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I'm sorry I bit you during my job interview (2011)

by 8b16380d on 10/11/23, 1:04 PM with 138 comments

• by firefoxd on 10/11/23, 2:54 PM

  This made my day. Bursted out laughing while waiting in line in an immigration office.

  Many years ago, I interviewed somewhere where the HR manager gave me hell. It was a roller coaster emotions. She would say something funny, I would laugh and then she'd take note seriously. Out of the blue, she would ask about my childhood, then switch to why do I look stressed. I had 6 technical interviews before her that went well. I had just lost a family member, talking with her was a nail in my coffin. I was surprised when they called me back.

  Two years at the job, a deranged guy accosted us at lunch with my team. He made everyone feel uncomfortable before leaving. Turns out, this was the guy I had replaced. After he was hired he turned into a lunatic who would threaten anyone who questioned his code. The stress test HR made me go through was designed to filter these people out.

  I'd like to believe I'm not a psycho since I passed the test, but I don't think it did what it was designed to do. Two of my coworkers are now convicted murderers. One of them with a famous televised trial that just ended last month.

• by nlh on 10/11/23, 2:53 PM

  This was brilliant and hilarious (thank you OP for sharing).

  I'm now going to do the thing that I think you're not supposed to do which is analyze the joke (rather than just appreciate it). My wife has been working hard at writing short stories and I've been observing the learning process and reading a lot of McSweeny's. Comedy writing is a true skill (like Comedy itself) -- and I think this piece really nails it. Comedy is about the unexpected -- leading a reader down a path and then changing directions in a way that provokes laughter, not confusion.

  The first brilliant line: "The second time I bit you, I think I was just hungry." The title and opening paragraph imply and lead the reader into thinking that this was a joke about a single bite (which itself is absurd). When that line hits, the absurdity is amped up.

  In fact that whole paragraph escalates and escalates the absurdity: "I hadn’t had any breakfast that morning" to "Okay. Full, full disclosure: I’d had a small breakfast" to "The sad irony is that my briefcase was full of leftover sausages from breakfast."

  Anyway, I won't droll on here. A great piece and worth digesting if you have any interest in comedy writing :)

• by throwawaaarrgh on 10/11/23, 1:53 PM

  I'm going to start biting my keyboard if I get one more formulaic rejection without anyone telling me why they rejected me. It's infuriating. I've got years of experience and the right tech stack, but all the applications are going in the trash!

• by brk on 10/11/23, 2:46 PM

  This reminds me of a "preemptive interview thank you email" I saw years ago. It was intended to be sent from the interviewer to the interviewee and was along the lines of:

  "Thank you for interviewing with us. We are aware that you feel you are an excellent fit for the position and can see yourself having a long career with BigCo. Further, we understand that you thoroughly enjoyed meeting our team and were very impressed with the hiring manager. Lastly, we would like to acknowledge the time we took from our busy schedules in our management positions, and note that your addition to the team would surely help make us all more productive and ease some of our current demands in our daily roles."

• by tempaway43211 on 10/11/23, 2:13 PM

  Reminds me a bit of

  Faq: The “Snake Fight” Portion Of Your Thesis Defense

  https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/faq-the-snake-fight-port...

• by qingcharles on 10/11/23, 3:25 PM

  Years ago me and my colleague got tired with all the people we were interviewing for a dev position and started interviewing the ones with the most insane CVs ("I follow Yeardly Smith everywhere she goes in the world", "Greatest achievement: I once drove 30 miles for KFC" etc).

  One guy said he was a "black belt Ninjitsu." We had him in.

  He started talking about his dev skills and I put a quick stop to that. "Tell me about the ninja shit."

  "Oh, yeah, I'm a black belt. I can even make myself invisible."

  Me and my colleague: O_O "Show me!"

  "Right now?"

  "Yes! Right now!"

  "Well, I can't right now as you know I'm here."

  "OK, go out of the room and then come back in invisible!"

  "Well, it don't work like that. Like, basically I can walk straight through a crowded party and nobody will even see me."

  Methinks there are other reasons nobody is looking at Comic Book Guy-looking man creeping through a party in a ninja outfit....

• by pteraspidomorph on 10/11/23, 2:50 PM

  This guy comes up to me on the street and says he hasn't had a bite in three days.

  Well, I knew what he meant, but just to be funny, I took a big bite out of his jugular vein.

  And he's yellin' and screamin' and bleeding all over, and I'm like, "Hey, come on, don'tcha get it?"

  But he just keeps rolling around on the sidewalk, bleeding, and screaming, you know, just completely missing the irony of the whole situation.

  Man, some people just can't take a joke, you know?

• by CoastalCoder on 10/11/23, 1:38 PM

  It's funny, but I can't tell if it's making some larger point.

• by boomboomsubban on 10/11/23, 1:56 PM

  Mike Edling? It's the kind of article I'd expect to have a joke name, but other than "Mike" possibly referring to Tyson I can't think of anything. Searching "Mike Edling," "mikedling," and "Edling bite" didn't help, unless it's a Twilight reference. I think anything with "ed bite" will get you Twilight results.

• by droobles on 10/11/23, 1:44 PM

  I thoroughly enjoyed this and it made me laugh out loud stupidly at the coffee shop, thank you for sharing!

• by charles_f on 10/11/23, 2:50 PM

  I think this goes a step too far to be believable.

  Of course I can buy that you'd bite someone out of stress, and maybe a second time because you're hungry. At this point clearly the next step is building rapport through humour, and biting the interviewer is the logical step since that's what you have in common at this stage. And yeah I could get that the interviewer is agitated at this point, disregards your own character and preferences, and this triggers you.

  But clearly you'd call. Or go in person. Or even write a card. Not send an email.

• by jbajic on 10/11/23, 1:39 PM

  Was this an interview for a police dog position?

• by yieldcrv on 10/11/23, 1:46 PM

  I can’t believe employers wont take time to explain why he was rejected

• by midasuni on 10/11/23, 2:42 PM

  Sometimes it works out. This guy but someone in frustration and ended up running the BBC

  https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/mar/24/broadcasting.b...

• by lelima on 10/11/23, 3:29 PM

  Once on a Data engineering interview I was explaining some diagrams and data flows when my nose decided to bleed, a lot.

  The blood started to run over my white shirt, while I was still trying to explain why we were moving data from one database to another on a whiteboard, with one hand trying to stop the bleeding.

  I got the job.

• by surfingdino on 10/11/23, 3:25 PM

  I interviewed a drunk alcoholic dev once. Kept falling off his chair during the interview. We rejected him so he doctored his CV and applied via a different recruitment agency again. Got rejected again. Didn't bite me, but was close to getting physically violent. Had to call security.

• by burnished on 10/11/23, 1:51 PM

  Written by a chihuahua I take it? Half fear, half tremble

• by jeffrallen on 10/11/23, 2:10 PM

  Just starting a job search, and this really helps put things in perspective, thanks!

• by atum47 on 10/11/23, 2:50 PM

  That was a nice text. Very amusing. I've been thinking about start writing again, in English this time. You see, I've been writing since i was a teenager but always in my mother tongue. How do you distribute your content? RSS or people just go to your blog to read it? I was thinking nobody nowadays would go to a specific website just to read some text; they seem to want everything in a central place like a social network or even a RSS reader.

  Please don't bite me for asking all those questions.

• by cb321 on 10/11/23, 2:21 PM

  Did anyone else get a feeling the author had recently read (or is at least a big fan of) Jonathan Swift's _A Modest Proposal_?

• by kaycey2022 on 10/13/23, 3:09 AM

  Sounds like he’s a cat. From his perspective he was only being polite. I’d hire him.

• by karaterobot on 10/11/23, 3:11 PM

  But did he get the job?!

• by MrAnalogy on 10/13/23, 5:21 PM

  Was interview for cordyceps fungus researcher?

• by al_be_back on 10/11/23, 3:09 PM

  a story in 4 bytes ... that's efficient :P

  Applicants for Junior roles should really get some feedback, short-but-sweet, it's a learning processes too.

• by user_of_the_wek on 10/12/23, 9:39 AM

  That's why we do interviews via Zoom.

• by 29athrowaway on 10/11/23, 1:33 PM

  Cannibal news?

• by jrootabega on 10/11/23, 4:12 PM

  This is almost Jack Handey material.

• by EGreg on 10/11/23, 1:38 PM

  I forgive you

• by Zee38484 on 10/11/23, 2:56 PM

  I am a dog attack survivor. I was 10 years old, I spend a few weeks in hospital.

  Some people do not find this funny, they may even loose control and go berserker. This little attack may escalate pretty fast!

• by Ajay-p on 10/11/23, 1:35 PM

  Satire