Michele‘s recent tale of past job woe reminded me of a story from my own past.  I’d just graduated from college, and I was worried about scoring a job to pay the rent, as I had little money saved up.  I’d sent my resume to a place that advertised “promotions! marketing!” in the Boston Globe classifieds, and they called me back for an interview—I was ecstatic, since the job market for beginners at the time wasn’t that stellar.  Oddly, they told me to prepare for an all-day interview, so I did.

I show up at this place’s offices at 9am—they’re not in Boston, they’re way way out in some suburb.  I walk into the office—and there’s about 30 other people there.  Oh boy.  I figure at this point, the reason why they wanted me to prepare for an all-day interview was because they’re going to sit there all day going through people’s resumes and interviewing them.  Not so much.  After an hour or so of all of us milling around the room, they tell us we’re going to split into groups and head out for “evaluation.” I get assigned with one other interviewee (who’s kind of a jock-lookin’ guy—not much upstairs and eager to please… almost like a drone) to this slick 20-something, who drives us 45 minutes to some random suburb way out in the middle of nowhere.  On the way, he’s telling us all about the great company and all this great work we’re going to do and how much money we could make.

It’s a sales company.  The representatives go door to door, selling something along the lines of Entertainment Books, where people get discounts at local restaurants and things.  Mind you, I am not a salesman, but I figure a day of tagging along with this guy and seeing how he does things is not a total and complete waste of my time.  So we watch him do his thing door to door for an hour or so, and then it starts to rain—but he keeps going, so I’ve got to stay with him.  Finally, he decides to get out of the rain so we break for lunch—we go to some random pizza parlor in the area, where the guy makes us buy our own lunch while he again proceeds to tell us about how much money we can make, and the other “trainee” I’m paired up with is eating it up almost as hungrily as he’s devouring his pizza, already regurgitating the company lines back to him.  Oh yeah!  Big money!  Hell, this guy is getting ready to open his own branch office in Lowell, but he could transfer anywhere in the country!  (For those of you not familiar with Boston geography, Lowell is a small town about 40-50 minutes outside of Boston.)

We return from lunch… at which point, the guy tells us that me and the other “trainee” should give it a shot.  Instead of us watching him, now he’s going to watch us.  The other dude tries valiantly—he’s way into the sales pitch.  Thankfully for me, most of the houses we go to where he tells me to try to sell, no one’s home.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  About 3pm (mind you, we’ve been on our feet all day long walking around this neighborhood), he tells us to split up—he thinks we’re ready to try selling on our own.  Holy crap!  I couldn’t believe the racket this company had set up—they get a bunch of suckers looking for a job, then they get them to sell their crappy product for free!  Unpaid labor!  Again, thankfully, most of the places I hit, no one’s there, but I do have to hit up a few poor souls with this coupon book thing.

Mercifully, around 6:30pm (6:30!), our manager guy decides it’s time to head back to the office.  Thank God, because I’m tired from being on my feet all day, I’m still slightly damp from having been rained on earlier, and I’m hungry since it’s getting past my dinnertime.  Plus, I had made plans to meet up with my then-girlfriend around 7:30 that night, figuring an “all-day interview” would last 9-5… normal business hours.  We get in the car and start making the 45-minute drive back to the main office, during which time I call my girlfriend to let her know I’ll be late since this thing is still going on. 

So we get back to the office, and a reception is in full swing.  Punch and a single bowl of chips for everyone, woo hoo!  As this is going on, one by one, people are being brought in to a side office to discuss the day with the head of the office.  8:30 rolls around.  9pm.  Every 45 minutes or so, I call up my girlfriend and push dinner back a little farther, then finally tell her if she’s hungry to eat, since it’s obvious I won’t be home for a long while.  Finally, around 10pm, I get called into the office.  One of the first things they say is, “So, we’re a little worried about your commitment.  We saw you making phone calls.” WTF?  I reply, “Yeah, I was calling my girlfriend since I had made dinner plans for after this interview was over, but I wanted to let her know I was still here and to push dinner back—but I finally told her just to go eat since I didn’t want to make her wait this late.” There was much harrumphing on their part—didn’t I know workdays could last this late?  (Yeah, I do now—I work until 11pm every Tuesday night at the job I’m at now, but at least they told me that in advance and they give me dinner.) They question my commitment—I showed a lack of enthusiasm for the product, according to my supervisor.  Well, I didn’t know all that much about it, I got a two-minute explanation and then he threw us into the field, so I couldn’t answer some of the questions people had about it.  But I’d spent all day with my supervisor!  Yes, and all I got out of him were all these grand speeches about how much money I could make and how he’s going to Lowell, so look at the advancement he’s making.  I didn’t get much about how the company actually works.

They grill me for another 10 minutes—which I think was basically a test to see if they could beat me into submission, and there were disapproving noises made throughout the “interview.” Meanwhile, I’m starving since I haven’t had dinner, I’m exhausted, and I’m not feeling well from being out in the rain, but of course they didn’t care.  Thankfully… thankfully, they finally let me go around 10:15, and I got home around 11pm that night.  Worst.  Interview.  Ever.