The internet stood firmly behind one prospective customer service employee after the story of their horrendous job interview went viral in a popular forum on Wednesday.
In a Reddit post published on the platform's r/antiwork forum, Redditor u/MangOrion2 described their recent job interview as a "waste of time" and detailed their interviewer's bizarre and overbearing behavior. Garnering attention from a seething portion of the popular subreddit's 1.7 million members, the viral post has received nearly 12,000 votes and 98 percent upvotes.
Explaining that they were set to interview for a customer service position, u/MangOrion2 said their job interviewer texted them and demanded they be fifteen minutes early to their scheduled 2 p.m. appointment. The Redditor obliged, and said they arrived at the interviewer's reception area at 1:45 p.m.
Then things went south.
u/MangOrion2 explained that after their 2 p.m. interview time passed and they had yet to be called in, they attempted to contact the interviewer and inquired with his receptionist about any potential hang-ups. But after waiting 30 minutes, they cut their losses and left — sparking a maelstrom of angry text messages from the job interviewer.
"The second I left he blows up my phone," the Redditor wrote. "Telling me I couldn't hack it in customer service because me not waiting however long 'proved' that I wouldn't 'bend over backwards' for the customer."
Realizing that the interviewer made them arrive early and wait long after the interview time on purpose, as a sort of pre-interview test, u/MangOrion2 was livid, and berated the interviewer's assessment tactics.
"Is this some kind of test? If it is, f**k that. I'm not wasting my time for you. If I waste my time before the interview process, imagine what a waste of time it would be working for your company," they wrote. "This isn't supposed to be a mind game."
According to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), the most effective and successful job interviewers treat interviews like they are anything but a game. While many interviewers employ tricks and potentially-shady tactics to observe prospective employees before interviews, HBR recommends that interviewers exercise a high level of transparency to build a strong rapport with their interviewees.
By providing correct information and abiding by agreed-upon schedules, interviewers are able to ease the anxieties of prospective employees, allowing for better communication and assessment.
Tardiness, however, does not bode well for interviewees or interviewers. Recently, r/antiwork members have flooded the subreddit with job interview horror stories and last month, Newsweek reported on one Redditor who said they arrived five minutes early to a job interview, but was accosted by an interviewer who was ten minutes late.
In 2018, numerous LinkedIn users shared their opinions on job interviews being late to job interviews. Many users agreed that a tardy job interviewer is a red flag, and a potential sign of what's to come if the initial interview progresses into employment. Although a handful of users supported pre-interview tests, like the one described in the viral Reddit post, the overwhelming majority maintained that if prospective employees must be on time, so should job interviewers.
In the Reddit post's top comment, which has received nearly 10,000 votes, Redditor u/TreePretty echoed those sentiments and confirmed u/MangOrion2's suspicions that their interview was testing them.
"It is a test to see how many red flags you're willing to ignore," they wrote.
Redditor u/RedditSh*tCommenter added that their office manager tested a prospective employee in a similar way, but unlike in the original post, forgot about the interview completely.
"My office manager did this before to a candidate for an interview," they wrote. "She actually forgot about the appointment and the candidate being in the lobby for 30 mins."
Amid a sea of commenters advising the original poster to seek employment elsewhere, u/MangOrion2 added a handful of updates to the intense interview situation. Explaining that the angry text messages transformed into angry phone calls, the Redditor was clear that they value their time more than any pre-interview observation tactics.
"I left at 15 minutes past," they wrote in response to a comment. "They've called me three times since."
"I'm sick of this," they added.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Taylor McCloud is a Newsweek staff writer based in California. His focus is reporting on trending and viral topics. Taylor ... Read more
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