re: Craziest/most interesting job interview?

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I may be out of the OT loop here, but is this a true story or a fabrication?

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It's very true.

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Valero, No Hope, 2005/2006. Interview for a direct civil/structural design position.

Guy told me he needed to give me an Autocad test, to draw a platform. He took me to a workstation, gave me a sketch of a simple platform, and I went to work. 30-45 minutes later, I handed him a drawing of his platform, plan & section, fully dimensioned and noted. He said thank you, we’ll call you.

Never heard from him again. I figured later that he must’ve needed a platform drawn and didn’t want to pay for it.

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I'm sure they used your drawing.

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I don't know how many here are in academia, but the on-campus interviews can be intense. Typically you fly or drive in the night before and go out to dinner with some-to-all of the search committee (usually five people).

The next day you are either meeting with or presenting to people starting at 8AM and ending around 5PM. You probably meet anywhere between 10-20 people (besides everyone at the 45 minute teaching demonstration or presentation) during the day. Once you are done, they tell you thanks for coming in and we'll be in touch. Hiring decisions aren't usually made for a good 1-2 weeks after the interview, so all you do is wait for a phonecall or email.

I interviewed 40 years ago for a Director of Quality Assurance position with a privately held medical device company in Texas (five shareholders). The interview with all of the other shareholders went well and at the very end, they took me in to see the principal shareholder/President (53 percent of the company).

He had a couch across from his desk and I sat down. You always let the President choose what he wants to talk about, so I said nothing. He immediately pointed out the window at his Saville Cadillac and started telling me how much he "loved that old car". It was two years old.

He went on about what a good car it was for maybe 10 minutes and then started telling me about his recent divorce (his wife got everything except the Cadillac and the company) and that others would tell me it was because he had an affair with the VP of foreign sales. She was an incredibly beautiful Irish lady, half his age, who interviewed me earlier in the day. He had two kids older then her. He said anything others had told me was true and the downside of their relationship was that he had to hire her brother and her father, then make jobs for them in the company. Eventually, he assured me it was worth it.

This went on for another 10 minutes and suddenly he realized I had done nothing other than occasionally nod my head in agreement as he talked.

At that point, he sat silent for a long 20 seconds and then told me he liked my style and the job was mine.

All in all, it was a great job, except that everyone in the front office was a shareholder except me and during skiing season, they all left to catch a flight to Colorado every Friday at about 10:00 am and left me to run the company until maybe noon on Monday, or sometimes Tuesday.

Interviewed with NASA for an engineering position during my last semester of college. Right out of the gate this black lady tells me they are looking for minorities, preferably female, to fill this position. We never even got to talk about the details of the job as this lady gave me all the politically correct mantra of the day. I asked about other openings but it was obvious I wasn’t getting past her as a gatekeeper. Needless to say it was eye opening and disappointing to see what the government is looking for from its employees.

Eatly in senior year in college, and was interviewing for a Rotary scholarship to study abroad for a year. The panel was just a bunch of businessmen asking me questions. They were normal guys, so it was really just a bullshite session, and things were looking good.

Then l got the last question. "What are your plans for starting a family?" Took me by surprise, and all the ability to bullshite briefly left me. Seeing as l was a twenty year old kid, I'd never thought about starting a family. That's what l told them. Wrong answer.

Crafty-arse old man outsmarted the punk-arse kid.

This thread is like Sulley Sullenberger asking if anyone has any crazy stories from work.

I worked for a company who had an old owner who never hardly came to the office. She insisted on interviewing everyone (only interview not 2nd or 3rd) and then proceeded to talk about shopping, restaurants, vacations, cars, etc all during the interview. If the person was a decent conversationalist they usually got hired. Nothing discussed that was at all relevant to the job. Created a horrible work environment full of people who were incompetent and obviously not what their resume stated them to be.

***she did not interview me because she was sick and had to have surgery when I was hired so I knew nothing of this huge red flag before I joined the company