File Under: What Not to Do During a Job Interview

In light of the sobering layoff figures I listed in my last post, you can imagine that the competition for available job postings is tremendous. When one goes to the job fairs at the American Chemical Society semi-annual national meetings, it is startling the number of people vying for the posted job ads.

When I was going through the process about a year ago, there were people ranging from their mid-50s to those fresh out of grad school hoping for job interviews. The level of stress in the job seeker area was high. Everyone was trying to put their best foot forward.

Which is why, when we had a job candidate onsite this week, I was shocked at his demeanor.

He was speaking with me and a few other chemists. We were having a conversation about what he wanted from a job when he said,"Well, shit! I am really impressed by this company. You get the feeling from some companies that they are in existance just to get bought out. But, hell, I can tell you guys are in it for the long haul."

*blink*

He continued,"The top thing I want from a job is that I want to like the people I work with. I mean we have all worked with people whom we liked and others who were jackasses. There was this one guy in my lab who was a fuckin' asshole. Completely toxic. But luckily, my advisor got the point early on and shit-canned him.'

*blink blink*

Ooooooooookay. Colorful language there.

Shit-canned??? I learned a new phrase. It takes a lot to teach a 33 year old who has been through grad school in a predominately male lab a new way to cuss. But apparently, some of the guys at work had heard of it. It comes from the Army---there are cans under the latrines that some poor soul must empty every day. Ick.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if he will be joining us. He is certainly the most colorful character we have interviewed during my time at the company.