Job Interview - Is this a weird thing to happen?

[Momoftwoscallywags]

Just venting really.

Had a job interview at a secondary school yesterday for an administrative role. Expectation for interview was the usual tour, test and then interview. I did the test first ( they had all the interviewees on a rota i.e.while one was on tour, the other was testing, while another was interviewing).

I opened the test and the very first question basically said please put these tasks in order of importance, but there was no list of tasks attached?

Checked the format of the other questions and these were laid out with the questions on the left page with the examples/information to be used on the right page. I did the other questions and then came back to ponder the still completely blank right page for question 1?
I came to the conclusion that either : 1)I had been emailed about the task prior to the interview and missed it, but I did think this unlikely, 2) Someone had messed up the test, or 3) it had been done on purpose!

So after the test I pointed out the missing information and explained I couldn't answer the question because of this issue. The person who was looking after me made a dramatic show of checking the document, which prompted me to ask if I had maybe missed an email about the task? She said this was unlikely so I straight up asked if this was a trick question? Had the information been missed on purpose? She then said if I thought that what would I do in real life?

I was flabbergasted, in real life no professional person worth their salt would mess someone around by asking them to do a task without giving them access to the required information. That's just plain malicious.

Anyway, I said if that was the case I would contact the person who was supposed to provide the information and ask where is was and when to expect it. She then smiled and admitted that the question was indeed a trick question.

Now red flags are going off, as I have just realised that they have purposely tried to set the interviewees up to fail. Who does that?
It made me question their work culture/ethos and I began to wonder how toxic it was and how far it went up the management chain.

In real life, in any other situation, I would have challenged the thinking behind this scenario but I chickened out purely because my kids go to this school and, if the management was toxic, I don't want them looking in my kids direction. (I am a coward, I know)

So has this happened to any one else? Admittedly the last time I did clerical testing was in 2016, so I was just wondering if this is a normal thing nowadays?

That is weird. Will Smith Men in Black interview weird. And I still think they're blagging it and it was a fuck up.
I did once question a task set pre-interview as it made little sense/looked like it was for a different role entirely. Emailed them and said, look I can do this for you but it wouldn't be in the job spec usually, have you mixed up interview protocols. They had. It was a prep task from another set of interviews.
They owned the mistake. I went for interview and got the job. Another candidate dropped out before. I often wonder whether they had done all that unnecessary prep work and were miffed or just viewed the place as disorganised!

Just wanted to come back and address the point about me thinking that someone was being racist. They were being racist.

The community I live in is wonderful, the majority of people who live here are genuine and warm. But I am English! This has been said to me many a time, usually with a nod and a wink as they seem to find it amusing!

I was once in a professional setting, trying to come to an amicable agreement as we couldn't accommodate our customers preferences and at one point he did this dramatic sigh and said " What's is like to be English?". He said this in a way that made it clear that I was just a piece of shit on his shoe. The silence from the others in the meeting was telling. I just politely explained that it was probable exactly the same as being "scottish". After the meeting, one of my colleagues, you know the one who thought my being English was funny and loved to mention it all the time, profusely apologised to me for what had happened. And we had a lovely discussion about unconscious bias.

There was also the incident where I asked a server, in a cafe, where the toilet was and she said "I really wish you lot would learn to speak English properly" . I looked her straight in the eye and said " I am more English than you are sweetheart". Luckily a fellow customer pointed me in the right direction and I could heard her boss telling her off from the toilet.

Then there was the bloke who just said hello to me in the street and when I politely said hello back, he called me a fucking English bitch!

I could go on and on, I have lost count of the times I have cried over it.