Work colleagues

[DiegoDiego]

Even to this day interviews still stress me out, despite having to do them a lot as a contractor, I don't know why anyone would put themselves through that. Also, if you turn up acting like you don't give a f**k, it's very easy to tell so won't get offered anyway. 

I generally prefer the interviews to the actual job.

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, DiegoDiego said:

2 hours ago, thistledo said:

Even to this day interviews still stress me out, despite having to do them a lot as a contractor, I don't know why anyone would put themselves through that. Also, if you turn up acting like you don't give a f**k, it's very easy to tell so won't get offered anyway. 

I generally prefer the interviews to the actual job.

Some folk must be the absolute dogs bollocks in interviews.

We had a colleague who was worse than useless. We used to joke that he was a minus one FTE as we all had to help out to cover his dreadful work. To give an example, in class a student would ask a question. He would say "give me a minute to find out" and would google the answer in front of the whole class, then read out whatever he found. He did hardly any research either. 

The uni realised this and started negotiating an exit package with him. He took a nice redundancy package, and turned up a month later at Strathclyde doing the same job. As far as I know he is still there. 

 

[Jacksgranda]

5 hours ago, thistledo said:

Even to this day interviews still stress me out, despite having to do them a lot as a contractor, I don't know why anyone would put themselves through that. Also, if you turn up acting like you don't give a f**k, it's very easy to tell so won't get offered anyway. 

I was the same, stressed to the 99s. Having said that I was offered three of the jobs which had a formal interview process, took 2 of them. Three of the others were recommendations/casual interview/semi formal interviews. Took all them, too.

[meanmistermustard]

One of my colleagues is an incredibly staunch Rangers fan to the point where it is incredibly easy to get her raging and yelling about the blue pound, how everyone hates them but they don't care, how there is a conspiracy against them by everyone in Scottish football, they didn't die in 2012 and anything else going. Had one conversation over the Cinch deal where she claimed they were doing it for the survival of all Scottish football teams but let them all die if they didn't go Rangers way. It gets boring after a while.

[thistledo]

20 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

22 hours ago, thistledo said:

Even to this day interviews still stress me out, despite having to do them a lot as a contractor, I don't know why anyone would put themselves through that. Also, if you turn up acting like you don't give a f**k, it's very easy to tell so won't get offered anyway. 

I generally prefer the interviews to the actual job.

How come? 

19 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Some folk must be the absolute dogs bollocks in interviews.

We had a colleague who was worse than useless. We used to joke that he was a minus one FTE as we all had to help out to cover his dreadful work. To give an example, in class a student would ask a question. He would say "give me a minute to find out" and would google the answer in front of the whole class, then read out whatever he found. He did hardly any research either. 

The uni realised this and started negotiating an exit package with him. He took a nice redundancy package, and turned up a month later at Strathclyde doing the same job. As far as I know he is still there. 

 

There are always people like this, worked with someone who had on his CV that he could do basically everything and in reality he could do nothing. He ended up getting a contract where I was, fucked something up in the space of a month and was out the door a month later. He's in a new job every 3-6 months, I have no idea how he blags his way through interviews.

 

16 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

I was the same, stressed to the 99s. Having said that I was offered three of the jobs which had a formal interview process, took 2 of them. Three of the others were recommendations/casual interview/semi formal interviews. Took all them, too.

I always keep at them, so hopefully I have a choice when it's time for a new contract, in the hope one day they bother me less. Probably my anxiety is the real reason behind the feeling.  

Edited September 23, 2021 by thistledo

[oneteaminglasgow]

Interviews are fine - you can say whatever shite you want. Either you get the job, and what you’ve said is ok, or you never need to see them again. As long as you don’t set yourself up to immediately fail if you get the job, then you’re fine.

[Sergeant Wilson]

Interviewing has become a "learnable" skill. Various formats are applied and you can easily find interviewers baffled by the science of an interviewee who is just better at it than them. Hence duds and flymen succeed quite often.

[GordonD]

18 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

Interviews are fine - you can say whatever shite you want. Either you get the job, and what you’ve said is ok, or you never need to see them again. As long as you don’t set yourself up to immediately fail if you get the job, then you’re fine.

 

[scottsdad]

Old story this, but back in 2006 I went for an interview for a company in Moodiesburn and a place in Edinburgh. As I was travelling from Wales I managed to get both interviews scheduled for the same day.

I flew up from Cardiff and dad picked me up from the airport and took me to the company in Moodiesburn. Only, when I got there it wasn't just an interview. It was a tour of the factory followed by five interviews with various managers, the last being the MD. What I thought would take an hour ended up taking almost four. Dad was sat in the car outside (with a book and a thermos) for the whole time. And I was getting very edgy about timings. I was starting to worry how Dad was coping outside, and the time for my interview in Edinburgh was coming up.

I got away from Moodiesburn much later than planned. No time to stop, no time for lunch. Dad drove me straight to Edinburgh but I was running late. I called ahead and lied - said my flight was delayed - and they agreed to take me at the end of the day. This was great news as it meant that Dad and I could get a bite to eat. It was a mad rush. 

After the hours of interviews I had been through I went in to the place in Edinburgh and gave a really good interview. I guess all the nervousness had been sucked out of me. 

Dad took me to the airport afterwards, having given up an entire day just to cart me around. I didn't get the job in Moodiesburn but did get the one in Edinburgh. 

[Archie McSquackle]

Got an ex colleague who applies for various jobs, gets the interview (one even flew him down to Leicester, hotels food etc for 2 days), he then gets made the offer then rejects them as he never had any intention of taking the job.
He sees it as getting his name out there and just politely declines.....its utter madness?!?!?!?! i explained to him you are just wasting peoples time and that those companies will NEVER want to touch him with a bargepole ever again, but he thinks nothing of it.

Does the company he works for not catch on to him going to a lot of interviews? They probably can't do anything about it if he's taking annual leave but it surely doesn't help his future prospects.

[welshbairn]

Remember applying for random jobs when I needed one in a hurry, one of which was an assistant in the hospital mortuary. Got as far as the question "What attracted you to this position", barely suppressed laughing out loud and had to leave the interview.

[thistledo]

A long time ago I remember going for an IT related job at Glasgow Uni, I was fresh out of school, but smartly dressed and completely lost looking for a building. These four professors (i'm guessing) were walking towards me. I politely said "excuse me could you..." before I could even get to midway of the sentence they walked straight past me barely even glancing in my direction. I louder than I realised said "dickheads" one of them turning his head back with a wry smile and kept walking. I thought absolutely f**k this and left without doing the interview. The only time I've been a no show for an interview. 

Ended up getting another job that paid better. 

[DiegoDiego]

How come?

Firstly, I'm talking about traditional interviews, where you sit down with one or two people who ask you questions, not any of this role-playing nonsense or practical assessments that get done these days.

People love talking about themselves and that's what interviews are an opportunity to do. In general I'm not someone who gets nervous or stressed easily so I don't find it much different from having a chat with a stranger at a pub, though minus the booze, of course.

Everyone's on their best behaviour so it's very rare you go away thinking someone was an arsehole (unless they veer into Tam Courts-speak). Once you're actually on the job you need to do actual work, which may not be that fun, you may be reprimanded for, and you are very likely to have to do in the company of irritating colleagues and/or arsehole members of the public.

Though I enjoy interviews I absolutely despise filling in application forms. Fewer and fewer companies just let you hand in a CV and covering letter anymore. The job I currently have required a thirteen page application form.

[GordonD]

1 hour ago, thistledo said:

A long time ago I remember going for an IT related job at Glasgow Uni, I was fresh out of school, but smartly dressed and completely lost looking for a building. These four professors (i'm guessing) were walking towards me. I politely said "excuse me could you..." before I could even get to midway of the sentence they walked straight past me barely even glancing in my direction. I louder than I realised said "dickheads" one of them turning his head back with a wry smile and kept walking. I thought absolutely f**k this and left without doing the interview. The only time I've been a no show for an interview. 

Would have been interesting if you had turned up and those four were the panel.

[Raidernation]

Thanks to my wholly illegal termination from my last teaching post (lawsuit pending) I had to do a fair few interviews this summer.

I decided to completely avoid the standard “this is what they want to hear” answers and was 100% honest about how I genuinely feel and believe.

Out of 9 interviews I was offered 8 jobs! I guess they liked what they heard.

[thistledo]

2 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

Firstly, I'm talking about traditional interviews, where you sit down with one or two people who ask you questions, not any of this role-playing nonsense or practical assessments that get done these days.

People love talking about themselves and that's what interviews are an opportunity to do. In general I'm not someone who gets nervous or stressed easily so I don't find it much different from having a chat with a stranger at a pub, though minus the booze, of course.

Everyone's on their best behaviour so it's very rare you go away thinking someone was an arsehole (unless they veer into Tam Courts-speak). Once you're actually on the job you need to do actual work, which may not be that fun, you may be reprimanded for, and you are very likely to have to do in the company of irritating colleagues and/or arsehole members of the public.

Though I enjoy interviews I absolutely despise filling in application forms. Fewer and fewer companies just let you hand in a CV and covering letter anymore. The job I currently have required a thirteen page application form.

That makes sense, it's a total mixed bag for me these days. One job could be multiple interviews, one involving writing code to automate deployments while multiple people observed, asked questions about what I was doing and why (actually happened) I got the job, but it was not fun in any way. Other times it's like a half hour phone call about what I've been doing in the previous role followed by more or less an offer there and then. I find the difference incredible. 

I think the big fear is someone fires you a question and you just completely f**k the answer. Not now, but many years ago there was also financial pressures that meant literally get this job or lose the things you've worked so hard for (not my fault, sometimes these things happen) 

I don't even go for jobs with application forms, really cannot be arsed with that, thirteen pages is utterly ridiculous. 

1 hour ago, GordonD said:

Would have been interesting if you had turned up and those four were the panel.

Would have been an interesting chat. I doubt these bellends would have been involved in what I imagine to them, was a lowly IT position. Anyway, I'm glad it happened. 

[BFTD]

On 22/09/2021 at 09:00, GordonD said:

I worked beside a guy who would apply for the job every time a football manager got sacked. As he had zero qualifications he never got anywhere but he had an impressive stack of reject letters on club notepaper.

As tragic as that is, it sounds like a pretty cool collection. I always just figured that the applications from fruitloops would just go straight in the bin but, football fans being as they are, I suppose clubs feel the need to humour people a bit!

19 hours ago, meanmistermustard said:

One of my colleagues is an incredibly staunch Rangers fan to the point where it is incredibly easy to get her raging and yelling about the blue pound, how everyone hates them but they don't care, how there is a conspiracy against them by everyone in Scottish football, they didn't die in 2012 and anything else going. Had one conversation over the Cinch deal where she claimed they were doing it for the survival of all Scottish football teams but let them all die if they didn't go Rangers way. It gets boring after a while.

Fair play if you enjoy winding her up, but I couldn't stick that. If someone turns out to be a football fan, I like to listen to their opinions on their team and chat shit about football in general, but Celtgers fans are murder. I worked in a place that was full of them about twenty years ago, and the tired patter was chronic. Got the impression that none of them had watched a match in their lives.

1 hour ago, Raidernation said:

Thanks to my wholly illegal termination from my last teaching post (lawsuit pending) I had to do a fair few interviews this summer.

I decided to completely avoid the standard “this is what they want to hear” answers and was 100% honest about how I genuinely feel and believe.

Out of 9 interviews I was offered 8 jobs! I guess they liked what they heard.

Reminded of this scene:

[meanmistermustard]

It was fun the first few times when she'd go full out raging at the simplest comments about how stupid Rangers were being, not that her anger didn't soon get headache inducing but, as said, now it's boring and better to keep off the topic entirely. It's far too easy. She is a full-on Sevo bluenose tho to the point where she completely avoids the BBC (games they show have to be watched on Hesgoal), won't go to certain away games due to events in 2012 but does go to the home matches, and all the rest.

@BFTD

At work in general I am the arsehole as I work mostly around females yet detest small talk and avoid all the pish they watch on TV so am quiet a lot of the time. Often I'll walk off and get on with whatever needs done. The amount of complete shite that folk discuss to get thru the working day is insane.

[UsedToGoToCentralPark]

I don't particularly like interviews and dislike being the interviewer even more but had one as the interviewed the other day and it went well, just waiting to hear back but possibly I'm a bit too senior for the role but you never know.

Had an interview many years ago and they made me do some sort of math paper, when asked how I got on I replied with, if you'd asked me when I was doing my standard grades it would have been 100% but 5 years have passed so its not particularly impressive. No job from them.

[BFTD]

21 minutes ago, meanmistermustard said:

It was fun the first few times when she'd go full out raging at the simplest comments about how stupid Rangers were being, not that her anger didn't soon get headache inducing but, as said, now it's boring and better to keep off the topic entirely. It's far too easy. She is a full-on Sevo bluenose tho to the point where she completely avoids the BBC (games they show have to be watched on Hesgoal), won't go to certain away games due to events in 2012 but does go to the home matches, and all the rest.

@BFTD

At work in general I am the arsehole as I work mostly around females yet detest small talk and avoid all the pish they watch on TV so am quiet a lot of the time. Often I'll walk off and get on with whatever needs done. The amount of complete shite that folk discuss to get thru the working day is insane.

Ask if she's developing a soft spot for the Wasps. I've noticed they have a tendency to suddenly develop an appreciation for one of the diddies if they keep one of their unemployables off the streets.