My Strangest Interview, Part II

The second part of the interview will take place with Ivan, the HR rep. “Ivan” is not his real name, his real name being even crazier. Suffice it to say that now I know exactly how it feels to be interrogated by the police, in one of those concrete rooms with the one-way mirror on the wall.

Physically Ivan is a bald Hispanic man with a build similar to Mike Tyson’s from The Hangover. He’s dressed barely-business-casual, as were the ladies, wearing a denim-colored button-up shirt (unbuttoned at chest level) and no tie. His room is even more Spartan than the ladies: about 10 by 20 feet, industrial carpeting, wood paneling on the walls, a desk, two chest-high shelves, and a big Mercury Plasmatics calendar on the all. Giant phone and Dell PC. Two metal chairs, but with fabric cushions on them.

After polite introductions, he asks me how my “interview” went with Morgana. A little unnerved, I decide to take a gamble and I mention some of the things Morgana told me. Maybe turn the tables on him. I ask, “What do you think of the long-term survival of Mercury Plasmatics?”

He puts his pencil down, sighs, rubs his eyes. “That’s the big question.” He goes on to tell me how there’s new management, how their focused on “going green,” and targeting the tri-state area with a vengeance. It’s slow going, and they take it – this phrase, again – “month by month.”

Then the interview really commences.

Ivan begins to go down my resume, line by line, job by job, responsibility by responsibility, questioning everything. He pauses ten or fifteen seconds before asking a question, then writes down notes on a yellow legal pad in teeny block lettering. When we’re done he’s compiled two pages on me and my answers! And this guy didn’t believe me for anything! If I told him I knew how to turn on a PC he’d re-ask the question twice in different ways, revisit it later in the interview, and jot a full paragraph on that yellow pad.

I notice that every time he listens to my answers, his eyes semi-close as if in a meditative trance. My overactive imagination has immediately assigned to my interviewer supreme skills of reading people, discovering their lies, their half-truths and embellishments, noting every poker tell I give off to avoid making myself look bad, as all his questions seem designed to do.

Some of Ivan’s better gems during the interview:

“So, I see you’re an ‘independent website consultant.’ That means you’re an LLC, right? No? Why not?”

“Did you ask your wife if there were any jobs at her company?”

“Did you go on your wife’s company’s website looking for jobs? If that was me, I’d be on my wife’s company’s website looking for jobs.”

“How well do you understand collective bargaining agreements?”

“Let me ask you this: You have three shifts. The second and third get a 55 cent hourly wage differential. A second shift guy covers for a first shift guy for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. He works his normal second shift for Thursday and Friday. What do you pay him?”

“How about this: Overtime is specified as working over eight hours a day or forty hours over the course of a week. A first shift guy works ten hours days Monday and Tuesday ... no, every single day over the course of the week. Tuesday he works the first and second shifts. Thursday he only works second shift. What do you pay him?”

(There were two more hypothetically convoluted payroll scenarios, but they’ve escaped me in the couple of intervening hours.)

“So you went from a help desk analyst to doing payroll. That’s quite a jump. Where’d all that trust come from?”

“You were let go and the controller from the sister dealership assumed your duties ... She was there twenty years and you were doing the job only two ... They must have been paying her a lot more than you, I’d assume. Why didn’t they fire her and not you?”

Finally, after 45 minutes in the hot seat, sweating in the air conditioning, face flushing, struggling to maintain that beaming, pearly-white smile, he’s wrapping up. “What was your most challenging accomplishment, and why?”

I describe the two weeks I had to get 45 union employees enrolled in medical, dental, vision, and life (or get signed waivers from them) between the signing of the union contract and the end of open enrollment. All while wearing the other three hats at the old job. Among my list of specifics about the challenge, I mention that half the guys didn’t even speak English, so I had to go through an interpreter.

“Oh,” Ivan says, stopping his notetaking and glancing up at me, “what language did they speak, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Ahhhh! Ivan is Hispanic! Red alert! Red alert! “Spanish,” I mumble, cringing inside and ready to bolt out the door.

How the heck did Morgana and Drusilla escape this guy’s clutches and get hired, I wondered. Then, while we’re chatting he admits to me he’s only been with the company since December, further corroborating my theory about recent mass firings to go with recent mass layoffs.

“Any questions for me?” he asks.

“What’s the next step?”

Ivan pauses and does the rub-eyes-sigh-put-pencil-down routine. “You’re the second person we’ve interviewed for the position. There are three more people coming in this week. Then we’re taking Monday and Tuesday off for payroll and then we’ll resume. We may continue running the ad to get a larger pool of applicants.”

“If I’m NOT going to be considered,” I say with a smile, “will someone give me a call?” Some places will give you a courtesy call if you didn’t make the cut, some won’t.

Ivan regards me with a look I interpret as disgust. “You have my card.”

Okay!

Thus ended the weirdest interview ever. Seventy-five minutes into the Employment Land of Oz. My question to you is, if they make me an offer for the money I’m asking, should I accept?