees, sore hips and a sore back from doing constant twisting, turning and heavy lifting.

It might be easy if you're sat on a chair at the tills all day but most of retail just isn't like that.

Group exercises are useful, random questions not so much, but can prompt a question or two, animal might be a dog, loyal, energetic and reliable, that sort of thing. If you want the job, you need to commit to the process. Any whiff of ‘why are you asking me this’ might be a predictor of future (undesirable) behaviour it might not but probably not worth taking the risk.

Nah, all those jobs are easy, and I spent 4 years doing them working through university. You might be on your feet but it's real brain-off stuff. Anyone can walk around a carpark pushing trollies about or stacking shelves, they really can.