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Mm they didn't really mean /any/ question, and weren't inviting directness. Just like "hi how are you" from a stranger isn't an invitation to respond that your cat just died and your transmission needs replacing

Of course they didn't want to move forward. That's what you had decided/wanted though right? I can't imagine you hoping for any other outcome with that kind of question and follow up?

> That's what you had decided/wanted though right? I can't imagine you hoping for any other outcome with that kind of question and follow up?

The job paid really well so a small part of me still wanted to move forward, but I will admit I was pretty annoyed.

I should provide a bit of context; the recruiter that the company “valued directness” on their copypasted job description.

Regardless, if you show up late halfway through an interview that you scheduled, you shouldn’t be surprised when people are irritated with you.

I'm not going to pretend I'm great at reading social situations, but I think your approach in this story would have annoyed 99% of interviewers, even if they genuinely valued directness. If they'd asked for feedback on the interview process, then sure, they'd be a hypocrite if they claimed to value directness but got mad when you told them honestly that you were bothered by their lateness. But when they ask for questions, they're not inviting criticism, and framing the criticism as a question is always going to come across as passive aggressive. (edit: Or maybe 'snarky' is a better word here, as you did follow it up with a direct criticism, so 'passive aggressive' might not be quite right.)

Being annoyed is fine but I would argue that they should deal with it if they’re going to make me waste half the interview time sitting around.

I’ll admit to a bit of douchiness on my end but I think they should have understood the snarkiness in this situation if they value directness.

Fair enough. I wasn't there and this probably depends a lot on your tone and general vibe, the dynamic between you and the interviewer up until then, and so on. I do think it's almost always a risky move, but I think I assumed too much and I apologise for that.

Calling that out to that persons face, in that moment, is also inappropriate and rude. You can give that feedback some other time.

It’s actually not “inappropriate”.

Are you saying that instead of directly pointing out something that really bothered me, I should instead of reported him to someone higher up? Should I have bitched on Glassdoor? Oh, I guess I could have complained to the to recruiter where there is a zero percent chance that my complaint actually gets sent to them.

It’s “rude” in that I embarrassed the person for a minute, but it’s not like I went and tattled to their higher-up, or was out for blood or anything. If they’re going to waste half the interview then they can fucking deal with being embarrassed for a few minutes.

I think it is inappropriate in an interview situation 100%. If you can’t hold your tongue on some slight discomfort or perhaps talk about in a more diplomatic way (eg not singling out the specific person but rather just stating your upset at the interview being delayed) how are you going to react if clients/customers make you uncomfortable on conference calls? Are you going to be tactful and polite, or are you going to be direct and rude to them?

Obviously I don’t know the role you were going for etc. this is just an example, but I think doing this gives a bad impression that goes beyond just whether that specific person was irritated for you calling them on their lateness

No, it really isn’t inappropriate. The listing that the recruiter sent me said that they “value directness”.

If I had shown up fifteen minutes late for the interview they would likely not make an offer, and if they had called me out for being late then no one would call them an asshole.

Would you want to work with you? Maybe yes. But if I am making a choice about who to work with, I would prefer someone who has enough empathy and awareness to realize that it's possible that the interviewer might be running behind through no fault of their own. I would extend that to the my team members, and I hope they would in-turn, extend that to me.

You sound to me like someone who sees "please be direct and straight forward" as a free pass to nit-pick every little thing. Like maybe it's your duty to criticize even when it has little to no bearing on future success.

If I showed up late halfway through the interview, I would almost certainly not get an offer, and if the hiring manager called me out on that fact then no one would call that manager an asshole.

I am not “nitpicking every little thing” and I feel like there’s a lot of extrapolation going on there. I do think it’s extremely disrespectful to schedule a meeting and show up very late so that the interviewee doesn’t have time do do the full interview. In fact I think it is categorically more disrespectful than a snarky comment about lateness.

One of the best people I have ever worked with was somebody I interviewed and recommended be hired. She missed her first interview entirely. I was waiting for her to show up, annoyed that she was late, and she called me and said she needed to reschedule. At the time, she was hiking in the greenbelt on a beautiful day. I said, sure, we rescheduled, and she was a huge asset to the team. I kept the details of having to reschedule her interview quiet - because they had no bearing at all on her ability to do a good job.

I dare say that you are an outlier. When I have shown up significantly late for interviews they often cut it short before it even really starts.

Have I not established quite thoroughly that I am an outlier in many ways? Also, outliers exist. Also, being an outlier does not automatically equal "incorrect".

If the manager told you

"You don't value our time, you show up late, how do you expect us to value your time?"

Or something to that extent, that would be extremely rude. It's like a line out of Wolf of wall street or those trump movies - "You're fired!".

I have had hiring managers tell me that, almost verbatim actually, when I forgot about the interview and showed up significantly late.

I was embarrassed and yeah I admit that it wasn’t exactly fun to be called out like that, but I would much rather they say that than for them to pretend everything is fine, let me leave the interview thinking I didn’t annoy them, and then have it be a mystery as to why I am declined.

I felt embarrassed in the moment, and I should feel embarrassed. It is very rude and inconsiderate to not show up to meetings that you agreed to show up for and it signals that you don’t take the other person’s time very seriously.

To be clear, it wasn’t like I was being pedantic to the second; I know Zoom and Google Meet can be finicky so I understand being a minute or two late for a meeting and I generally don’t say anything if they are within the “my fucking microphone isn’t connecting gotta fix it” threshold.

There is "pointing out something that bothers you" which was the first part of the story. But, the reaction to interviewer who tries to explain himself "Listen, I don't really care. I'm sure your reasons are valid to you but from my perspective it just looks like you were happy enough to let me waste half the interview just sitting around staring at my watch." is an asshole reaction.

And yes, if roles were reverts, the manager saying the same "I dont really care" thing after you are trying to explain yourself would also be an asshole.

I mean, sure, but I didn’t really care.

Why should him being busy matter to me? For all he knows I am equally or more busy than he is. For all he knows I am skipping my mother’s funeral, or taking the entire day off of work, or turned down a dozen other potential interviews just to make this interview.

I will admit it’s a bit douchey, but why should I just nod my head happily and pretend that his excuses actually matter? Especially when all of them boiled down to “I was really busy”. We’re all busy.

Because it demonstrates flexibility. But I can imagine contexts in which impeccable punctuation is far, far more important.

Presumably the rest of the company operates like that too, so you were indeed not a good culture fit.

I'm not sure that I'm a "culture fit" for most companies. I should probably start buying lottery tickets instead.

FWIW if I were the interviewer, I would have green-flagged you as a must hire.

"Culture fit" is an euphemism for "did the interviewer like you?"

If most interviewers don't like you, that's something for you to think about. It's not necessarily bad, if you have a very specific personality that most people find disagreeable, then it's a good idea to look out for companies that cater to your personality, and where you will fit in. But it is something to think about.

I think most people generally like me well enough, I just have a low tolerance for certain bits of corporate hypocrisy.

"Everyone says that they value directness, and from what I can tell the vast majority of people actually don't."

Well sure, of course we do. We (or at least, a lot of the readers of this who live in a US and similar economic and social system) have learned that it is virtuous and correct to say we value directness. But that's where it stops; it's just a thing that is right to say. Part of the current social interaction protocol. It's then widely understood that many interactions should not be hyper-direct.

What you have observed - people saying they value directness and then not exhibiting it - is the expected behaviour. This isn't a bug.

Quick question: When the interviewer arrived late, did he start by apologizing?

He actually did not! He just proceeded like it was nothing.

Because it was. Was probably this person's 10th interview of the day. They probably only need the simplest of infractions to weed someone out given the absurd volume of applications they receive.

If I had shown up fifteen minutes late for the interview then they likely wouldn’t make an offer and they likely would have called it out during the interview. No one seems to call out companies when they do this shit.

They wouldn’t care if I had a really bad day beforehand, and they certainly wouldn’t assume that I had a good excuse for it.

> Because [arriving 15 minutes late to a 30-minute interview] was [nothing].

I'd expect over 95% of both interviewers and interviewees to say that arriving 15 minutes late to a 30-minute interview is very much not nothing; it's a serious breach of what is expected – on both sides of the interview.

If you show up late for an interview, no matter which side of the table you're on, you ought to apologize and, if you're more than a few minutes late, have a good explanation. To do anything less signals that you are an unreliable person. And, when you are representing a company, it makes the company look like it's run by people who don't even understand how to do something as simple as show up on time. It suggests that one of the company's unspoken core values is Dysfunction.

A passive-aggressive interview "question" is a hilariously bad example of "directness". Nah dude, you were just a jerk.

Probably. I would argue that showing up extremely late for an interview that you scheduled is considerably more jerk-ish.

It also wasn’t passive aggressive, or at least it wasn’t intended to be. I actually wanted to know if that was just a thing that was common in the company so I could plan accordingly.

Asking that question just signals that you don't obey social cues.

Most hiring managers won't like this, as they don't want to be responsible for hiring someone volatile like this.

I think the only place you could get away with this is if you're interviewing with a C-Suite member who has nobody to answer to.

Saying something like "Actually, I felt it was unprofessional and disrespectful to not have the interview start at the agreed-upon time" would also be direct, no? The way it's written sounds way more inflammatory.

I am afraid I don’t see how that is significantly different than what I said.

Didn’t your momma teach you that two wrongs don’t make a right??

If someone is a jerk to you, and then you’re a jerk to them… you’re still a jerk.

I do not concede that what I did was “wrong”.

Pointing out something that was objectively douchy isn’t “wrong”. Yes I was a little snarky, and maybe I am a “jerk”, but considering that this person was happy to just waste my time like it was nothing I do think he was entitled to a little embarrassment.

> I do think he was entitled to a little embarrassment

This is exactly the kind of signal that would make me not want to hire someone.

Tit-for-tat? Spite? No thanks.

“Tit for tat” and “spite” feel like they are very strong words for what amounted to a justified smartass comment.

If I had shown up fifteen minutes late for the interview I wouldn’t have gotten an offer and the interviewer might have made a comment about it during the interview and people generally wouldn’t call them an asshole for it.

Yes, the fact that you don't see a problem with saying "he deserved it" as justification is the signal not to hire.

The fact that you only want to hire workers who won’t call you out when they feel like they have been disrespected is a great way to breed a team of people who resent you.

Regardless, you kind of proved what I was trying to say. Most people don’t actually want directness. The fact that when I was direct with someone you’re treating it like some mafioso retribution is telling.

You know what they say about walking a mile in someone else's shoes? By the time they realize it, you'll be a mile away. And you'll have their shoes!