I would love to read stories of interviewees who've decided to call it quits on the interviewers. It must happen right?
I once interviewed with a company where it was apparent 10 minutes in that it wasn't work I was interested in (they were a stealth mode startup, so my preparatory research didn't tell me much). I made my interests clear when describing myself, and it was apparent on both sides that there wasn't a good fit. We mutually agreed to cut the interview short. Not a very interesting story, but no bridges were burned and nobody's time was wasted. I'd expect that most such stories are similar.
The recruitment agent I was using must have been equally desperate. He sent me along to an interview for the position of in-house developer (yup, the only one) with a company based in central London.
The interview went well at first, but after the first 15 minutes, I sensed something was amiss. The damned recruitment agent had edited my CV to say that I was a Perl developer with 5 years experience. I explained this to the 5 people interviewing me, and to be honest, they were lovely about it.
In fact... a bit too nice about it. They wanted me to inherit their complex Perl-based system, despite me not having a clue about the language. I explained at length why I wouldn't be a good hire, but still they wouldn't end the interview. In desperation I wrote down the phone number of a friend who DID have some Perl knowledge, and practically ran out of the place.
It was nice, and I realise that non-techies might not make a distinction, but my they were insistent that I not leave!
I still think PHP is basically ASP for Perl - sorry... (Yeah I've heard people claim it is not like Perl at all).
But for the one time when it happened, long long time ago, it went like that:
I was sitting at a round table with 4/5 personn in front of me doing the interview, among them the CEO
this CEO in the middle of the interview ask me how much salary I would expect
I don't really block and answer straight away
then the CEO went into a fury on how I would dare to ask that much and that the price of bread could not augment that much
I kindly asked if he was comparing me to some slice of bread ?
He answered "yes"
I stood up, smiled and walked out of the room, not saying a word at all.
Stupid small story, but since that time I will always check the range of salary a company expect to pay for a job offer, it also helps to filter out the company having unreasonable expectations (I'm looking at the one who look for tons of languages, 10+ years of experience and want to pay you the salary of an intern).
In 2002, I was in a tough lurch between my first company's failure and a dire job market here in Atlanta. With -$210.00 in my checking account, it was all I could do to hide my excitement when a local auto insurance company called me in to interview for a senior/lead software development position.
I was almost immediately apprehensive when I arrived. The entire office basically amounted to an open call center, it was messy, and there were tangles of 10Base2 coax running haphazardly across the floor between computers. Not a good sign.
Though I had made it clear that I was interested in web development, it turned out that the job would mostly entail RPG and VB6 (what a combination). At that point, I was already looking for the door and thinking of polite excuses.
When the interviewer handed me a generic two-page application to fill out, as if I were interviewing for a job at McDonald's, I knew it was time to leave. I handed the application form back, thanked him for getting in touch with me, wished him the best of luck finding someone else, and navigated back through their 10Base2 obstacle course as quickly as possible.
[1] http://thedailywtf.com/Series/Tales_from_the_Interview.aspx
I had that experience at an interview. Among other things, the interviewer was late, I was stuck in a tiny office with three people interviewing me, etc, etc. It was quickly apparent to me that they didn't respect their programmers. I decided half way through the interview that I had no interest in the job, and considered politely departing right then, but I stuck it out. I figured it was good interview practice.