The Department Head was a small man about 5'3 inches tall, wispy, stringy strands of "hair" were combed over his bald and liver spotted head. He possessed the voice and temperament of a juvenile female - his dental plate pushed itself forward almost completely out between his purple lips as he spoke - his rheumy eyes watered a lot and darted about the polished ceramic tile and stainless steel room.
The last 30 minutes he enjoyed jerking open and out the trays of the deceased in the cold storage area - I assume to gauge my reaction. Here was a man who loved his work.
I was hired on the spot after the interview and spent many years under the tutelage of this Great Man.
I interviewed for an administrative job at one of the federal mints once. It solely consisted of “fill out these 10 forms every day in this particular order, nothing more, nothing less.” No deviation from the order, no creativity on filling them out electronically or making templates to make filling them out easier. Just fill out the same 10 forms in the same order, every single day. They were thrilled that I seemed very competent, but worried I might be bored after a while. I told them there was NO chance I was interested, I’d lose my mind inside a week.
Worked at a hospital were all the executive suit was let go for immoral behavior. When the interim management team hit the door, they demanded written resignations off all department heads. Acceptance or rejection of the resignation depended on a series of reviews and interviews over a six week period. I would have preferred the Spanish Inquisition, but I had to stick it out due to age and family situations.
An interview at a oil drilling mud company in downtown Dallas TX.
It is the middle of the 100* summer and I drive an hour in my un-air conditioned car and walk in looking I just got out of the pool.
By the time I arrived, I had already decided I did not want to spend the next 30 or 40 years working in a concrete jungle.
SITUATION ADAPTABILITY EVALUATION FOR MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL
This test has been designed to evaluate reactions of management personnel to various situations. The situations are based on actual case studies from a well-known educational institution and represent a cross section of test data correlated to evaluate both reaction time to difficult situations as well as the soundness of each decision selected.
There are eight multiple choice questions. Read each question thoroughly. Place an “X” by the answer you feel is most correctly justified by the circumstances given. Be prepared to justify your decision.
You have 4 minutes to complete the test.
1. You have prepared a proposal for the Regional Director of Purchasing for your largest customer. The success of this presentation will mean increasing your sales to his company by 200%. In the middle off your proposal the customer leans over to look at your report and spits into your coffee. You:
a) Tell him you prefer your coffee black.
b) Ask to have him checked for any communicable diseases.
c) Take a leak in his “out” basket.
2. You are having lunch with a prospective customer talking about what could be your biggest sale of the year. During the conversation a blonde walks into the restaurant and she is so stunning you draw your companion’s attention to her and give a vivid description of what you would do if you had her alone in your motel. She walks over to your table and introduces herself as your client’s daughter. Your next move is to:
a) Ask for her hand in marriage.
b) Pretend you’ve forgotten how to speak English.
c) Repeat the conversation to the daughter and hope for the best.
3. You are making a sales presentation to a group of corporate executives in the plushest office you’ve ever seen. The hot enchilada casserole and egg salad sandwich you had for lunch react, creating a severe pressure. Your sphincter loses its control and you break wind in a most convincing manner causing three water tumblers to shatter and a secretary to pass out. What you should do next is:
a) Offer to come back next week when the smell has dissipated.
b) Point out their chief executive and accuse him of the act.
c) Challenge anyone in the room to do better.
4. You are at a business lunch when you are suddenly overcome with an uncontrollable desire to pick your nose. Remembering this is definitely a “No-No,” you:
a) Pretend to wave to someone across the room and with one fluid motion bury your forefinger in your right nostril up to the third joint.
b) Get everyone drunk and organize a nose-picking contest with a prize to the one who makes his nose bleed first.
c) Drop your napkin on the floor and when you bend over to pick it up, blow your nose in your sock.
5. You have just spent the evening with a supplier who invited you to an all-night boilermaker drinking party. You get home just in time to go to work. You stagger to the men’s bathroom and spend the next half-hour vomiting. As you’re washing up at the sink, the sales training director walks up, blows his cigar in your face, and asks you to join him for drinks after work. You:
a) Look him straight in the eye and launch one last convulsion at the front of his Hart, Shaffner and Marx.
b) Nail him right in the crotch, banking on the fact he’ll never recognize your green face.
c) Grasp his hand and pump it until he pees his pants.
6. You are having dinner with a customer and his wife, who looks like the regional runner-up at the Janet Reno look-alike contest. Halfway through dinner you feel a hand on your lap. Being resourceful, you:
a) Accidentally spill hot coffee in your lap.
b) Slip a note to the waiter to have your customer paged and see if the hand goes away when he does.
c) Excuse yourself and go to the men’s room. If he follows, don’t come out of the stall until your shorts rot.
7. You are on your way in to see your best account when your zipper breaks and you discover that you forgot to put on your shorts that morning. You decide to:
a) Call on the customer’s secretary instead.
b) Explain that you were just “trolling” to make new friends.
c)Buy a baggy raincoat and head for the nearest playground.
8. It’s January and you have just returned from a trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin. You tell your boss that nobody but whores and football players live there. He mentions that his wife is from Green Bay. You:
a) Ask what position she played.
b) Ask if she’s still working the streets.
c) Pretend you’re suffering from amnesia and don’t remember your name.
In 2006 I had a book called “America’s Victories” that said that the US fighting man was superior for a number of reasons and if politicians got out of the way we’d kick ass in Iraq.
A lefty NPR station (I think) had me on from San Francisco. The guy wouldn’t let me talk, and when he did ask a question, he prefaced it with an accusation.
I kept saying, “Would you like to ask a question that doesn’t begin with an accusation?” and he’d launch again.
After 2-3 times he hung up on me . . . and I was the one being interviewed! LOL.
I was meeting with a guy (Jeff) and in walks a guy dressed as a woman, wearing a dress and his bright purple shoes had 4 or 5 inch heels. He said follow me so we walked through the building and into an elevator, up a floor or two and into a conference room.
The technical questions were good but his foot touched mine twice under the table making me very uncomfortable. I thought it was all part of the interview.
After that I was interviewed by a blind guy named Jim. He had me write some Perl scripts/programs on the white board then had me read what I wrote, including all regular expressions and punctuation.
I got called back for another interview with Jeff but I declined. I will never interview at that company again.
I was trying to get a job in Parkersburg, WV, near property we had bought years prior. Drove four and half hours to interview for a website job with the wife of a car dealership owner. She talked about herself for the first 30 minutes. When I started asking questions about the job, it was obvious she hadn’t read my resume. When I tried to give her a copy, she refused to take it. When I told her the salary I wanted, she scoffed. “No one realizes they have to take a pay cut to work in this state. I did.” She was married to the owner and covered in diamond jewelry. Then she adds, “And the first thing they want to do is buy a horse.” So I say to her, “Why else would someone move here? The nightlife, museums, fine dining?” Then I gathered up my things, and walked out.
Worst was interviewing for internal transfers at a company where my current boss and department lead were making things untenable.
Hard to talk about why you want to quit that position when they can ask around as to why you’re unhappy and the team backs up the boss or company policies that made it unbearable.
If you tell the truth, it comes back to the people who may decide to fire you or scare the new manager from hiring you.
I ended up leaving the company as soon as we were debt free for a lower paying, lower stress position.
I went to interview for a job that was not only in my field of work, but also related to my big hobby at the time. I made the five-hour drive - my dad was on vacation so he went along - and stayed in a motel since the interview was early the next morning.
I liked the man I would be working for (a genuinely nice guy), and I was favorably impressed by most of the people I would be working with. There remained only two hurdles ("mere formalities" as it was put): a short meeting with some of the gents on the board, and the HR lady.
One of the board members was a guy with a bad perm and a very healthy sense of importance, and I made the mistake of dropping a bit of knowledge that he wasn't aware of, placing myself in the awkward position of either recanting or standing my ground. I was more adroit than usual, and believe to this day that I managed to clear that hurdle.
But the HR lady? A physically attractive affirmative action hire right out of central casting who essentially asked me the racial equivalents of "have you stopped beating your wife?" I gave it a shot until I realized that this was a very demeaning exercise in futility administered by a pretty, well-dressed, intelligent a**hole, and then I just sort of lost interest.
Back then, I would always get a polite letter acknowledging the interview regardless of whether I was offered the job or not, but not from this place. They reorganized soon afterwards and in the process bent that nice guy over the proverbial sawhorse and diddled him most thoroughly. Don't know what happened to the HR lady, but I suspect she ended up in the board room before their corporate bubble deflated.
Best damn job I ended up not wanting and didn't get.
Mr. niteowl77
Applied for a job that required a lengthy set of tests and a psych evaluation.
As the shrink was leaving he handed me a Mensa type of test that had 50 or so questions. He said I will be back in x time. Most people get it done in that time. I got to about 40 when the time expired. He walked in and I felt bummed that I did not finish it. He asked how far I had gotten and I sheepishly told him how far. He said that no one had ever gotten that far before and that his remark was made to see how well I did under intense pressure. I got the job. Sure felt like a failure..