https://www.askamanager.org/2024/02/i-was-rejected-because-i-told-my-interviewer-i-never-make-mistakes.html Ask a Manager Menu Skip to content * Topics * Archives * Ask a Question * Books * podcast * About + About + What Readers Say + Privacy Policy and Affiliate Disclosures * Connect * Surprise Me! * Search * Skip to sidebar twittertwitter facebookfacebook rssrss Ask a Manager: and if you don't, I'll tell you anywayAsk a Manager: and if you don't, I'll tell you anyway I was rejected because I told my interviewer I never make mistakes by Alison Green on February 13, 2024 A reader writes: I was rejected from a role for not answering an interview question. I had all the skills they asked for, and the recruiter and hiring manager loved me. I had a final round of interviews -- a peer on the hiring team, a peer from another team that I would work closely with, the director of both teams (so my would-be grandboss, which I thought was weird), and then finally a technical test with the hiring manager I had already spoken to. (I don't know if it matters but I'm male and everyone I interviewed with was female.) The interviews went great, except the grandboss. I asked why she was interviewing me since it was a technical position and she was clearly some kind of middle manager. She told me she had a technical background (although she had been in management 10 years so it's not like her experience was even relevant), but that she was interviewing for things like communication, ability to prioritize, and soft skills. I still thought it was weird to interview with my boss's boss. She asked pretty standard (and boring) questions, which I aced. But then she asked me to tell her about the biggest mistake I've made in my career and how I handled it. I told her I'm a professional and I don't make mistakes, and she argued with me! She said everyone makes mistakes, but what matters is how you handle them and prevent the same mistake from happening in the future. I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem. She seemed fine with it and we moved on with the interview. A couple days later, the recruiter emailed me to say they had decided to go with someone else. I asked for feedback on why I wasn't chosen and she said there were other candidates who were stronger. I wrote back and asked if the grandboss had been the reason I didn't get the job, and she just told me again that the hiring panel made the decision to hire someone else. I looked the grandboss up on LinkedIn after the rejection and she was a developer at two industry leaders and then an executive at a third. She was also connected to a number of well-known C-level people in our city and industry. I'm thinking of mailing her on LinkedIn to explain why her question was wrong and asking if she'll consider me for future positions at her company but my wife says it's a bad idea. What do you think about me mailing her to try to explain? Don't do that. Not only did they reject you for this job, but it's very likely they won't consider you for jobs there in the future. Emailing an interviewer to "explain why her question was wrong" (!) will only make it worse. There a number of problems with how you approached this hiring process, but the biggest is that you were arrogant and snotty to one of the interviewers. And not just any interviewer, which would be bad regardless of who it was, but to the hiring manager's boss! No reasonable employer would hire you after that; if you're rude and snotty to someone several levels above you, it's just too damning about what you'll be like to work with day-to-day. You told your interviewer that maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since you "actually went to school for it," you didn't have that problem? Aside from how rudely insulting that was, that made you look incredibly un-self-aware. Everyone makes mistakes, whether they went to school for a subject or not, and the best of them embrace those mistakes as ways to learn. The only people who think they don't make mistakes are people who are oblivious to weaknesses in their work, or too arrogant or insecure (and those are often two sides of the same coin) to acknowledge them. Managing someone who's convinced they don't make mistakes is a nightmare -- and it's an absolute non-starter in hiring, since you're announcing that you're going to resist feedback and be unable or unwilling to learn and grow. That on its own would have torpedoed your candidacy, and that's before we even get into the snottiness. But let's talk about the snottiness too, because it's coming through so loudly in your letter that it's likely it came through in your interview as well. You clearly have disdain for the director -- "she was clearly some kind of middle manager," "it's not like her experience was even relevant," her questions were "boring," she made mistakes because she's inferior to you ... come on. If even a fraction of the disdain that comes through in your letter was detectable in your interviewer, that's the kind of thing that will get you put on a "never interview/never hire" list. And now you want to contact the interviewer -- not to apologize for how you came across or to say you realize you should answered her questions differently -- but to tell her why she was wrong? All that would do is get your name bolded and underlined on the "never interview/never hire" list. It will confirm that their initial assessment was right. Do not do this. For what it's worth, loads of people work their way into management positions without a degree in the specific subject they're overseeing and excel there (and that's certainly true in technical career paths). It's also not weird or unusual to interview with the boss's boss. It's really common. I'm not sure what your work life has been like up until this point -- I'm guessing you're either early in your career and don't yet understand how work works, or you're further along but have been oblivious to how much interpersonal skill deficiencies can hold you back -- but this should be a wake-up call that treating people with contempt and arrogance won't get you the results you want. You may also like: * my arrogant coworker is trying to mentor me, but I'm his team lead * I was difficult at my last job, and it's standing in my way now * I sent an angry response to a work email -- was I in the wrong? { 840 comments } Posted in interviewing Post navigation - employee wants a higher raise than she earned { 840 comments... read them below or add one } 1. [svg][db34b]Ask a Manager* Post authorFebruary 13, 2024 at 2:01 pm Please do not name-call letter-writers here (which includes "YTA"), no matter how wrong you think they are. I've removed some comments doing that, and I'm asking for it to stop. Also, I've seen some discussion below about whether this letter is fake. I have no idea -- don't know, but also don't really care as long as the response will be useful to people. (But letter-writer, assuming you are real, the fact that so many people are questioning that is a sign of how off-base your thinking here is!) Reply | 2. [svg][]Sheesh* February 13, 2024 at 2:02 pm This was a pretty catastrophic blunder for someone who never makes mistakes. Reply | 1. [svg][1e47c]Myrin* February 13, 2024 at 2:04 pm Got an answer for the next time that question comes up, I'd say. Reply | 1. [svg][9229b]duinath* February 13, 2024 at 2:08 pm if lw doesn't consider this his mistake but more a misunderstanding, it's hard not to think there's actually been lots of mistakes in his past... and he simply didn't handle them or learn from them. now is the time, lw. some introspection might do you good. it can be valuable to learn to consider the possibility that the person you're talking to knows more than you, or has an interesting perspective. Reply | 1. [svg][20db5]Spero* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm Yep! And let's take his own admitted mistake in this letter as an example: his assessment of the grandboss. He believed she was 'some kind of middle manager' and when she stated she had technical experience he doesn't seem to have asked her about it at all - he just assumed it was not as good as his, at least ten years out of date, and that she hadn't gone to school as part of it. When he later finds out from LinkedIn that she actually worked for and was promoted by industry leaders who he seems to respect...he apparently doesn't connect that THEIR assessment of her performance may be more reliable than his own snap judgements since they employed and promoted her. Does any of this make him reassess whether his assessment of her technical experience was incorrect? NOPE not at all, he just doubles down on that she is inferior to him and therefore wrong. Reply | 1. [svg][]JustAnotherCommenter* February 13, 2024 at 2:40 pm What kills me about it too is that assuming her knowledge is 10 years out of date is just straight-up assuming she's a terrible boss. No decent manager who leads a technical department lets their technical knowledge fall too far by the wayside, usually you still need to have a certain degree of current knowledge in order to lead effectively. Reply | 1. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 3:26 pm Or as my boss always says "My job is to hire people that know how to do these things". Management is a skill, not something you get because you're the smartest person in the room. Reply | 2. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 3:25 pm Of course. Anyone who thinks they never make a mistake or are never wrong are always the ones who do it the most, because they're blind to the fact that it's happening. Reply | 1. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 3:55 pm Of course. Anyone who thinks they never make a mistake or are never wrong are always the ones who do it the most, because they're blind to the fact that it's happening. Exactly. Which is one of the reasons why it's such a useful question. Reply | 3. [svg][]anycat* February 13, 2024 at 5:44 pm my boss' boss and i actually interviewed someone and asked this question once and we got the same answer - I never make mistakes. We both looked at each other and decided then and there to not move forward with them. we're human, we all make mistakes. it's about what do you as a result. Reply | 2. [svg][]linger* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm Not sure that it'll help him as an example, though. Q: "How did you respond to it?" A: "I completely doubled down! and then went public about whether I should correct the person I made the mistake about." Reply | 1. [svg][86a3f]Festively Dressed Earl* February 13, 2024 at 3:34 pm It would help if that was followed with "After I recovered from the public telling me how wrong I was, I realized I was overdue for some serious self-reflection. In order to address my overconfidence/lack of self awareness/attitude towards women/etc., I took XYZ actions to address that and I think I'm better because of it, although I'm still a long way from perfect." Reply | 3. [svg][]justanobody* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm +1 Reply | 4. [svg][]Abundant Shrimp* February 13, 2024 at 5:28 pm Hahaha oh my god isn't that right! LW, I cringed through the entire letter. I have only ever interviewed people as their peer and that would've been my "if he somehow charms the rest of the panel into getting hired, I'll start looking" kind of answer from a candidate. Everyone does make mistakes, and that is fine! No one wants to work with someone who does make mistakes, never admits them, and when called on them, doubles down saying it cannot be a mistake because they went to school for it! what the hell were you thinking? Would you want to work with someone like that? Reply | 2. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:12 pm So many letters come from people who have to work with someone like the LW that it's nice to have one where someone that arrogant and rude was successfully screened out at the very beginning. Reply | 1. [svg][]Busy Middle Manager* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm Not even arrogance. What I've seen in 20 years in corporate America is that people who "never make mistakes": 1) don't do enough to make mistakes. Sit in meetings all day, what's to mess up? 2) Do work below their skills levels 3) Don't deal with the messier situations (living through this now, there is no way to make all sides happy so half the people think you're doing it all wrong) Reply | 1. [svg][]Sparkle Motion* February 13, 2024 at 2:46 pm Those are all possible. There are also those who: 4) Are in complete denial about the number, types and severity of their mistakes. 5) Pin all mistakes on someone else because they're obviously never the problem. Reply | 2. [svg][]JustAnotherCommenter* February 13, 2024 at 2:46 pm I agree with your overall point, but I'd counter the "Sit in meetings all day, what's to mess up?" Having to deal with the fallout of someone who spoke up about a topic they shouldn't have, provided incorrect info when they should have said "let me find out", overpromised, told stories out of school etc etc etc in a meeting is rough. Reply | 1. [svg][350a3]Health Insurance Nerd* February 13, 2024 at 3:06 pm I have to wonder if we work for the same company in the same department, because I had this same coworker- did nothing all day but would come to a meeting and just absolutely derail the entire thing with nonsensical commentary and their two cents, to the point where I had to start turning off my video because I lost the ability to control my face. Reply | 1. [svg][]Sheworkshardforthemoney* February 13, 2024 at 3:15 pm I've sat through meetings with people who never made mistakes because they were too busy pointing out the mistakes that others made. All fine and good if they have constructive suggestions but no, they don't have any. Reply | 1. [svg][]Ashley* February 13, 2024 at 3:22 pm The co-worker who loves to point out every minor typo but misses the bigger picture of their failure to complete some important task and the ramifications of that. I know someone who loves to say, if you aren't making mistakes you don't have enough to do. There is definitely a point where an acceptable level of imperfection is preferred to avoid analysis paralysis. Reply | 3. [svg][]Tottenham* February 13, 2024 at 2:48 pm A+ comment. Reply | 4. [svg][]Anne Elliot* February 13, 2024 at 3:14 pm This was my immediate thought as well. If you've NEVER made a mistake, you're not trying hard enough. Not just in the work world, in whatever endeavor you're talking about. I hear that and I think, "Never took a risk, doesn't want to learn, may not think creatively, possibly fearful, possibly lazy." So aside from considering why you shouldn't have said the honest part out loud, it's also worth considering why that is actually, objectively, a bad answer to that question. Reply | 1. [svg][]Anne Elliot* February 13, 2024 at 3:19 pm Also: I work in a very fast-paced, high-volume sector; deep in the regulatory, "eff around and find out" weeds. You have to make a decision and move on, multiple times a day. In my office, you're going to make mistakes. I would not be open to hiring a person who seriously thought they never made work-related mistakes because I would think, "You're going to make mistakes here and I don't have time for the complete spinning out / melting down of a person who thinks they've never made one." Course correct and move on. If you don't have the self-awareness and self-discipline to do that, my office is not for you. Reply | 1. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 3:57 pm I would not be open to hiring a person who seriously thought they never made work-related mistakes because I would think, "You're going to make mistakes here and I don't have time for the complete spinning out / melting down of a person who thinks they've never made one." OP, if you're reading, THIS is the big takeaway you need. Reply | 2. [svg][]Tupac Coachella* February 13, 2024 at 3:46 pm This. In my work with first year college students, inability to think of an example when asked "what did you do when you failed/made a mistake in the past?" was a red flag that they were going to struggle, no matter how strong their GPA. At best, they were risk averse and afraid to think critically, especially if "right" and "wrong" answers were kind of grey. At worst, they were, as the kids call it nowadays, "delulu" and would likely blame others for any mistakes instead of learning. Either way, college is a new situation where some type if challenging situation will pop up (as it should! experiencing challenge in a safer environment is one of the purposes of college!), and no experience with risk meant that this student would need a lot of support when it did, provided I got the chance-many of them would throw their hands up and leave at that point, unfortunately. Reply | 5. [svg][d367a]Wilbur* February 13, 2024 at 4:57 pm I think those people are also the ones who get promoted because they get attached to projects and are involved enough to be viewed as gaining experience but don't screw up. Reply | 2. [svg][9de4a]The Prettiest Curse* February 13, 2024 at 2:45 pm Agreed. The grandboss specifically told him that she was interviewing for soft skills, communication skills etc. The question that she asked was specifically designed to test for those skills. By giving the answer they did, OP threw their chances of getting this job into a dumpster and proceeded to set the dumpster on fire. What an unforced error. OP, use this as a learning experience and move on. Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 2:58 pm "Oh, hang on, I need to email you with suggestions about new dumpsters-yours were ten years out of date." Reply | 2. [svg][]Tina Belcher's Less Cool Sister* February 13, 2024 at 4:40 pm This is the definition of an unforced error. Reply | 3. [svg][]OhGee* February 13, 2024 at 3:05 pm Hear hear!! Reply | 3. [svg][9f1e4]TootSweet* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm BINGO! Reply | 4. [svg][]Productivity Pigeon* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm Yep. That comment is the perfect response. Reply | 5. [svg][]Frankie* February 13, 2024 at 2:43 pm I just legitimately laughed out loud. Well done. :D Reply | 6. [svg][]Corrigan* February 13, 2024 at 2:48 pm I came for the letter, I stayed for the comments 10/10 right off the bat Reply | 1. [svg][]aspirational yogurt* February 13, 2024 at 4:21 pm Same! Though I'm also picking up some great responses to use for future interviews. Plus, I love the insights about mistakes in the workplace, like Anne Elliot and others have suggested. Socking away for myself! Reply | 7. [svg][]Heart&Vine* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm Which is why part of me thinks this letter is fake. God, I hope it's fake. Reply | 1. [svg][]Lazy Cat's Mom* February 13, 2024 at 3:00 pm I also thought this was a fake letter. Maybe someone was cosplaying Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory? But even he acknowledged he was wrong once or twice. I hope this is a fake. I just can't imagine someone going through life never hearing they were so arrogant. Reply | 1. [svg][]Siege* February 13, 2024 at 3:08 pm May I introduce you to a vast swath of white men in tech. As a woman formerly in technical roles (though never in Big Tech) I can absolutely assure you this letter is as real as any other here: there are men this clueless and arrogant because they have been told by the society we live in that they are better than everyone else, and that has been reified over and over again by education in a career path that presents itself as difficult and completers as special when the difficulty drops a very great deal if you're a white man and goes up a lot if you're anything else, and by working in a job where - it's a safe bet - almost everyone looks like you and has similar interests, proving once again that you are exactly as special as you think. Reply | 1. [svg][]SPDM* February 13, 2024 at 4:36 pm My now-husband interned at a company where I worked when he was a graduate student (before we met). At a conference, another male grad student came up to him while he was standing next to me, a person wearing a company name badge, ignored me like I was invisible, and badgered my husband about how to get an internship at the company. I did not give him an internship. (He also eventually got kicked out of grad school for nonperformance and sexual harassment. So.) Reply | 1. [svg][]Lydia* February 13, 2024 at 5:38 pm Hello, My Name Is: Absolutely the nightmare you're glad you passed on. Reply | 2. [svg][]Khatul Madame* February 13, 2024 at 4:46 pm I agree that even if this letter is fiction, it is rather credible. However, just "men in tech" would suffice. This is specific to gender, not race. Reply | 1. [svg][]Lydia* February 13, 2024 at 5:41 pm Except it's really not. White, cis-het, men are the apex of privilege and, with that, often comes the apex of arrogance and bad behavior. That doesn't mean it's ONLY white guys, but it does mean that when we imagined what this person looks like, we probably collectively pictured essentially the same guy. Reply | 2. [svg][]House On The Rock* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm I doubt this is fake because I've worked with men like this and I've interviewed a few who, while not quite this bad, came close: assuming from the start that they had the job, bad mouthing others, talking down to me because I was a woman (even though I was the decision maker in hiring!), asking inappropriate questions, etc. We want this to be bizarre cosplay, but truth is weirder, and more depressing, than fiction. Reply | 3. [svg][]Ama* February 13, 2024 at 3:36 pm I have worked in and adjacent to academia for years -- I have run into plenty of people with attitudes similar to the letter writers. A lot of them are undergrads who were the smartest person at their school all the way through high school and who have never been challenged or told they weren't qualified for something. Then they get their first B or aren't the person picked for some select student program and it has to be everyone else's fault they failed. In fact this guy's attitude remind me of some of the students who did IT support for the last grad school I worked for. They were about as dismissive of the (all women) administrative staff as they could possibly be. Once I had asked for a specific program to be installed on my computer and one of them installed a program with the same functionality but not from the developer I had asked for "because this one's better." I explained in detail the technical reasons why it was not better for my specific needs and you could tell it hadn't even occurred to him that I knew enough about computers to have opinions about how they worked. Reply | 4. [svg][]Three Flowers* February 13, 2024 at 4:46 pm In addition to tech and academia, I present White Man Hubris* in the outdoor rec industry. I was once in an interview very much like this as a peer to the position. The candidate had been my seasonal assistant and was absolutely awesome in that job. Unfortunately he clearly thought he was a shoo-in for the FT role, and was so arrogant and obnoxious in the interview that I literally apologized to my boss afterward because my prior enthusiasm felt like a massive error in judgment, even though she also knew him. * yes, white men, in that industry women and POC categorically don't last unless they are willing to do twice the work for half the credit. I could tell such stories about mansplaining and public disrespect, but they would all sound like rage bait. Reply | 5. [svg][]RVA Cat* February 13, 2024 at 5:23 pm Way too many men need to learn that "cocky" is not a compliment. Reply | 2. [svg][]Despachito* February 13, 2024 at 3:00 pm This is what I thought. This is so textbook wrong on so many levels it must be fake. Or else I am losing all hope in the mankind. Reply | 1. [svg][]Ashley* February 13, 2024 at 3:25 pm It restores a bit of faith in humanity that the hiring manager and boss stopped it at their company. There will still be hiring managers who may think this is awesome, because there are bananapants hiring managers, but the number that won't accept it is hopefully growing. Reply | 2. [svg][]Starbuck* February 13, 2024 at 3:39 pm "textbook wrong" well, we are all here reading the textbook, as it is - but not everyone does, and clearly this guy doesn't! It sounds wild to us because we all know better here, but I've totally met this guy before. Reply | 3. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 3:59 pm This is so textbook wrong on so many levels it must be fake. Or else I am losing all hope in the mankind. On the other hand, there is the boss who has a clue, asked the right questions and acted upon the information she got. So that's on the plus side. Reply | 4. [svg][]Anne Cordelia* February 13, 2024 at 4:17 pm That's like the letter from the guy who deactivated his coworker's caps lock key, because he was SURE that she would then see the Truth and realized how much better it is to hold down the shift key. Reply | 3. [svg][]Project Management Princess* February 13, 2024 at 3:23 pm can definitely be fake but techbros certainly are like this. Reply | 4. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 3:31 pm Eh, I can believe it. I've definitely worked with people like that. Both in school and at work. We had a guy come in last year who promptly insulted me (IT department), the HR coordinator, and the guy telling him how the machines worked who's been here for 25 years. I imagine this might be a relatively recent graduate who hasn't had much job experience. Reply | 5. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 3:50 pm I don't know. I once interviewed a younger man who behaved exactly like this, as well as addressing answers to the (equally horrified/amused) male manager interviewing with me, who is older than I am but in fact reports to me. He argued about the questions, and once said "I'm not going to answer that, but I'll tell you this instead..." when asked a normal interview question, and went into a long convoluted boast about knowing best. He kept saying he was an "alpha dog" and has to tell his boss when they are wrong (from his proud stories, his bosses were not wrong). And so on. Then he called furiously when he got the rejection email. Reply | 6. [svg][]Totally Minnie* February 13, 2024 at 4:46 pm I'm a woman who has interviewed people for jobs, and I would 10000% believe that this is real. The things a certain subset of men will say to a woman when they resent the idea of her being in authority over him are absolutely gross. Reply | 8. [svg][89e22]Apple Pharmer* February 13, 2024 at 3:02 pm AAM needs to implement upvotes to acknowledge the incising accuracy of this comment Reply | 9. [svg][]AnonInCanada* February 13, 2024 at 3:47 pm Definitely this! This is one sure-fire way to not just burn a bridge, but napalm the ground it was attached to. The sheer arrogance of this letter was so off-putting that I'm surprised he'll ever get another job if he continues with this attitude! Reply | 10. [svg][]hayling* February 13, 2024 at 3:48 pm I wish this was Reddit so I could upvote Reply | 11. [svg][bcba7]Jennifer C.* February 13, 2024 at 3:48 pm I just awarded you some imaginary reddit gold. Reply | 12. [svg][]Bruise Campbell* February 13, 2024 at 4:00 pm DINGDINGDING!!!!! Reply | 13. [svg][]Worldwalker* February 13, 2024 at 5:34 pm You win the Internet. Reply | 3. [svg][8ee77]Sindirella* February 13, 2024 at 2:03 pm I mean, wow, just...wow. I have no words. Reply | 1. [svg][429d0]Pastor Petty Labelle* February 13, 2024 at 2:20 pm My jaw it is on the floor. My face it has flames up the side. My eyebrows they are in the next zip code. Reply | 1. [svg][]Cat Tree* February 13, 2024 at 2:39 pm My eyebrows kept going higher and higher, until they circled entirely around my head and landed back in their original position. Reply | 1. [svg][919d8]GammaGirl1908* February 13, 2024 at 4:54 pm Right?! I was like, "Oh no. Oh. Nooooooo. Ohhhhhh NO. OH! NO!" In addition to his actual wrongness, his ongoing and complete certainty that it was impossible for him to be wrong was incredible. Thank you, Ms. Manager, for assessing his soft skills. Reply | 1. [svg][]MigraineMonth* February 13, 2024 at 5:45 pm Seriously! Can you imagine the letters we'd get from every single one of his coworkers and his manager if they hadn't decided to assess soft skills(/self awareness/misogyny)? Reply | 2. [svg][]OhNoYouDidn't* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm Reading this, I feel like I'm being punked! Reply | 1. [svg][]RunShaker* February 13, 2024 at 2:36 pm My jaw is still on the floor. this OP would benefit big time if he spends couple of hours reading all letters on this site. But then, I wondering/thinking this OP won't take Alison's advice. He also pointed out how all interviewers were female. That was telling (OP telling in a bad way). I hope the OP sees the light. Reply | 1. [svg][]Michelle* February 13, 2024 at 2:57 pm I was waiting for Allison to mention the "oh and they were all--" *barely disguised sneer of contempt* --"women." On the plus side, now I know what my ex-husband's up to, after all these years! Whoever vetoed this guy should be taken out for beers and cake by the staff who would have had to work with him. I think we can all agree to make an exception for "gifts shouldn't flow upward" for this. Reply | 2. [svg][]SpicyCrawdadAmoeba* February 13, 2024 at 3:20 pm Combined with the rest of the letter, it does give off a vibe that "clearly these women don't know what they're doing wrong, which is why they need me and my significant expertise." Reply | 3. [svg][]sparkle emoji* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm Nice of the LW to put that upfront to clue me in that I'd want to toss my laptop at the wall by the end. Reply | 4. [svg][]The Rafters* February 13, 2024 at 3:53 pm OP won't unfortunately. How many letters have we seen here where the comments are 99.9 percent telling LW they are misguided, only to have LW write back and tell us why we're all wrong and they were right all along. Reply | 1. [svg][]works with realtors* February 13, 2024 at 5:44 pm I honestly hope we get that, because the 9 month cruise isn't pumping out enough drama right now. (jk) Reply | 5. [svg][]Miss Muffett* February 13, 2024 at 3:55 pm If he hadn't gotten the interview, he definitely woulda been the guy that said, How dare you not interview me? I am definitely the most qualified person for this job! Reply | 2. [svg][]Cat Tree* February 13, 2024 at 2:42 pm The only reason I know this is real because I have a close family member who is exactly like this. He just does not take any feedback ever. Reply | 1. [svg][]Senorsoupe* February 13, 2024 at 4:22 pm I'm pretty everyone knows this guy Reply | 3. [svg][907d6]Twix* February 13, 2024 at 2:33 pm This letter is a perfect example of why companies screen for soft skills. Reply | 1. [svg][429d0]Pastor Petty Labelle* February 13, 2024 at 2:44 pm YEP. Exactly why the grandboss did the interview. To make sure the person wasn't an AH. Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 2:59 pm I would pay eleven thousand dollars to read her notes from that interview. Reply | 1. [svg][]the tumpet* February 13, 2024 at 3:15 pm It's just one sheet of paper with NO. written on it in big letters in the middle, probably. Reply | 1. [svg][]sparkle emoji* February 13, 2024 at 3:30 pm Underlined and circled enough times to rip the paper. Reply | 2. [svg][]JelloStapler* February 13, 2024 at 3:12 pm and she found out. Reply | 2. [svg][]Turquoisecow* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm Grandboss made the right choice asking that particular question. I wonder if she asks everyone or if she sensed OP would have this sort of reaction. Reply | 1. [svg][]lyonite* February 13, 2024 at 4:26 pm The thing is, it's a really normal interview question! I got caught by it the first time I was asked it, because I hadn't prepared with an example, but I definitely didn't go with "no mistakes, ever!" Reply | 4. [svg][]Llama lamma workplace drama* February 13, 2024 at 2:37 pm As someone who has worked with arrogant asshats like this before I'm thankful those employees were spared the experience of working with this tool. Reply | 5. [svg][]pope suburban* February 13, 2024 at 2:39 pm I wish I could believe that this was not real, but sadly, I have met and worked with people this tone-deaf. I want it to be someone doing a bit, or writing in pretending to be their insufferable coworker, or writing a letter to try to illustrate a point about the way men tend to be treated differently to (meaning worse than) women, but...I just can't be totally certain. And that depresses me a bit, frankly. Reply | 6. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 2:43 pm I blinked my eyes so hard my eyelids eventually went inside out. My eyebrows have reached the back of my neck. What the absolute WHAT. Genuinely impressed with the grandboss for not bursting into laughter and ending the interview then and there. Reply | 7. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 2:58 pm Right? Who wants to go halfsies on a winch for our collective jaws? Because mine is heading to the center of the earth. Reply | 8. [svg][]FrivYeti* February 13, 2024 at 3:28 pm I actually choked on my coffee when I hit the "actually went to school for it" line. Reply | 1. [svg][]MigraineMonth* February 13, 2024 at 5:48 pm Seriously! Does her gender and managerial position make it impossible for her to have a degree in the field? Reply | 9. [svg][]Coffee Bean* February 13, 2024 at 3:48 pm I did the same thing, but it came out of my mouth in slow motion, because I was so astonished by the combination of extreme arrogance and lack of self awareness. It came out as Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Wowwwwwwwww. . . Reply | 4. [svg][]Veryanon* February 13, 2024 at 2:05 pm Oh boy. LW clearly doesn't realize how pompous and mansplain-y he sounds. Yikes!!!!! I wouldn't have hired him either. Yeesh. Reply | 1. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:19 pm It's kind of nice when someone tells you who they are in an interview. Really saves a lot of time that you get to spend not dealing with his nonsense. Reply | 1. [svg][]Ally McBeal* February 13, 2024 at 2:36 pm For REAL. That all-women hiring team probably heaved a huge sigh of relief when they rejected him. Reply | 1. [svg][86a3f]Festively Dressed Earl* February 13, 2024 at 2:46 pm If Alison did a 'worst interviewee' Ask the Readers, I bet we'd hear from the people who interviewed this guy. Reply | 1. [svg][633c2]Beboots* February 13, 2024 at 3:25 pm I would definitely love to contribute to a "worst interview" ask the readers post... I definitely have a tale to tell about a person who I in my head call "the Red Flag Candidate", who definitely did me the favour of showing me the red flags - presumably while they were on her best behaviour, trying to get hired. I don't know what they would have been like if they were to actually work for me. This person is the one who, unsolicited, sent me a bunch of back up documents, including an internal performance management document about herself at her last job which included the language "[candidate's name] needs to learn to see her supervisors and managers as allies and not enemies" in one of the areas for discussion and improvement. Reply | 1. [svg][]Miss Muffett* February 13, 2024 at 3:58 pm Brilliant. Reply | 2. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 4:08 pm Wow, that goal really speaks for itself, but I'd love reading more about it in a "worst of" thread someday. Reply | 3. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 4:17 pm I'll bet she read that as "candidates name needs to realise that her supervisors and managers are always on her side because she is so completely awesome and they are all in awe of her amazingness and her only flaw is that she doesn't realise how much they all admire her." Reply | 4. [svg][]Angela Zeigler* February 13, 2024 at 5:13 pm That candidate has what I like to call 'Poe Dameron Syndrome'! Reply | 5. [svg][]MtnLaurel* February 13, 2024 at 5:22 pm Oh me too! I've had some unbelievable interviewees. Reply | 2. [svg][ef9c5]learnedthehardway* February 13, 2024 at 3:16 pm And OP - for the record - the fact that it was an all-women hiring team is irrelevant. ANY decent hiring team looks at soft skills. But the fact that you noticed and attributed negative things about an all-female hiring team says some very not flattering things about your attitude towards working with women. So bullet dodged in more than one way, on the company's part. Reply | 2. [svg][]Civil serpent* February 13, 2024 at 2:48 pm Exactly! The best interview response I've heard this year came from a man who, in summing up why he was a perfect fit for the job, said that he is "smarter than the average bear, and has a high IQ." He the decision pretty easy for the interview team. Reply | 1. [svg][]Zona the Great* February 13, 2024 at 3:07 pm Not smart enough to never say something like that. Reply | 2. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm To be fair, most humans should be smarter than the average bear. I'd be a little concerned if they weren't. Reply | 1. [svg][]The Rafters* February 13, 2024 at 3:56 pm A national parks ranger said that they had to stop using a certain type of bear-proof container b/c people couldn't open them, but the bears could. Reply | 1. [svg][]I take tea* February 13, 2024 at 4:09 pm I've read it put as "the problem with designing bear proof trash cans is that there's a significant overlap between the smartest bears and the more stupid tourists". Funny, and a bit sad. Reply | 2. [svg][3a7c8]Lenora Rose* February 13, 2024 at 4:24 pm I believe the precise quote is something like "There is significant overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." Reply | 2. [svg][]EmmaPoet* February 13, 2024 at 4:15 pm Having lived in bear country, the bears were often much better at problem solving than people were, because the bears wanted to eat whatever the people had. Reply | 1. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 4:37 pm Yes, the bears are EXTREMELY motivated and also the humans do not necessarily always use the bear-proof containers as intended, leaving loopholes for the extremely motivated bears to exploit. Reply | 1. [svg][36917]La Triviata* February 13, 2024 at 5:06 pm I read of one tourist who smeared peanut butter around their campsite because they wanted a picture of a bear. Darwin award nominee. Reply | 1. [svg][]Happy Bear* February 13, 2024 at 5:23 pm How thoughtful of him to provide the PB for a PB&Tourist snack! Five stars, would visit campsite again! 2. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 5:25 pm I remember once, at a bear safety briefing, being told about someone smearing honey on their toddler's hand so they could get a photo of a bear licking the honey off the toddler's hand. I hope very, very much that this is an urban (rural?) legend, because ... 2. [svg][]RVA Cat* February 13, 2024 at 5:33 pm Then there's the bears who attacked the libertarian hellm-, er town. Reply | 2. [svg][]GingerNP* February 13, 2024 at 2:28 pm Yes, I definitely heard "It's worth noting that I am a Man and therefore am innately more capable than all of those womanly women with their feminine emotions and natural lack of equal brain power and I was subjected to an INTERVIEW with them where they got to JUDGE me"... He didn't have to say it for it to be really loud. Reply | 1. [svg][]Scylla* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm I got more "everyone is so woke these days, they didn't like me because I'm a man and men can't do anything these days without being ripped apart for it" vibes from that, but either way not something "worth noting" to us. This obviously would've been obnoxious regardless of everyone's genders. (Also....yeah this guy did NOT need to tell us he was a man being interviewed by a woman. My guy. My dude. We could tell.) Reply | 1. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 3:34 pm Yeah, that's the vibe I got. Reply | 2. [svg][]NoNotNan* February 13, 2024 at 3:35 pm "Worth noting, I'm not fit to work in mixed company, I lack all self awareness and ooze misogyny. I am definitely going to ask women to do tasks I deem beneath me without any authority to delegate and in return for their loyal collaboration, I will entrust them with my man knowledge so they can some day boss other women around on my behalf." Reply | 3. [svg][]MigraineMonth* February 13, 2024 at 5:53 pm Maybe there has been, sometime in history, a woman who brought this energy into an interview with the man who would be her skip-level boss. Maybe. But I would have been willing to bet large amounts of money on the genders if the LW hadn't told us. Reply | 2. [svg][]Fitz* February 13, 2024 at 2:38 pm "Women, am I right?!?" Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:02 pm "They should stick to shopping and laughing at salad." Reply | 1. [svg][]Elitist Semicolon* February 13, 2024 at 3:56 pm But only if they're laughing alone with salad. (They are, however, allowed to try to drink water.) Reply | 3. [svg][]sparkle emoji* February 13, 2024 at 3:36 pm How dare they consider things like soft skills, when you are the Most Correctest Man, you don't need soft skills, duh /s Reply | 4. [svg][36917]La Triviata* February 13, 2024 at 3:51 pm Back in 2017, some clever young man who worked at Google sent around - to all staff, I believe - that there was no point in trying to train women as engineers, because they were intrinsically unsuited for that. He made comments about the "ideological echo chamber" that were trying. yeah. I believe his remaining time was measured in nanoseconds. Reply | 1. [svg][]Raven Mistress* February 13, 2024 at 4:35 pm Well, yes, if you prove that you're unwilling to respect and work with half the human race, that DOES rather limit you in the 21st century workplace! Reply | 3. [svg][35ff7]Annalee* February 13, 2024 at 2:34 pm Engineering manager here, and yeah, it's worth calling out the gendered aspect specifically, because yes that very much matters here. The LW didn't get hired because the LW was being misogynistic. There's no gender configuration that would make this behavior okay, but I can say without a doubt that the LW's application was Dead On Arrival the very second he asked a senior woman in tech why she was interviewing him for a technical position since she "clearly" couldn't be technical herself. He had maybe five seconds to recover from that with a profuse apology, but instead he doubled down and then went on to question her technical skills and imply that she was a bad engineer because she hadn't gone to school for it? (and apparently he didn't even know where she went to school because he didn't look her up until afterwards). That's not just "this person would be a nightmare to supervise." That is "if I hire this person I will have trouble keeping women on my team." Also Alison, a quick note on being a manager without the related degree as it pertains to tech specifically: this isn't just true because there are many paths to management and the skills are transferable. This is true because many non-managers in tech do not have a related degree. It's just not a requirement for most tech jobs. So a manager in tech without a CS degree is likely to have just as many years of direct technical experience as a manager in tech with a CS degree. In tech, "well you don't have a CS degree so you can't possibly be technical" pretty much always means "well you don't look like an engineer so you cannot possibly be my peer or my better." The problem isn't that it's elitist; it's that it's pretty much always some combination of misogynistic and racist: it's not a standard that people (even people with tech degrees) hold white men to in our industry. Reply | 1. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 2:48 pm THANK YOU. All of this. I worked for a really great, very niche software firm for a while. On the very good, very friendly dev team, 0% of people had CS degrees -- they were just smart, nerdy people who liked to code and were good at it. Reply | 2. [svg][]Turquoisecow* February 13, 2024 at 2:58 pm 100%. My husband is a network engineer who does not have a degree but is in management. Roughly half his coworkers (peers and reports as well as his bosses) have degrees and half don't. I'm pretty sure no one has told my husband that he doesn't look educated or like he doesn't know what he's talking about. But I'm sure that his female peers have experienced that. Reply | 3. [svg][97563]CM* February 13, 2024 at 3:00 pm This this this. I have a CS degree. I am a woman. I worked with so many of these dudes who could not fathom that I could possibly have the same skill set as them. I still remember one guy who was mansplaining a very basic concept at length, as a prelude to the project we actually need to talk about. After a series of, "Yes, I'm familiar with that, we can move on," type responses from me, I finally said, "Seriously, I understand, I have a master's degree in computer science, this is something very fundamental that I learned early on, and I'd like to move on." He responded, "Oh, you have a degree. Well, in SCHOOL you might have learned... and your TEACHER might have taught you that..." (I was not able to get up and leave due to our respective work roles, but I took out a pen and started conspiciously doodling until he was done with his explanation.) Reply | 1. [svg][]Enai* February 13, 2024 at 5:28 pm I would've been furious. I hope either he learned some professionalism or, better, that you didn't have to deal with him ever again. Reply | 4. [svg][907d6]Twix* February 13, 2024 at 3:04 pm "this isn't just true because there are many paths to management and the skills are transferable" There's also the fact that being a technical person and being a manager of technical people are totally different (albeit related) skillsets. I'm a senior software engineer specializing in complex industrial mathematical modeling. Nobody I report to has the background to understand the work I do on a technical level. (In fact, neither do any of the other technical people I work with.) That's why they hired me. But my boss understands enough of what I do to be great at her job, which is not understanding all of the technical details of our software. People who manage technical people need to know enough about the technical side to support and assess the people reporting to them, but it's foolish to assess someone's suitability for a role based on whether they have job skills that aren't actually needed for that role. Reply | 5. [svg][]Anax* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm Yep, all of this. I would also add - I think it's often pretty well-understood in tech that CS degrees vary WILDLY in their actual usefulness. In say, chemistry, school curriculums will vary but there are typically some basic linchpins you expect any chemistry major to have taken. They probably have a basic understanding of lab safety and techniques, some college-level math, some organic and inorganic coursework. An English major has probably read some books and written some essays. In CS... it's a total grab-bag. A 'normal' curriculum doesn't really exist yet - and the prestigious universities which have had CS programs for decades often have programs which are decades out of date. There's really no technology, language, framework, or specialty that someone with a CS degree 'typically' knows. Every employer I've had knows perfectly well that a CS major is almost meaningless; all it shows is that you got through college, and you might have a bare-bones understanding of a few coding terms - in the way I, as someone who did not major in chemistry, sorta remember how combustion works based on my high school science classes. That's it. (Speaking from experience here - I graduated from a 'public Ivy' in 2013, and other than a 101-level class in Java, we literally dealt with nothing more recent than 1970. I took more math and electrical engineering classes than anything, and the skills I learned are completely irrelevant to my professional life. That's unfortunately not terribly uncommon. Community colleges and smaller schools often have much more useful curricula, from what I've seen - but that's no guarantee.) Reply | 6. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 4:09 pm That is "if I hire this person I will have trouble keeping women on my team." To be honest I would amend this to "I will have trouble keeping reasonable people on my team." Because reasonable people don't like working with people who are THIS misogynistic, nor who are this arrogant and sure of their infallibility because they "actually went to school" for whatever it is. (Even plenty of people who are themselves sexist are going to have a problem with this guy.) Reply | 7. [svg][]DrMouse* February 13, 2024 at 4:35 pm Thank you for calling out that gender is relevant here! I agree that no gender configuration would make this behavior ok, but knowing that the interviewers were women...... sure painted a picture of *exactly* how bad the belly flop was. Reply | 4. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:01 pm I could not BELIEVE how he came across-I kept rereading bits to make sure it really was as tone deaf and arrogant as I thought it sounded. Reply | 5. [svg][]KayDeeAye* February 13, 2024 at 3:05 pm My favorite part is where he says "I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem. She seemed fine with it and we moved on with the interview." OP, my friend, she was "fine with it" because if she was by some miracle even slightly inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, that little exchange killed any chance of that. She'd given up on you, and at this point she knew for certain that the only reason to go on with the interview was to be polite. This is one of those things we call a "soft skill." Reply | 1. [svg][]Bitte Meddler* February 13, 2024 at 3:18 pm I am 1000% sure that she only continued the interview just to see how big of a train wreck it could be. And for hilarious anecdotes to share with her team and her friends in the future. Reply | 1. [svg][]KayDeeAye* February 13, 2024 at 3:20 pm Oh, there will definitely be some epic "You wouldn't believe this guy!" stories coming out of this interview. Reply | 1. [svg][]House On The Rock* February 13, 2024 at 3:43 pm Yep, at a certain point (probably pretty early in the interview), she was in it for the chance to share stories about how unbelievable this candidate was. OP, no one is "fine with" being told they are not qualified and/or sloppy at their job, especially by someone who is seeking to work for them! Reply | 2. [svg][]davethetrucker* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm I'm reading this in the school pickup line and I absolutely cackled, open-mouthed, as some teachers walked by. Switched to sheepish grin immediately, but man, that was the best laugh I'd had all day. Reply | 3. [svg][]sparkle emoji* February 13, 2024 at 3:54 pm Yep, that "fine with it" reaction was her mentally switch-flipping from "interviewing a serious job candidate" mode to "watching the chaos unfold" mode. Reply | 1. [svg][]MigraineMonth* February 13, 2024 at 5:58 pm Metaphorically eating popcorn. Reply | 4. [svg][]EmmaPoet* February 13, 2024 at 4:18 pm At that moment, I think she switched to, "I really want to see how deep he can dig this hole, just out of morbid curiosity." Reply | 5. [svg][3a7c8]Lenora Rose* February 13, 2024 at 4:31 pm Yeah, I half suspect the "she was interviewing for things like communication, ability to prioritize, and soft skills" was also meant to be a broad hint that "The other interviews showed you knew your technical stuff but were a jerk about it". I commend this woman's poker face if he thought he was acing it. Reply | 1. [svg][]MigraineMonth* February 13, 2024 at 6:00 pm Given that OP thought his interview with the skip-level manager was going great, I have massive doubts that he did as well as he thought he did in the previous interviews, at least at convincing anyone he would be a good report or teammate. This level of contempt and entitlement is hard to hide. Reply | 6. [svg][]SPDM* February 13, 2024 at 4:42 pm I, a woman in tech, was once told by a woman interviewing for a senior research job-in a group dinner with multiple junior women researchers-that women weren't as good at science and math. We couldn't get up and leave so we just faked another hour, but boy howdy, that person was DOA before doing another 10 hours of meetings the next day. Head of the unit: also a woman. It's entirely possible to let something ride for another hour just to see how bad it gets.... Reply | 7. [svg][]BlondSpiders* February 13, 2024 at 4:56 pm I don't think I could ever be composed enough to continue. The best I could manage is a forced smile and a bright, "OK, I think we're done here!" Reply | 6. [svg][]CB212* February 13, 2024 at 3:18 pm He "asked why she was interviewing me since it was a technical position and she was clearly some kind of middle manager" Me, reading: oh, well he didn't say all that out loud of course! ....She "told (him) she had a technical background " Me: oh wow no he literally said it just like that apparently?! Reply | 1. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 3:54 pm Also if he thought his boss's boss would be "just some middle manager" the position he was applying for was presumably a fairly junior one, which makes the thinly veiled contempt even more startling. Reply | 7. [svg][36814]Mo* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm One of the real problems today is people thinking that having a degree in a subject means they know more about the field than experienced people without a degree. I had a neighbor with a degree in interior design, but zero taste and no color sense. She'd complain about astonishingly beautiful homes because they didn't follow the rules she'd picked up in her classes. Understanding how the world works counts for so much more than having learned a version of how it might work. But there's a large swath of America that refuses to believe it. Don't know about the rest of the world. Reply | 1. [svg][]Bitte Meddler* February 13, 2024 at 4:34 pm Oh, that's not a new problem. This has been going on since the invention of college degrees. Reply | 8. [svg][]tag* February 13, 2024 at 3:41 pm Where is there any indication of OP's gender? I didn't see it in the leter. Reply | 1. [svg][]tag* February 13, 2024 at 3:42 pm And on re-reading it, it's right there staring me in the face. Oops. Way to go, guy. Reply | 1. [svg][]Bexy Bexerson* February 13, 2024 at 4:41 pm Unlike the LW, you have no problem with owning your mistake! Reply | 9. [svg][]The Other Sage* February 13, 2024 at 4:47 pm I'm am glad on behalf of the co-workers of that manager that he showed so bluntly who he is. Reply | 5. [svg][ec38d]Ronny* February 13, 2024 at 2:05 pm I really hope the LW can sit with Alison's response and update us in a few months. From his own recounting of the interview, I wouldn't have hired him either. If he can learn from this, then hey, he'll have a great answer to this same question next time! Reply | 1. [svg][]Mrs. Weaver* February 13, 2024 at 5:41 pm And if it sounded that bad from his own POV, image how bad it would sound if that interviewer was writing the letter! I have to wonder if the recruiter and hiring manager really loved him as much as he thinks they did, given the utter lack of self-awareness in the rest of the letter. If they were on the fence, it would make sense for the grandboss to want to interview him as well, especially on the soft skills that would seemingly show lacking in the previous interviews. It's one of the things I love about the team I'm on right now. My grandboss hires for soft skills as well as tech ones. It makes for a much nicer team to work with. Reply | 6. [svg][]Dr. Rebecca* February 13, 2024 at 2:05 pm *wince* Ooooooh, buddy. For someone who "doesn't make mistakes," that entire process was a WHOPPER on your end. Reply | 1. [svg][]Sparkle Motion* February 13, 2024 at 2:55 pm There were so many obvious mistakes in that interview-and then in his processing of it afterward-that he clearly just lies to himself about all the other mistakes he (never) makes. Reply | 1. [svg][]Dr. Rebecca* February 13, 2024 at 3:02 pm Like a slow-motion train wreck in a movie, where you're screaming at the characters to slam on the brakes. A cascade of OH NO. Reply | 2. [svg][]JelloStapler* February 13, 2024 at 3:13 pm Oh no- those weren't HIS mistakes- they were other people messing up. Reply | 2. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:04 pm I mean, if this was his first mistake, it can't be denied he went all in, deep end, head first, ass on fire. Reply | 1. [svg][1cfb9]Heffalump* February 13, 2024 at 4:40 pm Making up for lost time. Reply | 7. [svg][]Freelance Bass* February 13, 2024 at 2:05 pm Yikes. Reply | 1. [svg][]miss_chevious* February 13, 2024 at 3:43 pm Yikes on BIKES. Reply | 1. [svg][]EmmaPoet* February 13, 2024 at 4:19 pm There are not enough bikes for all the yikes to flee on. They're doubling up. Reply | 2. [svg][]DeskApple* February 13, 2024 at 3:55 pm I read the letter and wondered "OP, are you my dad?" because these types do exist Reply | 8. [svg][]Skoobles* February 13, 2024 at 2:06 pm I'm gonna be honest, this one reads like ragebait. Reply | 1. [svg][eb93c]Manders* February 13, 2024 at 2:03 pm Yeah, this cannot be real... right? Reply | 1. [svg][cc433]Minimal Pear* February 13, 2024 at 2:06 pm I would love to think that but I've absolutely met This Kind Of Guy. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hills to Die on* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm But to actually say it out loud and not think there's a problem. It's just impressive. Like, in the bad way. Reply | 1. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm My ex has risen to the challenge multiple times. There are definitely people out there who just cannot imagine themselves as anything but the main character, and of course, the type of main character who cannot do wrong (but can absolutely be a victim to other people's cruel set-ups, like this grandboss who dared to ask a normal interview question!) Reply | 1. [svg][]BigLawEx* February 13, 2024 at 5:24 pm Sometimes (from this and previous comments) I think we have the same ex. Mine has NEVER made a mistake. Everything is everyone else's problem. He went to an Ivy and therefore is always right. There are people like this. I met and married one. They are like this in public, in interviews, in work/intimate relationships. There are entire YT channels dedicated to people like this. Fortunately?! they're not common, though not quite rare either. The ONE difference is this guy wrote in, so **maybe** he'll change his ways... Reply | 2. [svg][]RVA Cat* February 13, 2024 at 5:52 pm I mean, Joffrey sure thought he was the main character of Game of Thrones.... Reply | 2. [svg][]S* February 13, 2024 at 2:38 pm Yeah, people like this definitely exist, but the question is whether a real person would tell their side of the story in a way that made them look this bad. Could happen, of course, but I'm skeptical. Reply | 1. [svg][]Rainy* February 13, 2024 at 2:40 pm You have to have some kind of suspicion that maybe you are coming off poorly in the situation before you go to the effort of trying to make yourself look good. Reply | 1. [svg][]Starbuck* February 13, 2024 at 3:44 pm Right but this guy clearly doesn't value the opinions of women, so them disapproving of him doesn't mean he did anything bad, it just means they're wrong about him and they're the ones making a mistake for not recognizing his skills. Reply | 2. [svg][]Ms. Engineer* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm As female with an engineering degree these men exist.* I actually laughed when reading this letter and wasn't surprised with the number of people saying "this can't be real." LW relayed the contents of the interview. LW's is asking for the steps to move forward in the hiring process since the interview didn't work. This is so on brand. *How real this letter is irrelevant. The advice is where the value is. Reply | 1. [svg][]1-800-BrownCow* February 13, 2024 at 4:08 pm Female engineer here as well and I completely concur! My thought reading this was "thank goodness it was a panel of women interviewing him because many guys like OP seem to make it through the interview process with a panel of men successfully" and I've had to work with the *I'm perfect and never make mistakes* type way too often. And you can bet that as a "girl engineer" (yes, I've been called that), my degree, for whatever reason, is not as good as theirs so of course, they think they know how to do my job better than me. Reply | 3. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 3:46 pm I've listened to a person insist everyone was out to get him while carefully explaining how he was letting a stalker into the building to stalk an employee because she "deserved it", and upon getting written up for it, proceeded to shout in front of HR's door to the entire office that he was going to make that woman's life even worse now that he knew she complained. So yeah, there are people like that. Reply | 1. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 3:56 pm And then he was fired, right? (please tell me he was fired) Reply | 1. [svg][]Elitist Semicolon* February 13, 2024 at 4:04 pm directly into the sun, I hope. 2. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 4:53 pm Oh yes, sorry. He was immediately called back in and fired. 3. [svg][]Enai* February 13, 2024 at 5:48 pm I can't express how glad I am that he was fired, NerdyKris. I hope the poor target of the stalker also got better protection. 2. [svg][]osmoglossom* February 13, 2024 at 4:15 pm omg, wtaf?!? Reply | 4. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 4:16 pm ut the question is whether a real person would tell their side of the story in a way that made them look this bad. That's the easy part. Because people who act this way simply do no understand that they are acting badly. And this letter tracks with that thought process. Reply | 5. [svg][]Bitte Meddler* February 13, 2024 at 5:32 pm This dude could be my ex, except my ex dropped out of college. He was once stabbed in the meat of his shoulder above his armpit by an old man (60's? 70's?) after my ex FOLLOWED HIM FOR SEVERAL MILES because the old man had turned in front of him -- not endangering Ex, but just annoying him. Ex told me the story as I was driving home from work that day. At every point in the story where he was trying to make Old Man out to be The Bad Guy, he was actually damning himself because *none* of his actions made sense to a reasonable person. With each new unbelievable thing he told me he'd done, I tried to say, "Why would you do *THAT*??" but he just yelled over me: "I'M *TRYING* TO TELL YOU!!" Zero self-awareness. To this day, years later, he still thinks everything he did that day was right and correct. He is a 6'2'' whyte dude who genuinely believes that he has never made a mistake and that all of his failures in life have been caused by other people. It is both amazing and frightening. So while I *want* to believe that someone who witnessed LW's behavior wrote in pretending to be the person who did the behavior, I'm willing to bet that the LW really is that entitled and clueless. Reply | 3. [svg][]Siege* February 13, 2024 at 3:00 pm I would like to introduce you to the database class I taught in 2015 that had so many near-indistinguishable white men (medium height, medium build, various shades of short hair generally in mid-brown, same "I'm a techbro in training" wardrobe) that I could not tell them apart except for the one who actually talked to me about a mutual interest he was using for his database project. For this class, I assign a final project. The students build a database that meets various criteria, I go in and delete parts of the data (this is really typical for databases over time to lose some of the data), they use the data to answer various questions, no problem. It can be any database on any topic as long as it meets the requirement, because it would be boring for me if everyone was doing a database on, like, classes they are taking, and I like students to engage with the project. One student did a database of his dating life. With ratings. With other details that were completely unnecessary to give to your teacher in a classroom setting. He did not do that project for his final, but I still have never figured out if he was so clueless that he thought it was appropriate to rate and describe women and then give it to his teacher or if he was baiting me to try to provoke a stronger reaction (I am a woman). Either way, it was just such a demonstration of That Kind Of Guy. Reply | 1. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 4:10 pm Ooof. Reply | 2. [svg][3a7c8]Lenora Rose* February 13, 2024 at 4:35 pm eeeeeek... Reply | 4. [svg][]Writer Claire* February 13, 2024 at 5:39 pm My comment got eaten so shorter version: I supervised someone like the OP, and he did say things like this out loud. He also refused to take feedback, talked over me in status meetings, and believed he was god's gift to software development. He was not, and eventually I had to fire him. However, he was young, so perhaps time and experience have helped to give him some self awareness. Reply | 2. [svg][2b81b]VaguelySpecific* February 13, 2024 at 2:28 pm I have a coworker who could be this guy... (I wish I was kidding...) Reply | 1. [svg][]RedinSC* February 13, 2024 at 2:33 pm OMG, I'm so sorry Reply | 2. [svg][]Jojo* February 13, 2024 at 3:01 pm Yep. I've worked with this guy. More than once, sadly. Reply | 3. [svg][]Rainy* February 13, 2024 at 2:37 pm I went to grad school with a This Kind Of Guy, but they're everywhere. "Often wrong, never in doubt," as one of my supervisors used to say. Reply | 4. [svg][]Analytical Tree Hugger* February 13, 2024 at 2:51 pm Yup, I worked with someone for several years who openly behaved and talked very similarly to LW. They were somewhat more circumspect with executives, though. Not to the point of brownnosing, just respectful and courteous in ways that teammates and direct supervisors apparently weren't deserving of. Reply | 5. [svg][]Lora* February 13, 2024 at 4:26 pm I too have met this kind of guy, but these kinds of guys will never write to AskAManager in the first place. Reply | 2. [svg][f21c0]Richard Hershberger* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm Good question. It is a variant of Poe's Law, but for AITA bait where the answer clearly is "yes." Reply | 3. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 2:10 pm There have been letters in the past from people who were similarly off-base in their thinking, and in a few cases they have written back in with updates after they realized their mistakes. I'm thinking in particular of the "is the work environment I've created on my team too exclusive?" letter from July 25, 2017. That letter-writer doubled down in her first update, then realized she was not cut out for management and her earlier behavior was self-destructive (in the second update). There was also the "my wife says my relationship with my coworker is inappropriate" from May 17, 2022. No update but the letter-writer commented as "Oblivious OP" and from the comments I can see he was started to take the advice and comments to heart. Hopefully this letter-writer will also reflect on his behavior. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm Link to work environment is too exclusive letter: https://www.askamanager.org/2017/07/ is-the-work-environment-ive-created-on-my-team-too-exclusive.html Link to relationship with coworker letter: https://www.askamanager.org/2022/05/ my-wife-says-my-relationship-with-my-coworker-is-inappropriate.html Other "are people really like this?" letters (yes, they are): https://www.askamanager.org/2016/04/ i-was-fired-for-taking-initiative.html https://www.askamanager.org/2020/02/ the-leap-day-employee-finally-gets-her-birthday-off-this-year.html https://www.askamanager.org/2021/10/ my-employee-wasnt-respectful-enough-after-the-company-messed-up-her-paycheck.html Reply | 1. [svg][]General von Klinkerhoffen* February 13, 2024 at 2:43 pm This is excellent commenting. Thank you for saving me the search! Reply | 2. [svg][]Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.* February 13, 2024 at 2:43 pm AND IT'S LEAP YEAR THIS YEAR! GO LEAP YEAR EMPLOYEE! Reply | 1. [svg][]Corrigan* February 13, 2024 at 2:52 pm I was thinking about them the other day! Reply | 2. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm Leap into a better job with a less dedicated-to-cluelessness boss! Reply | 3. [svg][]A Poster Has No Name* February 13, 2024 at 4:34 pm Except I really hope Leap Year Employee has left for saner pastures. Reply | 4. [svg][]Not Totally Subclinical* February 13, 2024 at 5:11 pm I really want there to be a Happy Birthday Leap Year Employee post on that day so that we can all wish them happy birthday on the correct day. Reply | 3. [svg][11470]Link* February 13, 2024 at 3:42 pm That last one about the paycheck made my brain malfunction with that LW's audacity. This one is topping it. Reply | 4. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 3:48 pm The hero we need. Reply | 5. [svg][0645a]Nomic* February 13, 2024 at 4:29 pm Re-read the first one, and hope Letter Writer is doing better now. Reply | 6. [svg][]CrazyCatLady* February 13, 2024 at 5:35 pm Thank you for posting these. I was thinking of the one where the person was "fired for taking initiative". saves me from the search Reply | 2. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 2:43 pm I was reminded of the guy who bullied the woman assigned to train him and wrote in to ask whether he should tell her boss she was being too sensitive. Like those, he updated to say that he had done some soul-searching and had therapy and now realised that yes, he did bully her. Reply | 1. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 2:45 pm https://www.askamanager.org/2022/02/ my-coworker-says-i-bullied-her-should-i-tell-her-boss-she-needs-more-of-a-backbone.html It had the same "should I tell those who considered my behaviour inappropriate that actually it was fine and they were wrong to find it inappropriate?" energy. Reply | 2. [svg][86a3f]Festively Dressed Earl* February 13, 2024 at 2:55 pm Therapy might be a good idea for this LW too. I really want to believe that people can see the error of their ways and change. Reply | 3. [svg][]triss merigold* February 13, 2024 at 4:04 pm There was that person who didn't respect any of his co-workers because he had a more recent education. That's the one I thought of first. https://www.askamanager.org/2015/07/ i-dont-respect-my-managers-college-degrees-from-20-years-ago.html Reply | 4. [svg][]Geewizsaraliz* February 13, 2024 at 2:11 pm My thoughts too Reply | 5. [svg][]Tio* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm I have managed a person like this. We had an error rate report. The goal was under 5%. She was good at her job, all her monthlies were under the 5%. Sounds great, right? Wrong. because whenever she'd get the report, she'd want to litigate every. single. mistake and explain why it wasn't a mistake or wasn't her fault, etc. And she was succeeding by the KPI measurements! If she hadn't been hellbent on arguing about every little detail she would've been in a much better spot. But because she wanted to argue, every time and every detail, she became known as difficult. Could this particular letter be ragebait? Maybe... but these people are real. Reply | 1. [svg][]tjames* February 13, 2024 at 2:28 pm That's another thing about people like this, they believe in dying on every hill. Reply | 1. [svg][]Not Tom, Just Petty* February 13, 2024 at 2:58 pm His wife told him to let it go. He did not, in fact, let it go. Reply | 1. [svg][]Miss Muffett* February 13, 2024 at 4:11 pm Makes you wonder what daily life with this dude is like. Seems like a lot of people in the comments are describing this kind of person as their Ex... Wonder if he will also be one soon! Reply | 2. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:30 pm And EVERYTHING is a hill. Reply | 2. [svg][]Wendy Darling* February 13, 2024 at 4:22 pm When I was a teaching assistant I had a student like this. He was getting the highest possible grade in the class AND we dropped the lowest quiz grade, but every time he got any points off anything ever he was there after class arguing with me about why his answer was actually correct. He was not correct AND he was already doing so well in the course that his grade could not get any higher, but it seemed like he couldn't cope with possibly being fallible. Also he was an engineering major, which I knew because he told me about it every single time he talked to me. I have since left academia and become an engineer and we're not all that guy, but he's definitely out there. Grinding my gears. Reply | 1. [svg][]RVA Cat* February 13, 2024 at 6:00 pm I hope he is not the type of engineer whose mistakes can kill people. Reply | 6. [svg][]ampersand* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm My first thought was AAM is being trolled, and my second thought was: unless maybe my ex-husband wrote this? At which point I was reminded that people this clueless DO exist. Reply | 1. [svg][a6555]GPorcupine* February 13, 2024 at 3:19 pm yeah, I have at least 2 people I can see writing this letter. Which is 2 too many. Reply | 7. [svg][]ScruffyInternHerder* February 13, 2024 at 2:27 pm Let me introduce you to an entire department... Reply | 8. [svg][]korangeen* February 13, 2024 at 2:32 pm Yeah that's what I was wondering. You couldn't possibly be truly this openly disdainful toward management in an INTERVIEW and write about it in a letter to an advice column called "Ask A Manager" and fully expect her to be your side... right?? Reply | 1. [svg][]Rainy* February 13, 2024 at 2:39 pm I'm pretty sure it was the LW from "is my team too exclusive" who said that they thought, when they wrote in to a forum called "Ask A Manager", that Alison would be on their side since they were the manager in the situation. Reply | 1. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 4:21 pm Yes, it was. Reply | 2. [svg][]EmmaPoet* February 13, 2024 at 4:28 pm "Letter-writer (LW): Because I disagree with your points and I don't want to constantly defend myself. My ex employee made me look bad and I thought that as Ask a Manager you would side with a manager." You are correct, it was in the first update when Allison wrote back to them. Which, wow. The lack of clue was painful. Reply | 1. [svg][]Enai* February 13, 2024 at 5:58 pm Which made the "I got a clue, went to therapy and now am much happier in a different role" updates so much nicer. This LW really gave me back some hope for humanity: we really _can_ change for the better! Reply | 2. [svg][]Siege* February 13, 2024 at 3:16 pm These people believe so firmly that they are right that everyone will agree with them, in my experience. They do not consider nuance in any interaction, because the only "nuance" they need is "I'm right, of course." I will bet you cash money that if OP had any introspection about the site he was writing to, it was tempered by the fact that Allison does generally give very even-handed advice and is often less blunt than I would be (which is why she gives the advice and I don't) in favor of seeing people's problems as real ones that need to be solved. If he considered any of the letters, it's rare to find one with an answer like this, but it's so much more likely he just googled for workplace advice and decided the top result is the best choice, because the universe conforms to his expectations. Rainbows are formed by light bending around this man's ego. Reply | 3. [svg][]Museum Teacher* February 13, 2024 at 4:40 pm If you truly believe that you've NEVER made a mistake and that you should email your interviewer to scold her, then yes, you could indeed write this letter with a straight face and the sincere conviction that you're absolutely, positively RIGHT ('cause YOU never make a mistake!) Reply | 9. [svg][]Overit* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm Oh, I have known several people like that. I actually quit a good job I otherwise really enjoyed due to a boss just like this. Absolutely insufferable on a daily basis. I also saw her deliberately and quite unnecessarily ruin a coworker's career. She was then SHOCKED when she encountered that person at a social event and that person walked away from her. She followed her around the room telling her how she was wrong to be angry. I stepped up to try to deflect and distract her, but she got mad at me, then proceeded to try to tell everyone else in the room why she was justified in ruining former coworker's career. Reply | 1. [svg][]I Have RBF* February 13, 2024 at 3:12 pm Wow, that boss was a piece of shit. A person whose career they trashed had the good sense to walk away from them, and then they compounded it by trash talking the person and justifying what they did to the victim to everyone else in the room? I'm glad you no longer work for that jerk. Reply | 2. [svg][]davethetrucker* February 13, 2024 at 3:40 pm I know we don't deserve them, but I so badly wish for more details about this. How the career was ruined, what social event it was, what (if anything) the ruined coworker said before walking away...it sounds like a great story. Reply | 10. [svg][]Aunt Vixen* February 13, 2024 at 2:41 pm "Ohhh, you have an MBA. In that case I'll have to show you how to do it." FedEx knew. Reply | 1. [svg][160ae]Office Plant Queen* February 13, 2024 at 4:51 pm I have an MBA and I avoid briging it up because I don't want to be one of Those People. I'll still mention it if it's relevant. Most of the time it's not Reply | 2. [svg][1e47c]Myrin* February 13, 2024 at 2:06 pm Oh, I absolutely know people whose internal thought processes I'm quite sure sound exactly like this letter. (Also, Alison has asked in the past not to speculate about that since even if a particular letter is fake, it might help someone in a similar situation.) Reply | 3. [svg][]Feral Humanist* February 13, 2024 at 2:06 pm To paraphrase Captain Awkward: "Who here is right and why is it me?" Reply | 1. [svg][]Feral Humanist* February 13, 2024 at 2:06 pm Ugh, nesting fail. Reply | 1. [svg][]Enai* February 13, 2024 at 6:00 pm That fits basically anywhere in this letter's comment section, though? Reply | 2. [svg][]Corporate Lawyer* February 13, 2024 at 2:39 pm LOL, yes! Reply | 4. [svg][]Jennifer Strange* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm Yeah, while I'm not saying these people don't exist (they do, I've met them) I get the sense most of them wouldn't deign to write in to an advice column. They would think it beneath them. Reply | 1. [svg][c79b2]Texan In Exile* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm I think he wrote to have AAM tell him that of course he is correct and yes he should tell the manager why she was wrong and he was right. Reply | 1. [svg][]Shopping is my cardio* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm Either that or his wife urged him to write since she seems to have a better handle on things. Reply | 1. [svg][]General von Klinkerhoffen* February 13, 2024 at 2:44 pm Ooh, good call. Clever people who are being ignored know when to appeal to authority. Reply | 2. [svg][]Annie E. Mouse* February 13, 2024 at 4:15 pm Or he assumed everyone would agree with him and he could prove his wife wrong. Reply | 1. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 4:24 pm That occurred to me too, that he was planning to show his wife how Alison agreed he was totally in the right. Reply | 2. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 2:20 pm I am a bit reminded of juice guy, who was told by his supervisor, supervisor's boss, girlfriend, and sister that he was in the wrong. So he appealed to AAM to overrule them. All the feedback OP is getting-from the hirers, from his spouse-is negative. It takes a Miles Vorkosigan to look at that and conclude "So maybe everyone is wrong except me." Reply | 1. [svg][f21c0]Richard Hershberger* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm Well, if the issue at hand was dealing with, say, the Cetagandans, Miles would have a point. Or really any situation where his immediate superior gave him the wrong orders. But love life? Yeah, he had issues, though he eventually worked through them. Reply | 2. [svg][]GingerNP* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm Also my sister's husband... Reply | 3. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 2:36 pm Juice guy! Letter #4 of the "my boss treats me like I'm not very smart, I got in trouble for taking someone's juice, and more" post from May 31, 2017. He also commented a number of times as "Andrew" to try to convince the comments section that he was not a thief. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 2:36 pm https://www.askamanager.org/2017/05/ my-boss-treats-me-like-im-not-very-smart-i-got-in-trouble-for-taking-someones-juice-and-more.html Reply | 2. [svg][]lost academic* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm Sure they would. They are looking for vindication. It's Very Important that People On The Internet agree with them repeatedly. Reply | 1. [svg][f21c0]Richard Hershberger* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm That's what we have lurkers in email for. Reply | 3. [svg][]blood orange* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm I think they do when they go on this rampage - "I must increase the ranks of people who say I'm right!" Reply | 5. [svg][]Hawthorne* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm Agreed, until I think about the leap day birthday letter. Reply | 1. [svg][]raktajino* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm Exactly where my mind went too. I suppose that one also could have been a long-running troll but at the very least it was well-written enough that the author didn't seem aware of their ridiculousness. The guy who ghosted an ex, moved out of the country, ended up working for her and was confused as to why that didn't go well for him also sounded both real and absolutely unhinged. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 2:37 pm Link to "I ghosted my ex" letter: https://www.askamanager.org/2017/08/ i-ghosted-my-ex-and-shes-about-to-be-my-new-boss.html Reply | 1. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 4:13 pm That's the one I thought of right away too. Reply | 2. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:39 pm Oh God, that guy! Took Oblivious to new heights, all right. Reply | 3. [svg][]AnonORama* February 13, 2024 at 3:45 pm Also the person who didn't understand why her employee was pissed that she hadn't been paid due to the boss's (LW) mistake, and the one who thought she was in the right for not letting an employee (who had overcome a ton of obstacles) to attend graduation. they're out there, for sure. Reply | 2. [svg][]Nel* February 13, 2024 at 3:40 pm IDK that over I have a very hard time believing was real. Reply | 6. [svg][]AL* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm Was about to say the same :/ Reply | 7. [svg][f3620]juliebulie* February 13, 2024 at 2:10 pm Yeah. It's just bizarre. I don't know if I've ever not interviewed with a grandboss before. And I certainly wouldn't diss a prospective grandboss to her face. Everyone makes mistakes. It is how people learn. I don't trust people who claim not to make mistakes. Obviously the LW is wrong sometimes. Like for instance, when he wrote this letter. Reply | 1. [svg][]I Have RBF* February 13, 2024 at 3:25 pm Everyone makes mistakes. It is how people learn. I don't trust people who claim not to make mistakes. This!! I make mistakes every day. I've made several little mistakes (typos) writing this response. The reason you don't see them is that I go back and fix (most of) them. I sure as hell don't double down and say "It's the keyboard's fault! It puts in typos! I meant to do that!" or other such nonsense. If you "never make mistakes" it's because you never do anything, and never try anything outside your narrow comfort zone. No, I don't mean that an orderly should try brain surgery, but trying new things just outside your prior experience is how you learn and grow. In my field it is a given that you don't know everything - it won't all fit in anyone's head, and changes very rapidly. The biggest strengths that someone can bring to my type of job is an ability to learn on the fly and an ability to make, own and fix one's own mistakes. Both of those things go hand in hand. You can't rely on being spoon-fed everything by college professors, it doesn't work that way. What a good college education gives you (even if you ended up dropping out for money reasons) is the ability to learn on your own - how to research, synthesize and integrate new information. Reply | 2. [svg][]She of Many Hats* February 13, 2024 at 4:28 pm I haven't "hooo boy" and "he didn't" and "reallly" so quickly and so hard about an AAM letter in a long time. I think Leap Year Girl and "She Wasn't Nice Enough re: Screwed Up Paycheck" were the last times saw that level of clueless determination to Be Right. I'm gonna guess after reading any of the comments, he's considering writing all our bosses to tell us how wrong we are. Reply | 8. [svg][]Orangina* February 13, 2024 at 2:11 pm YES Reply | 9. [svg][]lost academic* February 13, 2024 at 2:14 pm Nope. I know people particularly in programming who absolutely have the attitude about their management that they perceive to be inferior technically to their own skills, even for those who clearly rose through the technical ranks (at a particular company where that's the only way). We have this idea that in this day and age this many catastrophic ways of thinking can't possibly persist but they absolutely can, do, and they are supported in plenty corners of the internet and there are still plenty of companies that don't shut down these attitudes because they aren't as open as this letter and because there's still this idea that we all need to put up with certain personality issues because someone is 'good at what they do' and I don't need to opine lengthily on why that's terrible for overall productivity and long term success. And.... I don't think this is an early career person. Not that early anyway. This feels like someone who's gotten away with a lot of things and hasn't been adjusted. Reply | 1. [svg][]Potato Potato* February 13, 2024 at 2:59 pm +1 to not thinking this is an early career person. It very much reads like a guy who's been around for years and everyone in his current job has given up trying to correct Reply | 2. [svg][f3620]juliebulie* February 13, 2024 at 3:12 pm Yes! A lot of those people eventually end up in management positions, their specific technical skills rusting for lack of demand. I don't know if any of them grasp the irony. Reply | 10. [svg][]Ms. Murchison* February 13, 2024 at 2:14 pm Right? Gotta be impressed by AAM's commitment to the "take the letter writer at their word" rule to write an answer this straight to a letter that resembles a creative writing exercise with the prompt "the absolute worst stereotype of a software developer." Reply | 1. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:24 pm As someone who has worked with many software developers....this guy could absolutely be real. (obviously #notalldevelopers, and most of the people I've worked with have been absolutely lovely, but man, some have been really awful) Reply | 1. [svg][]Ms. Murchison* February 13, 2024 at 2:33 pm Oh I know. I am a software developer. But it's the way the letter is written that sounds more like someone intentionally writing ragebait than this type of guy looking for advice. But in the spirit of the AAM rules, I'm hoping that someone benefits from the straight response. Reply | 1. [svg][]I Have RBF* February 13, 2024 at 3:27 pm IMO, the letter is absolutely real. Yes, the guy is a stereotype, but stereotypes of know-it-all brogrammers come from there actually being a lot of know-it-all brogrammers. Reply | 11. [svg][]Delphine* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm Ditto. Reply | 12. [svg][]Awkwardness* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm My thought, too. But I learned something new - Poe's law -, so no loss here. Reply | 13. [svg][]Admin Lackey* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm I hear you, but this reminds me of one of my all-time favourite AAM letters - CEO's Wife Ruined My Job Prospects. I'll post the link in a follow-up question. We've also had a number of clueless letters where the person admitted that they weren't a regular reader, searched for workplace advice looking for validation and then wrote into AAM. It's absolutely possible that this one is real. Reply | 1. [svg][]Admin Lackey* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm https://www.askamanager.org/2017/07/ ceos-wife-ruined-my-job-prospects.html Reply | 2. [svg][]Becky* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm Yup the CEO's Wife Ruined My Job Prospects is the one I thought of immediately! Reply | 14. [svg][]IndependentTeacher* February 13, 2024 at 2:26 pm Definitely possible, because he's a little cartoonish, but I also have at least 2 co-workers who are exactly like this, so I'm willing to believe it. Example: I'm a teacher and we were discussing issues with cell phones and student attention. A variety of people shared their perception that phones are a bigger problem post-pandemic than ever before and it's become a classroom struggle. BOTH of these colleagues (in separate discussions) immediately insisted that they have NEVER had a problem with phones in their classroom and it must just be a case of bad classroom management from everyone else. So actually I believe that a real person can indeed be that clueless. Reply | 1. [svg][]Devious Planner* February 13, 2024 at 2:50 pm I would have laughed out loud at those colleagues of yours saying they "NEVER had a problem with phontes in their classroom"... I feel like I should have one of those electronic parrots that just lives on my shoulder and shouts out "Put your phone away! Put your phone away!" on a 5 minute loop. It would save me time and effort. Reply | 1. [svg][]Anon for This* February 13, 2024 at 5:24 pm When I first went to parents' night at my kid's high school, I noticed that all the classrooms had big wall hangings with numbered pockets. It took me a while to clue in that these were intended for students to park their phones in at the beginning of class. (And nonetheless, my kid still manages to be distracted during class, because the school laptop has access to Wikipedia and Youtube.) Reply | 15. [svg][]E* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm I've worked with guys like this, they absolutely exist and can't comprehend that they do indeed make mistakes. They also love to interject themselves into everything and offer opinions because of course they are superior to everyone! Also are frequently men that have problems with women out ranking them in any way. Reply | 16. [svg][]Keely* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm I worked with a guy just like this. He had zero experience in our field, but threw a tantrum on his second day that we wouldn't let him do high level work. I've also worked with a woman like this who thought taking 7 years full time to complete a BS meant that she had the qualifications of a doctor. Not exaggerating a bit. Reply | 1. [svg][]My Boss is Dumber than Yours* February 13, 2024 at 3:30 pm When I was doing my doctorate, I had a student try to challenge me because they had been in school just as long as I had and were a year older. Which, yes, OK that's true. Problem is, they were still taking 2000 level classes as a sixth year, 25 year old undergraduate...and I was *teaching* that class as a 24 year old doctoral candidate. Reply | 17. [svg][]Melicious* February 13, 2024 at 2:37 pm Halfway through, I was thinking "this is a joke right?" If it wasn't, Dear LW, you are SO in the wrong people think this is a joke. Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:44 pm Note to Self: try not to live life in a way that makes people ask "You're joking, right?" Reply | 18. [svg][]StarryStarryNight* February 13, 2024 at 2:47 pm Got the same feeling. Nobody can be this blind to how they come across, right? (Then again...) Reply | 19. [svg][]Pizza Rat* February 13, 2024 at 2:50 pm I was thinking troll as well, but then I remembered someone I worked with several years ago who could be this guy. Reply | 20. [svg][]K.* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm Agreed. Reply | 21. [svg][]Oh yeah, Me again* February 13, 2024 at 3:15 pm "Ragebait!" Never heard the word before, but soooo perfect! Reply | 22. [svg][]Expelliarmus* February 13, 2024 at 3:16 pm FANFIC ALERT I wonder if the person who wrote this actually sent this to someone they know who actually reads AAM and THAT person sent it to Alison to get some kind of poetic justice at watching their (relative, acquaintance, friend of a friend, whatever) get skewered by Alison and the AAM commentariat. Again, I know this is really reaching, but it would explain why it was sent here despite it being very clear that there's no way Alison would endorse this OP's behavior. Reply | 23. [svg][]supervising librarian* February 13, 2024 at 3:58 pm My brother. I totally believe this letter. AND he would totally trot this scenario out at a family dinner expecting everyone to agree that he was the "wronged" party. Reply | 24. [svg][85030]Just Want A Nap* February 13, 2024 at 4:19 pm I've worked with too many people like this to think it's ragebait. I'm one of the QA people who gets set on people like this and I can promise you they do not take feedback well. If you do have to work with someone like this, document everything. Keep local copies. BCC your supervisor and their manager. Reply | 1. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 4:28 pm I'm one of the QA people who gets set on people like this and I can promise you they do not take feedback well. Oy! You have my deepest sympathies! If you do have to work with someone like this, document everything. Keep local copies. BCC your supervisor and their manager. Definitely. People will go to some pretty significant lengths to maintain their illusions. Reply | 25. [svg][]DramaQ* February 13, 2024 at 4:36 pm I'd love to say it isn't but after over a decade of working in academia and science in general sadly this type of person exists. . .in droves. Reply | 9. [svg][]Lurchy* February 13, 2024 at 2:06 pm Here for the popcorn. Reply | 1. [svg][1ede4]Oregon Girl* February 13, 2024 at 2:11 pm we knew it was going to be bad when he wrote (I don't know if it matters but I'm male and everyone I interviewed with was female.) could this be reverse sexism? oh my..... (sarcasm font) Reply | 1. [svg][35277]bamcheeks* February 13, 2024 at 2:20 pm Spoiler: it did matter, but not the way he thinks. Reply | 1. [svg][]RVA Cat* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm An infamous South Park episode comes to mind involving a wheelbarrow. Reply | 2. [svg][]Yeah...* February 13, 2024 at 2:14 pm I know women like this too. I told a friend her "demeanor" (shall we say) is like this LW's and that there are people who would choose not to work with her for this reason. She lectured me for 20 minutes on why it is good she is the way she is. I like her as a friend, but we will never work together. Reply | 1. [svg][]OhNoYouDidn't* February 13, 2024 at 2:26 pm I've known as many women like this as men. (FYI, I'm a woman.) Reply | 3. [svg][]Jennifer Strange* February 13, 2024 at 2:26 pm I'm just waiting to see who feels they need to play devil's advocate. Reply | 1. [svg][]AndersonDarling* February 13, 2024 at 4:04 pm I think I saw the Devil 'nope' out of this one. Even he can't defend this level of ignorance. Reply | 10. [svg][]Lana Kane* February 13, 2024 at 2:06 pm On the plus side, OP now has an answer to this question for the next time. Reply | 1. [svg][]Jennifer Strange* February 13, 2024 at 2:14 pm *spit take* Reply | 2. [svg][]don'tbeadork* February 13, 2024 at 2:14 pm The "and how I handled it" part will be easy -- poorly! Reply | 3. [svg][]Purple Cat* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm Except he's thinking the only mistake he's made is NOT writing the grandboss to tell her she's wrong. Reply | 1. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:26 pm "I'm perfect, so my fatal flaw is letting your imperfections stand in the way of my awesomeness". Said without irony, not realizing he sounds like a Disney villain. (and yeah, I've totally met That Person before) Reply | 1. [svg][]2e asteroid* February 13, 2024 at 2:51 pm Oh Lord, it's hard to be humble... Reply | 2. [svg][]Lana Kane* February 13, 2024 at 3:06 pm Hey, an answer is an answer! Reply | 4. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:45 pm A glorious one! Reply | 11. [svg][]Ell* February 13, 2024 at 2:06 pm My eyes kept getting wider and wider as I read through. Here for the entertainment value and the thoughtful answer from AAM. Reply | 12. [svg][]GwenSoul* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm I wish I could go one day without making a mistake! In my work, relationship building is super critical and being able to acknowledge, correct and laugh about mistakes is a key part of building those. Reply | 1. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm Some time back I concluded that if every book I read was GREAT, that meant I was staying in too narrow a niche. Healthwise, I will push myself when hiking with my spouse, who can rescue me, and I will carefully not risk any mistake if it's me and the dog, since I need to get us out of any pickles. If you believe you never make mistakes in some realm, I would posit that if your self-assessment is correct, then you are staying within a very safe and narrow range of familiar possibilities. (But more likely, you're just terrible at taking feedback because whatever you're doing must be the right answer, and you will brazen anything out before admitting you're wrong.) Reply | 1. [svg][]Smithy* February 13, 2024 at 3:25 pm Absolutely all of this. I'm in institutional fundraising, and used to work somewhere where our team had a 100% success rate with securing institutional grants. Now....what that meant in practice is that we had a culture where failure wasn't an option. Data about new funding opportunities would never be shared until we were almost positive it was secured. While this helped in terms of the "no failure" aspect, it also meant that huge chunks of your time and work were hidden and kept on the quiet. So our team got a reputation for "what do they do all day" or "how long does it take to do XYZ task???" The reality of our work, is that if you're not including the reality of risk - means that inevitably we will make mistakes. Even if just the mistake of continuing on one relationship for too long when it's becoming obvious the process won't end well. But that job of "100% success" just repeatedly taught how bad a culture of "no mistakes" was in fostering a place where everyone was right or infallible. All it generated was a culture of fear, lying and not learning. Reply | 1. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 4:15 pm This comes up in medical treatment. The key to a clinic having a high success rate is for it to only take those patients whose problems are well understood and easy to treat. Reply | 1. [svg][]Smithy* February 13, 2024 at 4:59 pm Sigh. Yup - lots of ways you can put your fingers on the scale to juice the numbers. In my recent job, we've just started trying to better systematize stats on our work - and I really pushed to collect data in a certain way that for one area of work that could be interpreted as a "low" success rate or a high ROI. My position was that if we started doing this with that understanding and pushing for that education - that if one year the "success" rate is 10%, the next year its 16% and the year after that it's 19% - while none of those numbers look good standing alone, a pattern of increased success does stand out. If the numbers are 10%, 8%, 12% - then overall you see relatively steady results in a tough area of work. And if it's 10%, 7%, 5%.....then that's something else. All to say - you can still use these figures to tell an effective story about how much work is required to achieve that. Reply | 2. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:50 pm I had this guy call me a few days ago, I swear. He had ordered online and hit send before he got everything he wanted on the order. TOTALLY normal, happens all the time. But. He calls up and insists I cancel the order, that "your system is broken" and "sent the order by mistake." Not the first time I've heard that, so I have to call the store and cancel the order; unfortunately not before they've started on it, thus wasting out product. When I get back on the phone with the guy, he proceeds to order the EXACT same thing. Every single thing. When I express puzzlement he says "well, I also wanted a medium cheese pizza!" "So, you didn't want to cancel? You just wanted to add on to the order you placed?" "Look, cancel, add on, whatever you INSIST (me. I insisted on this, apparently) on calling it!" So naturally this means we've wasted thirty dollars worth of food because this guy wouldn't admit he'd sent the order too soon. What could have been a quick fix turned into ten minutes of fretting, pouting and wasted food. But hey guy, you couldn't possibly have been wrong! Reply | 3. [svg][]Watry* February 13, 2024 at 3:58 pm Oh, that first sentence is a help to me right now, thank you. It feels such a waste of money when I get a book and then don't like it or don't even finish it (and before it comes up, my local libraries are not great). Reply | 1. [svg][]Cyborg Llama Horde* February 13, 2024 at 4:44 pm I figure authors can use the support, even authors whose books aren't for me. Reply | 2. [svg][]Nightengale* February 13, 2024 at 3:39 pm No kidding! I'm a pediatrician now but my first career was teaching. I have described teaching as standing up in front of people all day and making mistakes, with the hope of not making any really terrible ones and learning and repairing from them moving forward. Doctors make mistakes too. There are lots of checks in place to prevent medication errors but no checks in place to prevent saying the wrong thing. Reply | 13. [svg][]Name (Required)* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm Mmmmm, dispatches from one's high horse are my favorite. Reply | 1. [svg][]Dispatches From the High Horse* February 13, 2024 at 2:09 pm This is excellent. Reply | 2. [svg][]Robert Sigley* February 13, 2024 at 3:16 pm This is one I wrote a few years ago, to be sung more or less to the tune of "Beautiful Dreamer": THE MORAL OF THE TAIL The moral high ground, as a matter of course, Is often found under a moral high horse. And its ultimate source, we then find without fail, Lies under that morally high-lifted tail. (Yes, you can get loads from an uplifting tail!) So, what follows from this uplifting account? From a high horse, there's no graceful dismount, Just a high probability that you will find You've landed right in what your horse left behind. (You'll be smelling as high as that horse's behind!) Reply | 3. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 3:51 pm We peasants on the ground shall benefit from his great wisdom. Reply | 14. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm "she was interviewing for things like communication, ability to prioritize, and soft skills. I still thought it was weird to interview with my boss's boss." He thinks it's weird that someone would screen for soft skills...then immediately demonstrates why it's important to screen for soft skills. Reply | 1. [svg][]cosmicgorilla* February 13, 2024 at 2:08 pm She was screening for soft skills...that he clearly doesn't have. Reply | 2. [svg][]exoboist1* February 13, 2024 at 2:08 pm Yep, ding ding ding! We have a winner. Reply | 3. [svg][1e47c]Myrin* February 13, 2024 at 2:11 pm I thought exactly that - and she's probably really good at determining those things, too. Reply | 4. [svg][]tree frog* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm This letter writer sounds like someone who is way too emotionally invested in his elite coding skills and has disdain for everything else. It's nice to see a hiring process that doesn't reward this attitude because from what I hear, a lot of them do. Reply | 1. [svg][]Sloanicota* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm Maybe I'm not reading closely enough, but I'm also not positive why OP is so sure only this question is what sunk him, although it does seem plausible. But he could have also legitimately not been he strongest at some other point in the process? I've been sure I've aced questions/interviews and even made it to the final round even to not be selected multiple times. This could have also been the icing on their decision not to move forward with him. Reply | 1. [svg][]No Longer Working* February 13, 2024 at 2:50 pm His first words to the grandboss were "Why are you interviewing me?". That could have killed his chances right there. Who asks that of a superior? Reply | 1. [svg][]I Have RBF* February 13, 2024 at 3:44 pm Seriously. If I get an interview with my would-be grand-boss, that tells me I have a better chance at the job. One of the things I look for is a grand-boss who is invested in the team's success, and them helping interview is a good sign for that. Plus it allows me to ask them soft skill stuff like "What is the typical career progression at this company?" and "How are pass-downs from upper management communicated to the front-line employees?" Reply | 2. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 4:17 pm It's so odd that he found this shocking, too! I usually sit in on interviews with the hiring managers who report to me. Reply | 2. [svg][]Hapless Bureaucrat* February 13, 2024 at 3:27 pm But he never makes mistakes! Ergo he must have been perfect in the other interviews. More seriously, someone that convinced of their own rectitude generally has a hard time telling if their opinion of their skills is off in other areas, too. I say as someone who used to manage an employee of this type. Reply | 3. [svg][]Ama* February 13, 2024 at 4:07 pm You know, it strikes me that the interviewers may have already had some concerns about his soft skills and that's part of why the grand boss said what she did. They may have been thinking "well his resume is solid but his responses when we scheduled the interview were a little off-putting, let's make sure we sound out whether he's just a little brusque over email or if we're right to be concerned." Reply | 1. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 4:35 pm You know, it strikes me that the interviewers may have already had some concerns about his soft skills and that's part of why the grand boss said what she did. I think that you are probably right. Reply | 5. [svg][dadd3]gmg22* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm And it demonstrates the fallacy of believing that the only "mistakes" that can be possible are very particular ones relating to technical aspects of one's job. Reply | 6. [svg][]Blue* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm Right, like... the reason she moved on after this answer was that the response was so catastrophic that it did not require any follow up. Reply | 1. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:49 pm Exactly. What would you even say to someone who doesn't understand that it's very bad outright insult your potential grandboss during an interview? Or that it's not possible for anyone to never make a mistake? Reply | 2. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 2:56 pm And that she did not have the emotional bandwidth right then to sit there with a straight face while he dug the hole deeper and deeper. Reply | 7. [svg][]Antilles* February 13, 2024 at 2:31 pm The part of that sentence which got me was that he thought it was weird to interview with the grand-boss. I am 15+ years into my career and every single job I've ever had applied for included meeting with the grand-boss. Every. Single. One. Including when I was interviewing to be a summer intern, met with the grand-boss as part of that process, then literally never saw him again for the three months I worked there since he worked on a different floor. Reply | 1. [svg][]Achtung, Baby* February 13, 2024 at 2:37 pm Right? When I got my current job I talked to the hiring manager, her boss, and HER boss! Reply | 2. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 3:00 pm Same. This is incredibly standard! Makes you wonder how many job-interview processes this person has actually experienced... Reply | 3. [svg][]Sparkle Motion* February 13, 2024 at 3:16 pm Same here. I've always been interviewed up and down the chain of command and sometimes across departments. One time, I even had to interview with my future admin. Reply | 4. [svg][]el l* February 13, 2024 at 4:43 pm Wise senior management is very careful who they intake. Because - as this letter shows - culture matters. Reply | 5. [svg][]Lizzianna* February 13, 2024 at 4:44 pm Right? I'm a second line supervisor, and I don't require an interview for every position, but at minimum, I require a briefing and approval on all the hiring my team does, and I require an interview with candidates in positions I'll be interacting with. Reply | 8. [svg][]Amber* February 13, 2024 at 2:55 pm What are soft skills? I've seen it referenced a couple times in various posts and am not sure what it is. Reply | 1. [svg][]Potato Potato* February 13, 2024 at 3:05 pm Soft skills are interpersonal and emotional skills. So, stuff like knowing when to talk in a meeting, or how to calm down and react politely if you're passed over for a promotion. They're "soft" because these skills are more difficult to measure with numbers Reply | 1. [svg][]Amber* February 13, 2024 at 3:32 pm Awesome, thank you! Reply | 2. [svg][]Oh yeah, Me again* February 13, 2024 at 4:25 pm Also would include good manners, etiquette, being able to pick up on, and adapt to, the organization's culture and customs. Extra points for being able to pick up on those things, analyze the value, and help ADJUST the culture to make the workplace better! Reply | 2. [svg][]Dr. Rebecca* February 13, 2024 at 3:06 pm Flexibility, emotional regulation, the ability to take on advice/critique without throwing a fit and apply it even if you disagree with it, modulation of tone, situational awareness and appropriateness, etc. Things that don't fulfill your job requirements, but that make working with you easier and more pleasant, while also improving your work overall. Reply | 3. [svg][56210]Hrodvitnir* February 13, 2024 at 3:08 pm Interpersonal skills. Ie: the ability to work with other people, a skillset that is impossible to measure quantitatively, hence: "soft". Or at least that's my interpretation of why - there is certainly some gendered baggage around the word. Reply | 4. [svg][]Poly Anna* February 13, 2024 at 3:21 pm Basically, people skills (verbal&non-verbal communication, a sense of workplace and industry norms etc) and personal effectiveness skills as relating to working with others (resilience, reflection, willingness to learn etc). Reply | 5. [svg][]Debmadun* February 13, 2024 at 3:34 pm Soft skills are the qualities and skills that are not really taught in a classroom. Teamwork, communication, reliability, time management, initiative, punctuality, collaboration and discretion all come under this umbrella term. They're the skills that make you a good employee and colleague rather than your practical skills like a degree, CPD, experience or specific technical expertise. Employers are now looking specifically for good soft skills as most technical aspects of a job can be taught. It's hard though to teach someone not to be a d**k. Reply | 1. [svg][]Rara Avis* February 13, 2024 at 5:12 pm I would argue that they are absolutely taught in the classroom -- they're just hard to quantifying in the grading systems many schools use. But Social/ Emotional Learning is big in schools at the moment -- teachers understand how important these skills are! Reply | 6. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 3:48 pm The following posts have some good information on soft skills: "which matters more: skills or personality?" from May 14, 2014 "how to coach an employee on soft skills" from January 14, 2016 Reply | 9. [svg][]Corrigan* February 13, 2024 at 2:56 pm Leaving all of the other stuff aside, it's also not even weird to interview with your grandboss? I don't understand his confusion over this. Reply | 10. [svg][]Sparkle Motion* February 13, 2024 at 3:12 pm Also why is it weird to interview with your grand boss? I've always been interviewed up and down the chain of command and sometimes across departments. Reply | 1. [svg][]sparkle emoji* February 13, 2024 at 4:12 pm Yeah, the extreme reaction to that and the mistakes question read as inexperience to me. LW both of these things are normal. Having the grandboss in the interview has been the case probably 50% of the time for me and I've yet to have an interview without some version of the "tell me about a mistake/failure" question. Reply | 11. [svg][]LCH* February 13, 2024 at 3:17 pm also.. it is really normal to interview with a panel that includes the dept head (or whatever) as well as people from outside the dept depending on where you interview. really, really normal. Reply | 12. [svg][ef9c5]learnedthehardway* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm What gets me - as someone in recruitment - is how far out of touch it is to be surprised that the second-line manager would interview him!!! It's EXTREMELY common for the grand-boss to interview the finalist candidates for roles. If there are going to be 2 interviews in a selection process, it's practically guaranteed that the second one will be with a more senior person than the hiring manager. And the more senior exec WILL be looking for not just technical skills, but also business acumen, communications skills, relationship management, personality fit, etc. etc. Reply | 15. [svg][]Yup* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm LW, you are a giant walking red flag. Wow. Reply | 1. [svg][]Porch Gal* February 13, 2024 at 2:25 pm THIS Reply | 2. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:40 pm Seriously. He should apply to work at NASCAR. Reply | 1. [svg][]Three Flowers* February 13, 2024 at 4:49 pm You win the comments today! Reply | 16. [svg][]Borealis* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm The rigidity of this LW's thought process seems more like he is having challenges reading the social situation. I know that it comes across as disdain and snottiness to Alison (and that seems like a reasonable understanding of how the interviewer would have taken it), but anyone else reading this person as a bit bewildered by a social situation that doesn't make sense to them, not just disdainful? Reply | 1. [svg][]Ex-Teacher* February 13, 2024 at 2:41 pm The thing is, perception matters. You may be 100% right that this LW just doesn't realize how social situations work. Unfortunately, this is the natural consequence of not being able to adequately do that- this person with input on hiring has decided that this apparent disdain is a representation of how this LW would conduct themselves in the role (probably a fair assessment) and decided that this conduct is prohibitive in hiring them. Hopefully this response will be a clarifying moment for LW, that they will realize that maybe reading social situations is an area of weakness in their professional skills and can reflect on this to improve. Reply | 2. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:44 pm I dunno, disdain and snottiness sound pretty spot on to me. Genuine confusion generally isn't associated with mocking your interviewer's role, mocking her education and experience, and being so convinced that you're right that you want to write an email to correct HER. Reply | 1. [svg][]Turquoisecow* February 13, 2024 at 3:25 pm Yeah, if he had just asked "why are you here?" to the grandboss and then "oh okay," when told why, that would indicate poor social skills or not understanding the situation. And maybe there's a bit of that in here, but instead of accepting the reality when he's told how it is, ("I'm your supervisor's supervisor and I screen for soft skills.") he's dismissive of the necessity of this action and immediately questions her credentials or the need for her to ask questions like that. Even if interviews with the grandboss were a thing that literally only this company and no other does, coming into a new job with the attitude of "your processes are stupid and your leadership is not qualified" isn't going to work out and is entirely the wrong way to do this. Reply | 3. [svg][]HonorBox* February 13, 2024 at 2:45 pm While it is possible that someone can not understand social cues and situations and some of the aspects of this situation lead me to believe there's more than that going on here. The comments about how weird it is for the grand boss to be part of the interview, the judgment about her qualifications, and the presumption that emailing her to explain why her question was wrong are more snotty than they are not understanding the situation. Reply | 4. [svg][]CommanderBanana* February 13, 2024 at 2:45 pm Maybe, but does it matter? I'm still not going to hire someone who behaves like this an interview, whether it's because they're 'bewildered by a social situation' or they're three racoons in a trench coat. Reply | 1. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm ^ This. The why doesn't matter, really. Not in a hiring context. Even if it were true, we know that the LW responds to "bewildering social situations" not with curiosity and a willingness to learn, but by lashing out, treating others poorly, and doubling down on his own (very flawed) perspective. There's not a lot to work with there. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hapless Bureaucrat* February 13, 2024 at 3:32 pm Yes this, exactly. If he was genuinely bewildered, he chose to leap to a LOT of assumptions about it. And even side from interpersonal and collaborative skills, why would an employer want a technical expert whose first instinct was to do that? Reply | 2. [svg][]Be Gneiss* February 13, 2024 at 3:23 pm I'd rather work with the 3 raccoons, honestly. Reply | 1. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm 100%! Raccoons in a trench coat would be absolutely delightful and would increase morale. Reply | 5. [svg][]Butterfly Counter* February 13, 2024 at 3:05 pm Disagree. People who have a hard time with social situations don't make a lot of the leaps OP did. For example, assuming the grand boss didn't have the relevant technical skills to evaluate him and assuming his schooling was better than hers. Those assumptions are both disdainful, not socially awkward, IMO. Reply | 6. [svg][]ThisIsNotADuplicateComment* February 13, 2024 at 3:10 pm No. Direct quote from the letter "I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem." There is no way for that comment to be made from bewilderment and not distain. Maybe without that comment you could argue otherwise, but it's too far over the line. Reply | 7. [svg][]RagingADHD* February 13, 2024 at 3:13 pm He didn't have to read anything. He knew she was the boss' boss. They literally told him so. Assuming your potential skip-level boss is inferior to you and doesn't know what she's talking about isn't a "challenge reading social cues." He just assumed her experience was irrelevant because ...well, for no good reason really. And he assumed she made the wrong decision because he didn't like it. That's a pretty good fit for the definition of disdain the last time I looked it up. Now, there are an awful lot of arrogant know it alls out there. Most of them at least attempt to hide it when it could cost them a job. So in that sense, maybe he does have challenges with his filter. But that doesn't change the fact that he was making a bunch of ignorant assumptions about his own superiority. Reply | 8. [svg][]Andie Begins* February 13, 2024 at 3:16 pm I dont know that I would classify a job interview as a social situation, but if I did I wouldn't go out of my way insult anyone's intelligence if was having trouble reading the room. Perhaps sit quietly and make a nice comment about the weather. Reply | 9. [svg][cbc84]ecnaseener* February 13, 2024 at 3:19 pm I truly don't see any evidence that that's the issue. He asked explicitly why this interview was taking place and was given a direct answer. If genuine confusion was the issue, at that point it should've been all cleared up. I can't even come up with a way to explain the main event of the story with "he just didn't understand the social situation." He was asked a direct question and understood it just fine. Reply | 1. [svg][]Borealis* February 13, 2024 at 4:28 pm Y'all have all convinced me that there's too much here for it to be bewilderment. I guess my next question is... how do people "get over" arrogance? I've met very few of these folks in the wild and have definitely never successfully helped someone see a new view on their own competence/place in the world, so I wonder how to help. Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:43 pm They pretty much...don't, in my experience. They just get angry, bitter and rigid. Reply | 1. [svg][]Mrs. Weaver* February 13, 2024 at 5:49 pm Yes. And they're more likely to tell people they didn't get the job because the interviewer was "intimidated by my superior skills and education" than they are to learn from the situation. Reply | 10. [svg][]sparkle emoji* February 13, 2024 at 4:23 pm LW says at the end "I'm thinking of mailing her on LinkedIn to explain why her question was wrong and asking if she'll consider me for future positions at her company but my wife says it's a bad idea". "Let me tell you why you're wrong" reads more like snottiness than misunderstanding. Additionally, the fact he's not taking his wife's opinion seriously tilts it further into the snottiness realm for me. If he was genuinely unable to read social cues, he'd be thankful to get guidance from someone who can, but he's not. He isn't curious about what happened, he wants to be right. Reply | 11. [svg][]myfanwy* February 13, 2024 at 5:58 pm It's not just perplexity, though. It's an absolute faith in his own correctness, even when everyone is telling him he's wrong. Someone who doesn't understand a situation can still approach it with humility - it's perfectly possible to say 'I don't understand this, but I realise there may be a good reason for it'. He may be struggling to read the situation AND he's disdainful about it. Reply | 17. [svg][]Ophelia* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm Oh, buddy, OOF. Reply | 1. [svg][]Metadata Janktress* February 13, 2024 at 3:54 pm I had to scale back to skimming the first time I tried to read this because I was cringing so hard with embarrassment on behalf of OP. Reply | 18. [svg][]The Happy Graduate* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm I honestly can't believe this is a serious email and not a bad AITA post on reddit... But if it is real, it's fascinating to get such a view into another person's seemingly regular way of thinking. Reply | 19. [svg][]Midwest Manager* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm I've interviewed candidates like this before. My favorite "They did not just say that..." answer was to the question "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?*" The candidate legitimately replied "I'm going to be your boss by then." Um, no. *I now ask a better version of that question: "What are your long-term career goals, and how do you see this role fitting in to them?" Reply | 1. [svg][]FashionablyEvil* February 13, 2024 at 2:36 pm I was interviewing job candidates and greeted one as he was coming in. (The office didn't really get visitors.) I said, "Oh hi, are you Steve?" And he says, "Yes. You must be the receptionist." No, sir, I would be your boss. Reply | 1. [svg][]Helewise* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm Ooooh, that one is my FAVORITE! It really clarifies the decision-making process. Reply | 2. [svg][]RVA Cat* February 13, 2024 at 3:04 pm It's something when a 21st-century candidate sounds like an early-season Pete Campbell from Mad Men. Reply | 3. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 4:21 pm Ha, solidarity. I had one greet me with "any coffee, sweetie?" I've never enjoyed my subsequent "let me introduce myself, I'm the COO" speech more. Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:44 pm "Down the street at the Starbucks where you can pay with money you did not earn here, lamby legs." Reply | 1. [svg][]Filthy Vulgar Mercenary* February 13, 2024 at 5:00 pm Oh my gosh, I laughed so hard at this. Lamby legs!!! Reply | 2. [svg][]Cat Tree* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm Oh, I want to share too. I always ask candidates about a time they had a professional disagreement with someone and how they handled it. One guy actually told me outright that he had a shouting match until he "won". I'm amazed that either he could not think of a single time that he resolved a disagreement civilly, or he thinks his approach was a good one. Weirdly, some others on the interview panel (who had their own sessions so didn't hear this question and response) loved him as a candidate. He had some other red flags during my interview so as a group we decided not to hire him. Reply | 1. [svg][]Butterfly Counter* February 13, 2024 at 3:09 pm I'm an academic, so we often get CVs. One guy included titles and summaries to all of the op-eds he'd written in to his local paper that were published. Let's just say they were very helpful and informative in our interviewing process. Reply | 1. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 4:22 pm Good lord, I BET they were. Reply | 2. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:45 pm OMG, you actually had The Guy Who Writes Angry Letters interview with you? Reply | 3. [svg][]Three Flowers* February 13, 2024 at 4:52 pm Laughing so hard at the guy who pads out thr publications section of his CV with his entire letters-to-the-non-academic-editor oeuvre! Reply | 3. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:55 pm That's awful but hilarious. Did this person not know that in order to climb the career ladder, they first have to be hired? Who in the world thinks that that's a good answer? It's really not hard to convey personal ambition without directly threatening/competing with the person you're trying to convince to hire you. Reply | 4. [svg][]ThatGirl* February 13, 2024 at 3:08 pm My husband interviewed someone who, when asked about disagreements with her manager said she just went ahead and did what she wanted to do anyway because her manager was wrong. No self-awareness there. And the candidate doubled down when asked the same question by a different group. Reply | 5. [svg][]I Have RBF* February 13, 2024 at 3:51 pm See, if I was answering that question with that angle, it would be "I'll be doing your job since you'll have moved higher up in the organization." Reply | 20. [svg][]Red_Coat* February 13, 2024 at 2:07 pm "Clearly some kind of middle manager" How was that clear, since you didn't look her up until after her interview? Reply | 1. [svg][1e47c]Myrin* February 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm I was actually confused by that part - so OP simultaneously knew that she was a director/his would-be future grandboss but also thought of her as a middle manager? How does that work? Reply | 1. [svg][]Daughter of Ada and Grace* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm My guess is that OP took "not my direct boss" and "not a C-level executive" and came up with "middle manager". Reply | 2. [svg][]Hastily Blessed Fritos* February 13, 2024 at 2:55 pm I mean, at large companies there are lots of levels of management. Directors at my current job are very much middle management. There are plenty of things to latch onto in this letter without that one. Reply | 1. [svg][1e47c]Myrin* February 13, 2024 at 3:40 pm Ah, got it. I'm not a native English speaker and although I'm fluent, titles tend to trick me, and my language's word which is related to "director" basically always means the most high-ranking person. Reply | 1. [svg][1e47c]Myrin* February 13, 2024 at 3:40 pm "highest-ranking". Sigh. I think I should go to bed now. Reply | 1. [svg][]Cyborg Llama Horde* February 13, 2024 at 4:55 pm Job titles in English are also WILD. Things like "Director" and "Senior Vice President" can be anything from the top/top few people to someone fifteen steps down the chain who's met the CEO twice for five minutes total. Reply | 3. [svg][]MisterForkbeard* February 13, 2024 at 3:19 pm For a lot of individual roles, your grandboss is a middle manager. I think that was probably pretty reasonable assumption to make, and it sounds like she introduced herself as no longer technical in the interview. The guy is a jerk, but this doesn't tweak my spidey senses Reply | 2. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm It's so weird that he expresses such disdain for her role, even though she would be two levels above him. If she's "just" a middle manager, what does that make him? Reply | 1. [svg][]Sparkle Motion* February 13, 2024 at 3:21 pm In his view, he's a talented tech bro with an actual education. While she was just a pencil pusher with no actual valuable skills, who worked her way out of the steno/WP pool. Well, until he actually looked up her credentials. Reply | 2. [svg][]FitPro not Fitspo* February 13, 2024 at 3:25 pm I can't help thinking that the word "she" may be playing a role in OP's odd assumptions and reactions. Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:47 pm I don't think we have to think that so much as know it. Reply | 3. [svg][]Purple Cat* February 13, 2024 at 2:19 pm Directors (as one myself) are pretty much the definition of "middle-management". Not C-Suite, but not rank and file either. But I hold no disdain for that. He didn't realize that she was *actually* qualified until looking her up and saw her track record. Reply | 1. [svg][]Red_Coat* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm I suppose that's possible! In my office 'Director' and 'Associate Director' are all basically subject matter experts, so assuming that someone who has one of those titles is "just a middle manager" didn't pass the smell test for me Reply | 1. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:28 pm Same. I've worked with more Director/etc. that have direct SME experience than those that don't. And some of them are RIDICULOUSLY GOOD at their subject. I knew one woman who was a fabulous developer, ingenious product designer, and incredible manager. Utterly incredible. Reply | 4. [svg][35277]bamcheeks* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm she was a girl, so, duh. Reply | 1. [svg][]Red_Coat* February 13, 2024 at 2:24 pm Yeah, looked like that to me as well Reply | 2. [svg][]ScruffyInternHerder* February 13, 2024 at 2:41 pm Obviously. */s Reply | 5. [svg][]Mind blowing Tuesday* February 13, 2024 at 2:32 pm She's female - what else would he think she was. Reply | 1. [svg][]PlainJane* February 13, 2024 at 5:26 pm The secretary or maybe the company nurse? /sarcasm Reply | 21. [svg][]Antiqueight* February 13, 2024 at 2:08 pm Actually struggling to believe this letter is for real because omg wow, talk about a cluster ****. I am impressed that anyone could be this obtuse. Reply | 22. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 2:09 pm OP, your wife is correct. You should listen to her. I suspect you are someone who is really, really good at logic-based tests, and has carried the school attitude (98 is better than 97, so 98 wins) into a work realm where the criteria is more "So we're going to take everyone who scored above 85, figure they're trainable in the tech, and consider who is easy to work with-pleasant demeanor, open to feedback, good at explaining their reasoning, good at teaching other people their skills. There are actually very few jobs, even in tech, where your brilliance will be the only thing that matters, and soft skills are just for middle managers. They can find people with both. Reply | 1. [svg][]Not Jen from the IT Crowd* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm Yeah, before my current career break I was a manager in tech, and did my fair share of interviews to employ technicians of varying levels. Definitely wouldn't have employed this one, and I can just imagine how he came across in the interview! Reply | 2. [svg][52a4d]TX_TRUCKER* February 13, 2024 at 2:20 pm You explained a difficult concept beautifully. I'm going to use your example in the future. Reply | 3. [svg][]Lacey* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm Yes. I have come across people with this attitude a few times at work and they're almost always younger people who were high-achievers academically and have not yet figured out the difference between school and work. Reply | 4. [svg][]Tpacc* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm The biggest issue that I have in managing a group of people is never their skillset, this can be taught and coached for the most part. Their attitude and ability to get along with their coworkers is WAY more important. I spend far more time managing personality conflicts than I do technical things. Reply | 5. [svg][]Ludwig* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm It's not even just tech. I'm a writer, and I would argue that I'm in the 90s on all those soft skills and in the 80s on "level of writing brilliance" (on a good day!). Editors come back to me because they are going to edit me one way or the other, and a few extra rewordings of a few awkwardly-long sentences is well worth it to them to have me always be on time, pleasant, and willing to adjust to their needs. Reply | 6. [svg][]AngryOctopus* February 13, 2024 at 2:46 pm This, so much!! LW, if you got a 97 on the test, that's good. But if someone got a 92 AND spoke honestly about a mistake they made and how they fixed it, that person will win every time over someone who blithely says "I don't make mistakes". Hell, I went to school (undergrad and grad) for biology and last week I either plugged the electrodes in backwards or ran the gel too long and ended up with a gel of nothing. Mistakes happen!! If you tell someone you're interviewing with that you never make them, they're immediately going to clock you as 1-difficult to work with and 2-a liar. And that sound you hear is the scratching of the pen as the put a big X over your candidacy. Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:50 pm This. Nobody wants to work with someone who cannot accept that mistakes are made. Reply | 7. [svg][]Productivity Pigeon* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm When I was interviewing recent graduates for positions in management consulting, we always ended up asking ourselves two questions: 1) Can we bring this person to a client meeting? 2) Would we want to spend an evening before a big deadline with the person? Reply | 8. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 3:08 pm This is a really compassionate and helpful take that I hope the LW reads. Reply | 9. [svg][]LCH* February 13, 2024 at 3:38 pm +1 Reply | 10. [svg][]jane's nemesis* February 13, 2024 at 3:39 pm Thank you for this! Very helpful. Reply | 11. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:48 pm You know what this guy should go into? Mad science. Every mad scientist I've encountered in literature/media has this exact attitude (and a trust fund, usually.) Reply | 1. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 5:58 pm Both scientific brilliance and artistic brilliance are so often portrayed in fiction as ivory tower endeavors carried out by loners. In actuality, revolutionary scientists and artists were deeply embedded in their respective communities, exchanging ideas with their peers, tapping into the zeitgeist. But for some reason that story doesn't resonate with us like "Ogg locked himself in a tower, and there his brilliance revealed to him the Truth that eluded his comrades." Reply | 23. [svg][]Old Hampshire New Hampshire* February 13, 2024 at 2:10 pm Alison's "Don't do that" has to be THE most understated piece of advice she's ever given. And everything else she says? Hell yeah, with flashing colourful lights and Taylor Swift on loop. I wonder how many times LW's wife tried to give him the same feedback and eventually encouraged him to write in here because she just couldn't anymore. Reply | 24. [svg][]chocolate lover* February 13, 2024 at 2:10 pm The arrogance doesn't even ooze, it explodes out of this letter. Did they mean to post this on reddit AmITheAs@hole? Cause WOW. Reply | 25. [svg][]Red* February 13, 2024 at 2:11 pm Oh I've worked with guys like this before. They 'never' make mistakes becuase they either refuse to accept something was their fault or the rest of the team fixes his part before it ever gets to a point where anyone can really 'see' the mistake. Worst people in the world to work with. I'd rather have the boss who yells at me or the coworker who slacks and knows it before I ever want to work with a guy like this ever again. Reply | 1. [svg][]Yup* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm This! Being wrong to them is a failure and not a learning opportunity, so they are never wrong, and will go to the ends of the earth to prove it. Like this-calling everyone who rejected them to prove *he* was right and they were wrong. Energy vampire! Reply | 2. [svg][]Lacey* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm Yup. Mistakes are annoying, but not as annoying as someone who won't admit to and fix their mistakes. I have a coworker right now, we tell her she made an error and she insists we asked her to do the thing in a way that's wildly inconvenient for everyone but her. Even that I wouldn't mind as much if she'd fix the mistake on her own, but someone else always has to do it. Reply | 3. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:28 pm Agree 100% Coming up with elaborate justifications about why you were right all along is a great way to never learn, never grow, never understand other perspectives, and make yourself absolutely impossible to work with. People like the LW are convinced that they're rock stars, but the reality is that they're some of the worst people to work with and the quality of their work is usually not good. Reply | 4. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:31 pm YES!! Someone that can't admit their mistakes to themself is someone that will never learn. And god forbid you dare to point out that they made a mistake- you clearly are the problem and will be attacked. Usually I've seen it go hand-in-hand with narcissism. Run for the hills. Reply | 26. [svg][]My Reasons Are 3-Fold* February 13, 2024 at 2:11 pm My eyes just kept getting wider the more I read. Whoa. I think it's worth it for the OP to reflect on whether he would have/has treated men differently. Maybe not, but if so, that's also something to be aware of and work on before any other interviews. Reply | 1. [svg][]Porch Gal* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm Yes, the parenthetical "I don't know if it matters but I'm male and everyone I interviewed with was female" jumped out at me as well. Reply | 1. [svg][]HonorBox* February 13, 2024 at 3:00 pm Same. As I read on from that point, I kept going back to that line. I would guess all of the rest of us would say that their genders didn't matter, except for the fact that it obviously mattered to him and has impacted his read of the situation. Reply | 2. [svg][]Three Flowers* February 13, 2024 at 4:54 pm Yeah, and not in a "can I be more cognizant of how imposed gender roles at work affect my demeanor toward others?" way. Holy victim complex, Batman! Reply | 2. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:32 pm You could have stopped at: "I think it's worth it for the OP to reflect" His lack of self-awareness is incredible. Has he done any form of self-reflection ever? Reply | 1. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:51 pm He has the albedo of Pluto at its farthest point of orbit. Reply | 27. [svg][]Anony-nom-nom-nom* February 13, 2024 at 2:11 pm Oof. I'm getting the same vibes off this guy as the "I don't respect my manager's degrees" writer from about 8 years ago. YIKES. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm Wow. I hadn't read that letter before but it's a doozy and definitely similar to this letter. Link here: https://www.askamanager.org/2015/07/ i-dont-respect-my-managers-college-degrees-from-20-years-ago.html Reply | 28. [svg][]Justme, The OG* February 13, 2024 at 2:12 pm Wooooooooooooow. Reply | 29. [svg][]Darury* February 13, 2024 at 2:12 pm I'm a professional and I've made mistakes that I was sure were going to result in me packing a proverbial box on my way out the door. I immediately escalate to my manager, explain what happened and took responsibility. The key is to admit when you've screwed up and do what you can to mitigate it from happening again. Reply | 1. [svg][]Ell* February 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm Clearly you didn't go to school for your profession /s Reply | 1. [svg][]Chauncy Gardener* February 13, 2024 at 2:32 pm *snort* Reply | 2. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:33 pm Ah, school. The thing that famously tells you every single thing you ever need to know and prepares you for every real world situation. /s Reply | 1. [svg][]Juicebox Hero* February 13, 2024 at 3:27 pm Yes, it's like "the back" at a retail establishment. The exact item that you want is always in "the back" no matter whether you glimpsed it once 6 years ago or it doesn't actually exist. If that rotten stupid jerk of a clerk would just go in "the back" and open their eyes they'd find your one true item, but they won't because they're nothing but lazy slackers. I got mad enough once to tell someone that we don't put much stuff in "the back" because we want it out on the sales floor so we can sell it and not get hassled about our sales numbers. She wasn't impressed with my logic. Reply | 1. [svg][]Chirpy* February 13, 2024 at 4:33 pm Yes, the performance of "check the back" because customers will not believe that you know for sure there's nothing back there otherwise (because they're likely the 5th person asking today and there's been no freight magically appearing). Reply | 30. [svg][]starsaphire* February 13, 2024 at 2:12 pm Giving a LOT of benefit-of-the-doubt here, but here goes: The reason that the grandboss was in on the final interview might have been because you rocked the first round of interviews, but your lack of self-awareness raised a red flag, or at least a yellow one, and the grandboss (as she said herself) was called in to evaluate your soft skills. Sounds like she found them lacking. This is definitely a time to reflect, reassess, and maybe contemplate developing those soft skills. As your own words point out, it was the lack of soft skills that lost you this opportunity. Best of luck down the road. Reply | 1. [svg][]ThatGirl* February 13, 2024 at 2:39 pm That's possible, but it's also not unusual for a grandboss to be in on last-round interviews just in general - to assess culture fit/soft skills and just to pass a gut check. Even if there are no yellow flags. Reply | 1. [svg][]Analyticoal Tree Hugger* February 13, 2024 at 2:58 pm Agreed. Every interview process I went through in my latest job search included (or would have included) an interview with the grandboss at some point. For the record, my sample size is pretty small (maybe a dozen). Reply | 31. [svg][]ENFP in Texas* February 13, 2024 at 2:12 pm Based on this letter, I wouldn't have hired you, either. So many screaming red flags... "I was rejected from a role for not answering an interview question." No, that's not why you were rejected. The fact that you THINK that is why you were rejected is part of the reason you were rejected. Reply | 1. [svg][]Code Monkey, the SQL* February 13, 2024 at 2:17 pm Yup, was going to say this. The contempt with which this is written is either a result of hurt feelings or a natural result of someone whose soft skills really are an impediment to his getting hired. Either way, it wasn't failure to answer, it was answering with essentially, "what me? Be human? LOL" that did him in. But hard agree that he has a phenomenal answer for the next time he gets this question in an interview, because this is a whole constellation of mistakes! Reply | 32. [svg][]borealis* February 13, 2024 at 2:12 pm I was rejected from a role for not answering an interview question. OP, your letter indicates pretty clearly that that was not the reason you were rejected. There were multiple reasons, and it would help you in your future job search to reflect on that. Reply | 33. [svg][]Seashell* February 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm If people who went to school for something never made mistakes, there would be zero medical malpractice claims and no disbarred attorneys. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hastily Blessed Fritos* February 13, 2024 at 3:04 pm This!! The reason why life-and-death professions - surgeons, airline pilots - have exhaustive checklists, usually cross-checked with another person, is because EVERYONE makes mistakes. Reply | 2. [svg][]Seeking Second Childhood* February 13, 2024 at 5:20 pm CQEs agree that people make mistakes. (Certified Quality Engineer requires a rigorous training & testing from ASQ, the now-international American Society for Quality.) Reply | 34. [svg][]mcm* February 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm ooooh, as someone who works in tech-adjacent work but on the soft skills/communication-based side, my blood is now boiling! Reply | 35. [svg][]Parcae* February 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm At least now the LW has a great answer to the "talk about a major mistake you've made in the past" question. I'm not being snarky here. (OK, maybe I'm multi-tasking.) If the LW can reflect on this experience and make improvements in his approach to work, I think this could be a great example to use in the future. He'd want to gloss over some of the more outrageous details, but in general, someone in a technical field discussing how they realized they were lacking in soft skills and what they did to improve them? It demonstrates humility and self-awareness. Great stuff. Reply | 36. [svg][]Cobo* February 13, 2024 at 2:13 pm Bless that candidate's heart. Reply | 1. [svg][]Oh yeah, Me again* February 13, 2024 at 3:26 pm IF (!) this letter is real, the writer is right up there with the Cheap-ass-roll lady; the my-best-worker-quit because-of-no-time-off-fo-graduation boss; Mr. She's-insubordinate-expecting-to-be-paid; and the You-only-get-a-birthday-holiday-on-leap-year person! (I believe not one of them ever repented, despite the overwhelming comments) Reply | 37. [svg][]Ashley* February 13, 2024 at 2:14 pm Okay, two theories. 1) This person has a very skewed view of things (lack of experience, neuro divergence or personality disorder, who knows) and thinks that the way they are presenting themselves here is what competent people are supposed to look like. It's not hopefully they're learning that now. 2) This is written by a separate party who is quoting the person who behaved this way and is hoping to show them this to help it sink in for them that they're getting in their own way. Of course there's also the significant chance it's just rage bait but I like thinking of other possibilities. Reply | 1. [svg][]Ludwig* February 13, 2024 at 2:34 pm Yeah, the rigidity stood out to me. Yes, it reads disdainful and lacking in empathy, but if the LW is genuinely baffled, I really hope we can offer some helpful insight into both the nature of interviews and the nature of mistakes! Reply | 2. [svg][]Chauncy Gardener* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm Oh there are totally real people like this out in the wild. An ex boyfriend of mine went to military flight school. Was up in a plane with an instructor (male). The instructor told ex-BF to do something and ex-BF ARGUED WITH THE INSTRUCTOR IN A MILITARY AIRCRAFT. The instructor took control of the plane, landed it and kicked ex-BF out of flight school. For some people., their arrogance knows no bounds. Reply | 38. [svg][]Joey* February 13, 2024 at 2:14 pm This strikes me as a form of creative fiction by the OP, but in any event- how is it weird to interview with your manager's boss? That is very common! Reply | 1. [svg][]melissa* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm Definitely creative fiction I agree. Reply | 2. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 2:27 pm OP didn't know it was a thing, and OP is never wrong. That's not just sarcasm-it's a good illustration of how this OP has managed to never notice he is wrong. I'm reminded of a past letter from an OP who dismissed his coworker as obviously not knowledgeable about, say, astronomy, and when informed that she had actually switched over into this job from astronomy, maintained that he was still right because he had not been told that background before. Reply | 1. [svg][]Nightengale* February 13, 2024 at 4:31 pm Yup it was paleontology https://www.askamanager.org/2019/04/ my-office-thinks-i-insulted-a-coworker-colleague-refuses-to-take-my-input-and-more.html Someone brought in a possible fossil, mentioned planning to ask the coworker about it and the LW said that fossils weren't in CW's "background." Although the manager then took this as accusing the LW of accusing the coworker of falsifying a resume and made a formal verbal warning. Which is also a pretty rigid and unproductive way to address this. Reply | 3. [svg][]Lacey* February 13, 2024 at 2:28 pm Yeah, I've only had a couple interviews where I didn't. In one it was a small business, so the manager was the owner. At the other, I guess they just trusted him to build his team - but after I was hired I had to have introductory interviews with EVERY department head in the company. Reply | 4. [svg][fe854]PrincessFlyingHedgehog* February 13, 2024 at 2:58 pm Yup, this is standard practice in my unit for all final candidates to interview with our unit leader - who in most cases, will be their boss's boss. Reply | 39. [svg][]Calyx* February 13, 2024 at 2:14 pm It reminds me of an interview I did for a "teapot marketer" over a decade ago. He was fairly senior and had done good work in the industry. He came recommended by some of my colleagues. I was a rising star female leader who'd been hired to build up a new function in a fast-growing company. I say that not for self-aggrandizement but for context. I'm also pretty femme-presenting and would have appeared to this guy as considerably younger than he was. I decided to do a team interview with one of my other teapot marketers, also female, also very senior and competent. The guy smirked all through the interview at every question we asked, pausing to roll his eyes before each answer. When I asked him to describe his preferred style of collaborating with his manager and team, he snorted and said "I don't need a manager." Nothing else. Just that. When my teapot marketer asked questions he answered in a very condescending way. I said something like, "L is a PhD in teapot marketing with ten years experience, plus international [blah blah], so I'd expect you to look to her as a mentor for this role," he just looked at me and said nothing. He had no questions about the role. For the next several years, he continued applying for openings on my team. His ex-colleagues in the company would ask me why I didn't hire him, and I told them. He did not get a callback on any subsequent job openings. The company grew 100x while I was there. I was very pleased that I had never inflicted that pusillanimous little pill of a person on any of my colleagues or customers. Reply | 1. [svg][]Too Many Birds* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm *chef's kiss* to "pusillanimous little pill of a person" Reply | 1. [svg][]Chauncy Gardener* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm THIS Reply | 2. [svg][]Sparkles McFadden* February 13, 2024 at 2:25 pm I have had a very similar experience. I interviewed someone who did not have all of the required skills necessary for the job. He acted just like the LW, telling me he wouldn't answer my questions because he had so much more experience and education that I would not be able to understand his answers and perhaps I could find someone more senior so he could have a "real" interview. After the interview, he contacted HR and suggested that I be demoted into the open position so they could put him in my spot. When that effort failed, he called me repeatedly and left long voicemails explaining how I made a huge mistake because he could help me learn how to do my job correctly...and yes, he tried contacting me on LinkedIn to explain that I didn't know how to interview people and that's why I didn't realize he was perfect for the job. I saved his voicemails for a pretty long time to play them for people who didn't realize how arrogant and deluded some people can be. Reply | 1. [svg][55238]Slow Gin Lizz* February 13, 2024 at 2:44 pm Wait, so you interviewed this exact LW? (Please tell me yes because I want to believe (though I know better) that he's the only one of his kind out there.) Reply | 1. [svg][]Sparkles McFadden* February 13, 2024 at 4:52 pm I am feeling philosophical today so this may be too long. Apologies. People like this aren't particularly rare. They rely heavily on external "proof" of their value like, degrees and awards. For them, it's not "Wow, that class was so challenging and I learned so much" but rather "I finished the final first and got a high score so I must be the best." This is likely why the LW considers mistakes to be unacceptable. Mistakes, for him, are tangible proof of not being the best. This LW is heavily invested in proving the interviewer wrong because the rejection is an attack on the LW's entire view of the world and himself. If the interviewer isn't accepting his proof, that means she's questioning his value, so he must show her why she is wrong. The guy I interviewed who was like this kept showing me letters of recommendation that he brought with him, and said I needed to read the letters (his proof of his value) instead of boring him by asking what he called "Silly questions." He couldn't answer my questions so he had to prove my questions were wrong. It's a sad way to go through life. Reply | 1. [svg][ca6b5]Elle* February 13, 2024 at 5:04 pm This is so well-put and so true. There are actually a lot of people like this out there. Reply | 2. [svg][]Trufax only - no lies ever!* February 13, 2024 at 5:09 pm Yes, indeed, there's just one such person out there. Unfortunately, he can both teleport and shapeshift, as well as speak every language in current use, so he annoys and baffles a large number of people every day. I believe he is a cryptid that actually feeds on a very limited and specific sort of negative emotions. Reply | 2. [svg][]Tick-of-approval* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm Wow :O The audacity.. Reply | 3. [svg][]Awkwardness* February 13, 2024 at 4:00 pm Oh. You find me speechless. Reply | 4. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 4:30 pm ...Wow.... I thought I'd heard it all but suggesting demoting you is just incredible. Reply | 3. [svg][]Seashell* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm Were your ex-colleagues male? That would explain a lot. Reply | 4. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 2:36 pm "I don't need a manager." I just.....I just can't.... It would have been more diplomatic to say "I have problems with authority" Reply | 1. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 2:42 pm Amazingly enough (or not, depending on your perspective), that's already an AAM letter. First letter of the "employee says he has a problem with authority, coworker is praying for me to have a baby, and more" post from February 12, 2019. Reply | 1. [svg][]ferrina* February 13, 2024 at 3:11 pm Your encyclopedic knowledge of AAM is really impressive! Reply | 2. [svg][]LCH* February 13, 2024 at 3:28 pm why on earth was he interviewing places instead of starting his own company/going freelance?? /eyeroll Reply | 1. [svg][]starsaphire* February 13, 2024 at 5:10 pm Because he couldn't get VC funding to start a business as an Ideas Man? :D Reply | 40. [svg][]soontoberetired* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm I am a developer and I make mistakes after more than 30 years. I worked with someone who could not admit to making mistakes even after we met on issues caused by this person's mistakes!!! this person skated through the last of their career on a reputation made in their early days. They were shit at the time of retirement. Reply | 1. [svg][]Evil Queen of Dysfunction* February 13, 2024 at 2:19 pm Ah, I had a late great friend who had an expression "hitting a home run on Tuesday does not make you the hero on Thursday." Reply | 2. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm I worked with someone who could not admit to making mistakes even after we met on issues caused by this person's mistakes! OP, when you say "I never make mistakes" people hear the above. Reply | 41. [svg][]Critical Rolls* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm Uncharitable, but my first thought was "Oh, no, someone got suckered into marrying this tool?" LW, the fact that there is already discussion in the comments of whether this is a real letter because can someone genuinely be this arrogantly clueless? should be telling you what you need to know. You are so far in the wrong, right is over the horizon and several time zones away. Take this opportunity to stop and do some serious self-reflection, because the behavior you're displaying is career-killing. Reply | 1. [svg][]Too Many Birds* February 13, 2024 at 2:17 pm To your first point - hooboy, me too! Reply | 2. [svg][]Female Engineer* February 13, 2024 at 3:57 pm The work environment and marriage environment are different. His wife is just as likely to be happy in her marriage as she is unhappy. I know lots of married "technical" men. That's not really the issue here. Reply | 3. [svg][d56fe]goddessoftransitory* February 13, 2024 at 4:57 pm Me as well. I imagine the only reason he hasn't been driven out of town by an angry mob is he has a spouse who spends most of her time running interference between him and-life. Reply | 42. [svg][]BethRA* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm Somewhere, a hiring manager that popped into AAM on their coffee break is giving thanks for a bullet dodged. Reply | 1. [svg][]Honey Badger just don't care* February 13, 2024 at 2:24 pm Oh please let the 'clearly middle management' Grand Boss be a reader and pop in to give us the skinny! Reply | 1. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm That would be amazing. I think it's more likely, though, that the LW will show up and try to argue with everyone in the comments. Reply | 1. [svg][]ScruffyInternHerder* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm Oh man, it would be the ultimate fan fiction if both the LW and the GB were to both weigh in, wouldn't it? Reply | 43. [svg][]Momma Bear* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm We had a Director who made it very clear that you never try to b.s. her for anything because she had probably had the job of everyone at that table at one point or another. Even if she didn't know 110% your thing, she had a very good idea of how that thing should be done. Incredibly smart woman. Even if this interviewer hadn't done the exact job LW did, it didn't mean she was clueless or stupid. I'm glad Alison called him out on his arrogance because...wow. I bet she couldn't File 13 his resume fast enough. But now he has a response to her question, should he choose to think about it, acknowledge this error, and actually mitigate it. Reply | 44. [svg][]UKDancer* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm Yikes. I almost always ask people I'm interviewing to tell me about a mistake they made professionally or a major conflict they encountered professionally and how they fixed it. I don't mind what it is as much as wanting to see how they rectified the situation and what they learnt from it. It's critical when I recruit people that they are people who can learn and overcome a problem or error. Mistakes happen but growth means learning from them. Also I'm not a technical expert but I work with technical experts and so I'm often the interview panels for expert jobs to make sure they recruit someone who can actually deal with non technical people and not sound like an arrogant twerp. Imagine I lead the section that provides the llama grooming supplies and manages the llama shampoo contracts. I usually am on the interview panel for new technical llama groomers. I am not a llama groomer but my team works with them. So I don't need to know all the technical details but I need them to be able to interact with me and my team when there's a problem. Reply | 1. [svg][]I Have RBF* February 13, 2024 at 4:10 pm I almost always ask people I'm interviewing to tell me about a mistake they made professionally or a major conflict they encountered professionally and how they fixed it. I don't mind what it is as much as wanting to see how they rectified the situation and what they learnt from it. It's critical when I recruit people that they are people who can learn and overcome a problem or error. Mistakes happen but growth means learning from them. Exactly. In my field, you don't get to be senior until you've made your share of mistakes. No mistakes? Then obviously you have never tried anything outside your comfort zone, or you have and just ignored them for someone else to fix. Either one is bad in my field. Just sitting here and thinking about it I can think of a couple of doozies I've done, and the gyrations involved in fixing them. It goes with the territory - Murphy's Law is alive and well in tech. Reply | 45. [svg][]Juicebox Hero* February 13, 2024 at 2:15 pm Oh, for the confidence of a mediocre, presumably white, man... Reply | 1. [svg][]RVA Cat* February 13, 2024 at 5:00 pm I can't help wondering if this is the first time he's had *consequences* for his mistakes? There's a whole lot of entitlement coming along with that arrogance. Reply | 46. [svg][]RCB* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm I read this letter and kept saying "We're being pranked, right? Absolutely no one can be this clueless, right?!?!?!?!" So, OP, assuming that this letter is indeed real and not some sort of prank, then let us all assure you with absolutely no doubt that our reactions alone tell you why you didn't get the job, because this letter is clueless job applicant entitlement demonstrated better than I've probably ever seen it demonstrated before. Reply | 47. [svg][]Ashley* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm Leading theory: the wife wrote this, quoting him, to try to prove to him that he is getting in his own way and generally coming across like an ass. Reply | 1. [svg][]Jennifer Strange* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm Oooh, I would buy it! Reply | 2. [svg][]Princess Pumpkin Spice* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm I support this theory 100%. Even if it is just fanfiction, I think OP's wife deserves a badge of honor for putting up with this daily. Reply | 3. [svg][]Expelliarmus* February 13, 2024 at 3:22 pm To be fair, there was an OP some years back who was highly encouraged by his wife to write in so that we could prove her point (the "my wife says my relationship with my coworker is inappropriate" letter). Reply | 1. [svg][]Csethiro Ceredin* February 13, 2024 at 4:31 pm Yes! There are some similarities here. Reply | 48. [svg][5ebdc]Long Time Lurker* February 13, 2024 at 2:16 pm (I don't know if it matters but I'm male and everyone I interviewed with was female.) OP you know it matters or you wouldn't have included it. Reply | 1. [svg][]litprof* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm It certainly seems to matter to him! He must feel extra confirmed in his rightness because he thinks that women couldn't possibly know anything. Reply | 2. [svg][]Purple Cat* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm Ironically, it doesn't matter, except it obviously does to him, because he's clearly sexist on top of being arrogant. Reply | 1. [svg][]Analytical Tree Hugger* February 13, 2024 at 3:07 pm This! I was wondering where LW was going with that...and that fact (hopefully) wouldn't have changed the outcome, though the fact that LW felt the need to point it out says a lot. Reply | 3. [svg][1e47c]Myrin* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm Now to be fair, OPs include that sort of phrase pretty often (and mostly using the exact same phrasing, too) and sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't. (I agree that it probably mattered here - although this OP sounds like... a lot in the kind of way where I wouldn't be surprised if he were an equal opportunity... "lot" - but the mere fact that it was mentioned isn't suspicious by itself.) Reply | 1. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 2:32 pm I suspect it mattered as to who was expected to perform social smoothing so no one felt awkward. Reply | 4. [svg][]Fikly* February 13, 2024 at 2:59 pm It only matters in that he assumes that the women are incompetent by default and they rejected him for being a man, no other reason. Reply | 1. [svg][]Sparkle Motion* February 13, 2024 at 3:35 pm You mean like assuming his potential grand boss was just middle management and uneducated in his field? That was a red flag for me. Reply | 5. [svg][]Damn it, Hardison!* February 13, 2024 at 3:24 pm I read it as a stand in for "they were all silly women who were intimidated by my brilliance." Reply | 49. [svg][]Too Many Birds* February 13, 2024 at 2:17 pm In addition to the obvious red flags...why on earth does he think it's odd to interview with the person who would be your boss's boss? Every job I've had has included the grandboss during at least one stage of interviewing. Reply | 1. [svg][55238]Slow Gin Lizz* February 13, 2024 at 2:38 pm Yeah, that's a really odd take on how interviewing works. Reply | 2. [svg][7abb9]Poison I.V. drip* February 13, 2024 at 4:38 pm I'm the chief of my department and I often sit in on interviews. HR requires three people to be in on the interview panel. Sometimes the three people who do the interview are obvious choices. Sometimes they're not, like when HR decides the panel should have a particular makeup. To presume, as the candidate, that you know the interviewing process better than those who enforce the rules shows incredible naivete. The panel is whatever it is, just get over yourself and give the best interview you can. Reply | 50. [svg][]Aunt Vixen* February 13, 2024 at 2:17 pm [low whistle] Reply | 51. [svg][]litprof* February 13, 2024 at 2:17 pm WOW. Setting aside his arrogance and rudeness for a second, does this guy have any understanding of how learning works? Learning is essentially a process of making mistakes and fixing them (until we make new, different, "better" mistakes the next time). Unless he's claiming to have known everything from the moment he was born, he has made plenty of mistakes (as has every other human on this planet). Sounds like the one thing he did right was to be so transparent about his ridiculousness that he spared the folks he was interviewing with from hiring him. Reply | 1. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 2:39 pm My concern is that his take away from this won't be to do some self reflection, but will instead be to misrepresent his attitude during his next interview. Reply | 52. [svg][]Evil Queen of Dysfunction* February 13, 2024 at 2:17 pm When I was a college instructor, I was interviewing with my "partner" (whole different issue there) for graduate students to be part of the team we were putting together for our program. Since it was summer, a lot of these interviews were phone calls. We had one guy, well, I am thinking this letter could be from him. (this was 14 years ago.) I asked a lot of behavioral questions, since we were building a team, they were "tell me about a mistake you made and how you addressed it" and "tell me about a problem you had on a team and how it was resolved." EVERY. SINGLE. ANSWER. ended with "and they realized they were wrong and I was right." Despite my partner's protests, Reader, I did not hire him. Reply | 53. [svg][]Ludwig* February 13, 2024 at 2:17 pm Yeah, LW does feel a bit more like a person who is genuinely bewildered by social norms than just disdainful... but to attain adulthood without any serious convos about what it looks like to make mistakes, even if you only consider "technical error in code" as a mistake rather than, say, a social interaction snafu... It feels like this person is poised to learn a lot about how they're coming across to others, and I hope it makes things a little less opaque for them. Reply | 1. [svg][]Rainy* February 13, 2024 at 2:55 pm The "I'm male and everyone I interviewed with was female" kind of puts disdainful back on the table, for me. Reply | 1. [svg][]linger* February 13, 2024 at 4:02 pm And "you didn't go to school for it" hammers disdainful right through the table. Reply | 2. [svg][]ThisIsNotADuplicateComment* February 13, 2024 at 3:23 pm I said this above but I do not see how you can read "I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem." as anything but disdainful. Bewilderment would not include the incredibly rude jab at his would-be grandboss. Reply | 54. [svg][]Amber Rose* February 13, 2024 at 2:17 pm Oof. LW if you read this, something to think about: Everything about how you handled the interview was a mistake you made. A significant one. You are not free of mistakes. If you disregard Alison's advice/commentary here, you will be proving her right about how people who refuse to acknowledge mistakes are unmanageable and non-starters for employment. Please do some serious reflection on your own behavior for you own sake. Reply | 55. [svg][]Poor Boy Sammy* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm I love it when LWs are the issue and completely unaware. Reminds me of the leap year birthday girl's former boss. Oh and her true birthday is this year. Anyway. Stay humble, LW. Reply | 1. [svg][]Be Gneiss* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm I hope we get a rerun of leap day birthday to celebrate! Reply | 1. [svg][]Baby Yoda* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm Yes, hope so! Reply | 2. [svg][]Evil Queen of Dysfunction* February 13, 2024 at 2:24 pm Leap Year Girl has no idea how many people wish her happy birthday around the globe. Reply | 1. [svg][]Poor Boy Sammy* February 13, 2024 at 2:28 pm I thought she found this and responded? I may be misremembering. Reply | 1. [svg][]Wordnerd* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm I believe it is possible you are thinking about how Graduation Day Quitter found the original post and responded, not Leap Year Birthday Girl. I may be wrong, but they're similar enough to maybe be confused. Reply | 1. [svg][]Poor Boy Sammy* February 13, 2024 at 2:42 pm Yeah, I searched for a response and nothing came up. You're probably right. Reply | 2. [svg][ca6b5]Elle* February 13, 2024 at 5:07 pm I literally think about her every time I think of leap year, now. I don't give a fig about celebrities but if I could meet leap day birthday girl and ask her about that job, I would get pretty excited. Reply | 56. [svg][]Old Cynic* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm I've made a lot (A LOT) of mistakes in the past, and learned from them, but I don't think I could resurrect one to answer this question if I got it. Reply | 1. [svg][]Ell* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm The grandboss's question?? you should probably work on that if you're interviewing anytime soon since it's a very common interview question. Reply | 1. [svg][]UKDancer* February 13, 2024 at 2:28 pm If it helps the sort of answer I look for is something like: I made an error with X which had the consequences of Y. I looked at the issue and discussed with those affected. I fixed the situation and then evaluated the cause of the error and put in place mechanisms to avoid it happening again. I made sure I smoothed things over with the people I annoyed / went on a training course to improve my knowledge so I didn't repeat the mistake / wrote a step by step manual to capture the learning and avoid the situation repeating. It doesn't need to be deeply technical and I usually am less interested in what the issue was and more what you did to fix it and learn. If the issue involved dealing with other people I also want to know how you fixed the personal relationship issues. Reply | 2. [svg][]samwise* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm I always have one ready. It was BIG. Expensive. Embarrassing. Fortunately, I discovered it before anyone else did, informed my boss, explained why it happened and what I would do going forward. Could have been fired; boss said, you came to me with it and clearly have learned from it. Never made one that egregious again. And I do talk about it as an important lesson. Reply | 1. [svg][]I Have RBF* February 13, 2024 at 4:17 pm Yeah, I made a big mistake the week before I went to a conference. I expressed to a friend there that I may be looking for work since I effed up. She, a recruiter, told me that everyone in the field makes mistakes, and if they don't they aren't actually doing anything. I got back, finished fixing the fallout, and worked that job for several more years before the Covid layoffs. She was right. Reply | 3. [svg][]Purple Cat* February 13, 2024 at 2:25 pm As long as you don't start off with "Gosh, I've made so many, I don't know where to start" you're okay. Just say something like "that's a good question..." while you rack your brain for an appropriate example. But honestly, if you're actively interviewing it's a standard question you should have studied up some answers to. Reply | 1. [svg][]I Have RBF* February 13, 2024 at 4:21 pm I actually always laugh when the question comes up. "I've been doing this for over 20 years, I've done my fair share of mistakes. My usual process is to own it then do my best to fix it, even if I need to loop in others to help." Then I provide an example. Yes, I try to reduce errors with process. But no matter what the process level is, mistakes still happen, and you just own them, fix them, and try to make sure you don't do that one again. There are plenty more new and unusual mistakes to make... Reply | 2. [svg][]Username Lost to Time* February 13, 2024 at 4:28 pm That wouldn't be so bad of an opening response to the question. The formula is 1) name a mistake, 2) describe how you reacted, and 3) describe why it won't happen again. So if you want to apply the formula to two or three mistakes within your allotted response time, that's not a trainwreck response. It means you're seasoned. I always thought it was a relatively simple interview question, but damn if it didn't expose a serious area for improvement for the LW. Reply | 4. [svg][]Jennifer Strange* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm Keep in mind, it doesn't need to be super interesting or anything. It could just be "I accidentally emailed an event invitation to someone with the same first name as a major donor. I alerted my boss to the error and we ended up letting them attend the event too, but I learned my lesson about letting email addresses auto-fill and always double-check before hitting send." The main thing to focus on is how you addressed it in the moment and the steps you took to keep it from happening in the future. Reply | 5. [svg][]Antiqueight* February 13, 2024 at 2:48 pm I struggle to remember or explain things I have made mistakes about but I have some in my notes so I can give examples. Eventually a discussion with a HR person suggested that if necessary I could make something up if I wanted a nice clean narrative. They weren't going to be checking but they needed to know I knew how to deal with one. Presumably even my invented narrative would tell them more about how I handle mistakes than this OPs response... Reply | 6. [svg][]Nea* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm Been thinking about that angle myself. I'd probably answer it along the lines of "I fortunately don't have the kind of job where mistakes are all that visible or embarrassing for the company so I can't think of one big one. That said, I can't say I've never (x or y common mistakes in my field) and I handled preventing repeats by (blah)." Reply | 7. [svg][]General von Klinkerhoffen* February 13, 2024 at 3:01 pm It might help to reframe the question in your head. They don't actually care what you got wrong; they want to know how you handle problems, how you respond to feedback, and so on. So if you can't remember a precise example you could pivot your answer towards those factors. Maybe you'd say you can't think of anything in particular but you try to avoid errors in the first place (detail your processes) and prefer problem-solving over excuses. Maybe you'd talk about the likely consequences of errors and therefore the actions that would be needed for each type (misprint v data breach v shredding original certificates). But really you should spend time preparing an example of a human error (where you were the human factor) and the steps you took to correct it and learn from it. Reply | 8. [svg][]AngryOctopus* February 13, 2024 at 3:05 pm I don't think people are usually looking for you to tell about a terrible horrible work-altering mistake. Usually in science it's either something like "I dropped all the plates of the 10 day assay after I added the reagent but before I read them" (not that I've ever done this, not me, no way) or "I read something wrong in the literature and did some pointless experiments before I realized" or other not world ending errors. What hiring managers are looking for is for you to say something like (say, for the first example, not that I've done this) "I told my boss right away that screwed up and dropped all these plates. I wouldn't have data for the X meeting on [date], but I planned on restarting it ASAP dependent on Factors A/B". It's the immediate letting them know, plus the plan to follow up. You don't even need a plan to have it not happen again (It was just clumsiness on my part plus the format of the assay that meant you lose the plates when you drop them, and you can't really plan to stop that. Sh*t happens). You just need to have admitted your wrongdoing in a timely fashion and made sure you prioritized the fixing of it. Reply | 57. [svg][]Ell* February 13, 2024 at 2:18 pm The people who work for this company dodged the biggest bullet of all time and probably don't even know it. Reply | 1. [svg][]ENFP in Texas* February 13, 2024 at 5:14 pm I'd bet the grandboss knows it. =D Reply | 58. [svg][]Honey Badger just don't care* February 13, 2024 at 2:19 pm Not only does the OP sound condescending and snotty, but there's a huge misogynistic vibe to their letter. How can all these FEMALES possibly judge meand reject me? Let me mansplain to them why they are super wrong, and I am right. Always right! ALWAYS!!! They just slammed a door in their own face with the company, with the recruiter, and with anyone in the network of those people they hugely insulted. To quote Vivienne in Pretty Woman: "Big mistake. Big. HUGE." Reply | 1. [svg][]litprof* February 13, 2024 at 2:20 pm 100% Reply | 59. [svg][]Marzipan Shepherdess* February 13, 2024 at 2:19 pm Oh, (not so) sweet summer child - sigh! Your offhand comment -"(I don't know if it matters but I'm male and everyone I interviewed with was female.)" provides a major clue as to why you failed that interview. And you're as oblivious to that as you are to all the OTHER mistakes you made! (An especially ironic note since you claim never to have made a workplace mistake.) Your interviewers have all experienced being treated contemptuously and having their competence challenged by men - before they turned 18. They've all experienced it since then and have no intention of hiring anyone who exudes conceit, arrogance and lofty superiority. And spoiler alert: neither does any other interviewer with half a brain! Reply | 60. [svg][]samwise* February 13, 2024 at 2:19 pm We had a candidate once who said they never made mistakes. I chuckled, said, well, everybody makes mistakes, please talk about a mistake made at work and how you handled it. They insisted that they never made mistakes at work, they took a lot of care to always be correct. Afterwards. the committee spent a LOT of time discussing that answer- it was very concerning. The candidate was otherwise excellent, so we recommended them to the hiring officer, with a directive to probe the candidate's references for attitude and actions around making and acknowledging errors. The person was hired, but I have to say that answer colored our interactions with them going forward. And they did not stay long. Reply | 1. [svg][]RVA Cat* February 13, 2024 at 5:07 pm "If you never make mistakes, why are you looking for a job like a mere mortal instead of hanging out on Mount Olympus with the other gods?" Reply | 61. [svg][]lost academic* February 13, 2024 at 2:20 pm Anyone else also see "I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem. She seemed fine with it and we moved on with the interview." and immediately think "Yup, she's fine with it because you're done. You are already never getting hired." Reply | 1. [svg][]Lisa B* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm OH yes. That was the proverbial nail in the coffin for her. I can almost hear the polite "I see, thank you." Reply | 2. [svg][]Not that other person you didn't like* February 13, 2024 at 2:40 pm My best advice for interviewing people is to let the candidate tell you who they are and then listen to them. He told her who he was and she certainly didn't need to argue or probe further. Reply | 3. [svg][]AngryOctopus* February 13, 2024 at 3:10 pm Yes, as I read that I thought to myself "Oh, she seemed fine with it because she just put a mental X through your candidacy and checked out". The fact that LW didn't see that is pretty concerning in and of itself. Reply | 4. [svg][]HonorBox* February 13, 2024 at 3:11 pm She definitely seemed fine with it because she is mature and wasn't going to let a nowhere interview devolve into an argument. She has a hell of a poker face. But she was absolutely done with the interview at that point...rightfully so. Reply | 1. [svg][]Danish* February 13, 2024 at 4:14 pm I also have been quietly admiring the grandboss' apparent poker face, since LW didn't say "and then her eyebrows raised into her hairline and she very slowly said I.....ssssseeeeeeeeeee" Reply | 5. [svg][]Sparkle Motion* February 13, 2024 at 3:43 pm Yeah, I might have asked a softball question or two just to fill out the half hour. But mentally, I've just made a giant red circle with a slash through it on your resume. Reply | 6. [svg][]Hybrid Employee (Part Human, Part Wolf)* February 13, 2024 at 3:56 pm Yeah, if I had gotten that answer, the interview would be over. If it's in the first 15 minutes I might throw out a few more questions for the sake of politeness, but if it comes after that I'd be saying "Well, I think that's everything, have a good day, we'll let you know!" and throwing out the resume on my way back to my desk. Reply | 7. [svg][]New Mom (of 1 6/9)* February 13, 2024 at 4:43 pm My jaw hit the FLOOR Reply | 62. [svg][]Sunglasses at Night* February 13, 2024 at 2:20 pm Is this you Uncle Rob? Reply | 63. [svg][]Amber* February 13, 2024 at 2:21 pm This guy is so much smarter than everyone, doesn't make mistakes, but isn't smart enough to see how all this comes across. Yikes! This middle manager just saved this company in more ways than one. Reply | 64. [svg][]Ms. Murchison* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm Did anyone else just see a bunch of the first comments change order? When I first loaded this page, it was Lurchy and then Skoobles, then after them all the posts that are now before theirs. Weird. Reply | 1. [svg][]Juicebox Hero* February 13, 2024 at 2:27 pm Alison is likely monitoring the comments for this one because it's guaranteed to blow up the comment section. Comments would be posted chronologically after they're screened. Reply | 2. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 2:31 pm Sometimes AAM will change timestamps on some of the earliest comments so that the ones that appear at the top of the page offer constructive advice (or are not derailing or are not mean, etc.). Reply | 1. [svg][]Ms. Murchison* February 13, 2024 at 2:34 pm Ah, that makes sense. Reply | 3. [svg][]Antilles* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm If comments get flagged for moderation, it remembers the time they were 'posted', but they don't appear. Then when they get released, they appear at the proper time in the timeline. So if you posted at 2:01, you may have been the first comment, but if it got flagged then it wouldn't show up till, idk, 2:30 when Alison gets to look at the queue so posts at 2:02, 2:05, etc all are visible. Then when it gets released, it suddenly appears where a comment posted at 2:01 should be (near the top), making it seem like stuff moved around. Reply | 65. [svg][]NotMyCircusNotMyMonkeys* February 13, 2024 at 2:22 pm I've had to fire people with this *exact* problem before. They are, as Allison notes, a nightmare to manage, and were generally quite incompetent technically as well as interpersonally. If somebody ever came across to me like this again? And *especially* if they were aggressively idiotic to somebody so senior to them? I wouldn't even bother finishing the interview. I'd thank them for coming, throw their resume and ask HR to mark this person as "never interview again". Reply | 1. [svg][]Snarl Trolley* February 13, 2024 at 3:08 pm "generally quite incompetent technically as well as interpersonally" Exactly this. The arrogance/insecurity coin Alison mentions *always* ends up meaning the person is skipping technical steps because they think they know better than the manual, etc, or actively hiding/ignoring any real mistakes. Just a mess all-around. Reply | 66. [svg][]Juicebox Hero* February 13, 2024 at 2:23 pm "I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem. She seemed fine with it and we moved on with the interview." Holy tapdancing purple fuck. She seemed fine with it because you made her decision process incredibly easy - as in "Well, I know I don't want to hire this guy to clean toilets, let alone as a developer." And this part especially blew out my irony meter: "she was a developer at two industry leaders and then an executive at a third. She was also connected to a number of well-known C-level people in our city and industry." How exactly do you think she GOT to be developer at two industry leaders and an executive at another, and built a network of C-level people? Yet she was humble enough to admit that she makes mistakes and wise enough to realize that character in the face of difficulty is important, which are skills you've got to learn unless you want to be That Guy at every place you work. Reply | 1. [svg][]ScruffyInternHerder* February 13, 2024 at 2:59 pm +1million appreciation for "holy tapdancing purple fuck" That is amazing! As for how exactly did the LW think she GOT those rolls? I'm not sure I want to hear his thoughts on this, as I've probably heard them before, they're typically offensive, and fall between wrong and so far beyond the realm of good taste that you can't see it over the horizon. Reply | 1. [svg][]Juicebox Hero* February 13, 2024 at 3:18 pm Yeah, I'm sure his answers would involve sex and/or nepotism, and then I'd have to punch my monitor. Reply | 67. [svg][]HiHello* February 13, 2024 at 2:24 pm The audacity of this person is astounding. "I am a man and they are all women so clearly I am already superior. I am this amazing professional who is better than everyone else, ya'll should just bow to me." Like what the hell? The most recent job I got, one of the interviews was with my boss' boss. There were also other people who had completely different background than me but because the job is slightly technical, they needed a full technical person to ask questions. That person spent a good chunk of time understanding my background because it was so different than hers. But I was still very respectful and we ended up having a great chat. OP needs a reality check and to fall from that high horse of theirs. And I mean fall on the face to get snapped back into reality. Reply | 1. [svg][]Yup* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis. "I am a man therefore I clearly know more than you, a woman who is the boss of the boss I wish to work for." Reply | 68. [svg][]Princess Pumpkin Spice* February 13, 2024 at 2:24 pm Our comments are supposed to offer actionable advice to the LW. So, in order: - Do not email this manager, under any circumstances, for any reason. Call this a loss and be done. - Look in the mirror and acknowledge that how you handled this interview with the grandboss was a MISTAKE. Use that word. Not misstep, or misunderstanding. Mistake. - Think back on your past jobs. In the unlikely event that you have never ever ever made a technical mistake, please think on soft-skills needed to be successful (hint: your interviewer gave you a wonderful starter list) and consider how you might improve on those going forward in your career. Because this attitude? You're going to have a lot more experiences like this if you don't. - Thank your wife for putting up with you. You sound challenging. Reply | 69. [svg][d1d83]Enginerd* February 13, 2024 at 2:24 pm I'm almost hoping the LW writes back to Alison to tell her how wrong she is just so we can get that update! Reply | 1. [svg][5f294]Always Tired* February 13, 2024 at 2:49 pm Oh my god, yes! Alison, please don't keep any follow ups to yourself. I live for these sorts of letters. Reply | 2. [svg][]ThursdaysGeek* February 13, 2024 at 5:29 pm I'd love to hear from the interviewers, including the grand-boss. Reply | 70. [svg][]nopetopus* February 13, 2024 at 2:25 pm Never making a single mistake means that you aren't taking risks or thinking outside the box. You aren't truly innovating or collaborating if that's the case. I'd pass on hiring you, too. Your attitude will hold you back significantly if you don't get a handle on your ego. Reply | 1. [svg][]AngryOctopus* February 13, 2024 at 3:16 pm Yep. LW, if you never make a mistake there are two possibilities. 1-you refuse to acknowledge that you can ever be wrong. This is a problem. We're ALL wrong sometimes! Everyone! It happens! It's how you fix your mistakes that you learn going forward. Or 2-you truly don't make mistakes, but it's because you stick only to a few things that you know how to do well. You never stretch yourself out of a comfort zone. You never take on anything new. You never try something different that might save time. That means you're stuck, and you're not an employee that many people would want because you refuse to change (there are probably some jobs that would benefit from this attitude. This does not seem to be one of them). We had a woman at an old job who was hired to do large scale cell culture. She was good at it! It was all she did at first! But as the company grew, we needed her to take on other duties, and she just wouldn't. She wouldn't show up for trainings or anything. They let her go because she wouldn't stretch or grow. It can be a huge negative! Reply | 71. [svg][]Alex* February 13, 2024 at 2:25 pm I would think this was fake except I've come across too many people like this. For some reason it astonishes me every time. LW, it doesn't matter how awesome your technical skills are; if you go around waving this attitude at your job interviews, you won't get hired. Reply | 72. [svg][]Maude* February 13, 2024 at 2:26 pm This letter I'd proof LW does make mistakes and many of them. LW mentioned all the interviewers were female and I guarantee he considers that as part of the reason he didn't get the job. He likely thinks they just didn't understand him and his higher intelligence, because "duh, women". Definitely a mansplainer. Reply | 73. [svg][]NameRequired* February 13, 2024 at 2:26 pm Well, now the OP has an example of a massive mistake to use in the next interview! "Well, this one time during an interview, I diminished the interviewer's role and experience. I arrogantly said that maybe she made mistakes but I never have, and then when I wasn't hired, I insisted on knowing why." Reply | 74. [svg][]MuseumChick* February 13, 2024 at 2:26 pm I mean, the way this turned out it's clear you assessment of yourself never making mistakes is very incorrect. You made almost every possible mistake one can make in an interview in this one. If I had been on the interview panel, I wouldn't have bothered to even follow up after you gave your answer. It would be an automatic "NO" for me. She gave you a change to re-answer and your just doubled down. All you accomplished was alienating someone who deep, strong, long standing industry ties. Reply | 1. [svg][]Margaret Cavendish* February 13, 2024 at 3:02 pm This is important - the director gave OP every opportunity to succeed. She told him exactly what she was interviewing for, and when he flubbed the question the first time she gave him a second chance. OP, she wasn't arguing with you. She was trying to help you. Reply | 75. [svg][]WantonSeedStitch* February 13, 2024 at 2:29 pm Me, starting to read this: Oh no. Me, continuing to read this: Oh noooo. Me, reading further: Oh nooooooooooooooo. No no no. As a director (some kind of middle manager), I can only imagine being faced with a candidate like the OP in an interview. "I'm interviewing you to see if you have good soft skills." "Maybe YOU make mistakes, but I don't." "Right, I'll mark that down as 'nope.'" Reply | 76. [svg][]Cookingcutie11* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm OP, they did not reject you because you "never make mistakes," they rejected you because you're an AH, snotty, and incredibly arrogant and insulting. Reply | 77. [svg][55238]Slow Gin Lizz* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm She told me she had a technical background (although she had been in management 10 years so it's not like her experience was even relevant). Ooooof, OP, who are you to say how relevant her experience is? It's entirely possible that a director keeps her technical knowledge up to date even if she's not as involved in the detailed tasks that her employees take care of. AAM's answer said that plenty of managers with non-technical degrees can be terrific managers of technical teams, but she didn't say the flip side, which is that just because someone is a manager doesn't mean that they don't know the technical aspects of their employees' jobs. I suggest you change your interviewing style, and maybe even your entire conversational style, from one of "I know All the Things and must tell you them" to "I am speaking with a new person who might know some things that I don't know and it would be cool to find out some of these new things from them." Reply | 1. [svg][]UKDancer* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm Also you don't expect the senior management to have the same level of technical knowledge as their team. I run a team who deliver several different workstreams. I know less about the minutiae of each one than the more junior team members who are running them on a day to day basis. I do have the oversight of how they interact and the high level information on all of them. They are sighted on the intricate details. I don't need to know in that level of detail but I do need to ensure they are sighted and can explain it to me. Reply | 1. [svg][]AngryOctopus* February 13, 2024 at 3:23 pm This!! My boss hasn't been a bench biologist in I don't know how long. He trusts me to pick the correct assay for the data we need. But he UNDERSTANDS all of it. I'm sure a middle manager doesn't know the minute details of all her reports, but I promise she has a great grasp on what they're all doing, and WHY they're using the methods they do. LW, it would behoove you to think deeply about why you were so dismissive of this woman in particular. Why would you automatically think (before even talking to her!) that she was totally irrelevant and ignorant of what you do? This prejudging was a pretty big mistake upon which you heaped upon some other mistakes. I truly hope you reflect on this, and as hard as it can be to hear lots of people tell you that you're wrong, that you really take this to heart and realize that you can be much better. Reply | 78. [svg][]Emotional support capybara (he/him)* February 13, 2024 at 2:30 pm My dude... there's a lot to unpack here and honestly, Prospective Grandboss was right to just yeet the whole suitcase out the door. Reply | 1. [svg][]Ludwig* February 13, 2024 at 2:38 pm I never don't chuckle at the word yeet. One of the most chuckle-inducing of words. Reply | 1. [svg][]BellaStella* February 13, 2024 at 3:31 pm Same. :) Reply | 2. [svg][]Emotional support capybara (he/him)* February 13, 2024 at 4:44 pm Yeet: because sometimes "throw" just can't begin to convey how much you do not want to deal with a thing. Reply | 79. [svg][]Bast on the Phone* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm I have worked with some people who "never make mistakes," and they are some of the WORST people I have worked with. I'll take the slacker who does the bare minimum over the "perfect" person anytime. Reply | 80. [svg][]sara* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm As a female lead developer, I've interviewed many people like this (maybe not this bad, but along these lines) and hired none of them... Even before he got into the soft skills part, just the fact that he thinks he "aced" the technical questions - I honestly don't care about job candidates getting the "right" answer. Did they ask me good questions about the problem, are they able to explain why their solution works, can they iterate on it when I ask how they'd apply their solution more broadly, etc. The right answer's easy, I want to see how your brain works when there isn't a right answer (aka most of the time). Reply | 1. [svg][]Daughter of Ada and Grace* February 13, 2024 at 2:49 pm Also a female lead developer, and so very much this - knowing how someone approaches a problem is far more enlightening than being able to regurgitate a canned answer to a stock problem. The real world isn't grading you on how closely your answer matches what's in the book. The real world just hopes your solution makes things better without introducing major new problems. (I'm also now really curious about how the LW would have answered some of my standard questions about testing his code and generally verifying code quality...) Reply | 1. [svg][]sara* February 13, 2024 at 4:51 pm "Of course my tests always pass" - then why bother? The point (imo) of tests is that you know that they fail when they should, so that you have confidence they'll fail when they need to. Tests that always pass are nice but do you really trust them? Reply | 81. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm If you couldn't think of a technical mistake you made, then I suspect you could have used a different kind of mistake, like maybe a mistake in your soft skills or a time you didn't check your e-mail and missed a message or something like that. But in any case, the fact that you found a question difficult to answer doesn't mean the question was wrong. I'm not even sure what you mean by the question was wrong. I'm guessing you mean that you think it a bad question, but you are hardly in a position to judge that. She is far better able to judge whether it is a good question or not and honestly, it sort of sounds like you thought it a bad question because you found it difficult. To be honest, I would too, not because I never make mistakes but because it's hard to choose one that shows much about me and isn't just something where somebody else didn't give me the full information so I was left guessing and made the wrong guess, but none of that makes it a bad question. It just means that you've now learnt something you should plan in advance rather than trying to wing it, as it's one that can be hard to think of an answer to on the spur of the moment. I also doubt you were rejected just because you couldn't think of a mistake you'd made. For one thing, even if you answered every question perfectly, it's still very likely somebody else might answer better or more likely, have more relevant experience or better qualifications and therefore get the job anyway. And for another, in this case, I think it is more likely that you were rejected because you came across as dismissive of the grandboss and honestly, writing and saying the question was a bad one would add to the impression not just of sour grapes but also that you didn't respect her. The comment about maybe she makes mistakes but you don't was sort of rude and nobody is going to want to employ somebody who comes across as rude in their interview when most people are at their most polite and respectful. They probably thought that as you came across as dismissive of her then, you wouldn't respect her when working under her, which is obviously important for you to do. Even without that question at all, asking somebody who would be the grandboss why they are on the interviewing panel could come across badly. Why she felt it necessary to interview for his position personally isn't really something you needed to know and asking could come across as rude also, especially if you said it in a way that gave the impression you didn't think she "deserved" to be there. Reply | 1. [svg][]Danish* February 13, 2024 at 4:29 pm I think "x question must be a wrong/bad question because I struggled with it" is some very important insight to LW here. Perhaps he "does not make mistakes" because anything that doesn't immediately come naturally to him, he simply does not engage with/decides is not a valid activity. Very lucky to be able to do that, and very self-limiting. Reply | 82. [svg][]tjames* February 13, 2024 at 2:35 pm Now this, THIS is the content I come to Ask A Manager for. Nice and juicy. Reply | 1. [svg][]Juicebox Hero* February 13, 2024 at 2:49 pm I'm kind of pining for more "how much can I pet my cat during a Zoom meeting?" type questions, honestly. Reply | 1. [svg][]Pizza Rat* February 13, 2024 at 3:57 pm as much as you want as long as the camera doesn't have a closeup of your cat's arse. Reply | 83. [svg][]Anoj* February 13, 2024 at 2:36 pm Listen to your wife, always. Reply | 84. [svg][]Alexis* February 13, 2024 at 2:36 pm Every developer or other tech person I know has that *one mistake* they've made that they remember for the rest of their career, and has changed the way they work (a lot of the time, said mistake involves lack of backups/documentation). If OP doesn't know what their mistake is, at best it means they haven't made it yet, at worst it means they need to work on self-awareness. I actually think this is a great question on the interviewer's part because tech people that have made their *one mistake* tend to learn a lot from it. Reply | 1. [svg][cbc84]ecnaseener* February 13, 2024 at 3:56 pm Reminds me of Tom Scott's video "the worst typo I ever made" -- like you said, it wasn't the mistake itself but the workflow without proper backups that made it a catastrophe! Reply | 85. [svg][]Scriveaaa* February 13, 2024 at 2:37 pm My eyes just got bigger and bigger the entire time I was reading! Reply | 1. [svg][]Martha S* February 13, 2024 at 2:45 pm Imagine being on a team with this person! Bullet dodged for that hiring team. Reply | 1. [svg][ee262]bd* February 13, 2024 at 3:01 pm yea that's exactly why this was a GREAT question to ask, ironically! Reply | 86. [svg][1cfb9]Heffalump* February 13, 2024 at 2:38 pm What do you want to bet he gets mad over his coworkers' real or perceived mistakes? https://www.askamanager.org/2017/08/ i-get-angry-when-my-coworkers-make-mistakes.html A low bar for me but not for thee. Reply | 87. [svg][]Turingtested* February 13, 2024 at 2:38 pm I want to offer a perspective I don't think has been covered: I don't believe you and I think you lied. Maybe you always catch mistakes before you release work (still unlikely) but I wouldn't believe anyone making the claim that they've never made a mistake. if you're dishonest about something that basic what else are you dishonest about? Reply | 1. [svg][ee262]bd* February 13, 2024 at 3:00 pm I think lying here implies that he is aware that he makes mistakes. But maybe he really believes that he's so perfect. I don't want to diagnose anyone on the internet but it sounds a lot like a narcissistic red flag. As a professional proofreader, to me OP's claim that he doesn't make mistakes sounds like the many people I've met who think they don't need their text proofread. And those are, without exception, the ones that need it the most, and they are also full of other narcissism red flags. It has to do with their fragile ego, they really put a lot of energy into believing their own stories about themselves (and that's why they're such excellent liars to others, too). Moreover, over the years I've learned that not only does EVERYONE make mistakes, but even the person whose literal job is to go after you and fix those mistakes (or QA in other fields) cannot possibly catch them all. It's just a fact of life. Reply | 2. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 3:35 pm I don't believe he never made a mistake but I don't think he lied. I think he genuinely believes he has made no mistakes and any time he does make a mistake, he tries to explain to his boss or whoever points it out to him why it wasn't a mistake really. Reply | 1. [svg][]Sparkle Motion* February 13, 2024 at 4:01 pm Or he blames someone else for any mistakes. I mean, he just wrote to AAM for permission to tell the grand boss what a mistake her question was. "I'm thinking of mailing her on LinkedIn to explain why her question was wrong." Reply | 1. [svg][]Emotional support capybara (he/him)* February 13, 2024 at 4:49 pm This is where my money is. He is a human person and he makes mistakes like the rest of us, he's just by chance or design managed to not experience any consequences of those mistakes. Reply | 2. [svg][]anon for this* February 13, 2024 at 4:55 pm I agree, Irish Teacher. My first husband was like that - he was great at mentally ret-conning things that happened, finding someone else to blame for not getting the expected outcome, and then convincing himself of how deeply he was wronged by telling his version to everyone, in great detail. Regardless of how many of us had witnessed the real version of events. Reply | 3. [svg][cbc84]ecnaseener* February 13, 2024 at 3:59 pm Yeah, it ultimately doesn't matter whether it was deliberate dishonesty or a selective memory or refusal to take ownership -- this is not a guy you can trust to communicate openly about any mistakes he might make while working for you. Reply | 88. [svg][]Ally McBeal* February 13, 2024 at 2:38 pm You know, I made a pretty big mistake today, but suddenly I'm feeling MUCH better about myself. At least I can admit I make mistakes! Reply | 89. [svg][]Onyx* February 13, 2024 at 2:39 pm Alison already covered why your response was so problematic so I won't go into that. Since you wrote in, I'm going to hope that you genuinely want to learn from this experience. You flubbed this interview pretty badly, but it's not the end of the world. There are other companies out there that will be a better match for you. In the future, it would be worth having an answer prepared that you can live with since this is a pretty common interview question. It doesn't necessarily have to a coding-related mistake, but as Alison said, literally everyone makes mistakes. It's what you do with those mistakes that counts. Think about what you can do better for your next interview and move forward. One thing that wasn't touched on in Alison's response is the importance of listening for cues during the interview process. The boss' boss told you she was there to judge your communication, ability to prioritize, and soft skills. Therefore, your answers and examples should all touch on at least one of those three points because you know that's what she is looking for. And arguing with the interviewer is not a great way to show that you can communicate and collaborate with others! You don't need to prove you are right, you just need to prove you're the right fit for them. Even if you think her questions are stupid, you answer them like they are most insightful questions you've ever heard and vent afterwards to your wife. Genuinely curious, why do you want to work so badly for a place whose management you don't seem to respect? Even if you like the hiring manager, her boss is going to set the tone for the entire department so it's worth meeting her. In fact, I would insist on meeting her before taking the job. I've always had the department head involved in my interview processes, it was usually a sign that they were seriously considering me. I currently work with my boss' boss almost as much as my own boss. If you have the money, it would be worth investing time with a career coach who can help you prep for interviews and work on developing soft skills. The higher up you advance in your career, the more critical soft skills are going to be for your future success. Best of luck! Reply | 1. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 3:36 pm Just to say, this is an awesome and compassionate comment and I hope the LW reads it and takes advice from it. Reply | 2. [svg][]Oh yeah, Me again* February 13, 2024 at 4:14 pm Onyx, you resisted the pile-on ( which we are all having so much fun with) and made a comment that is even-tempered, well-reasoned, and helpful! I'm amazed. I want you for my therapist, my best friend. I want you to be President! Reply | 90. [svg][5f294]Always Tired* February 13, 2024 at 2:43 pm Bestie, my guy, my dude, my pal. Take the L on this one. You: (1) questioned your potential grandboss about her decision to interview you. (2) belittled said grandboss by saying she was a mere middle manager with outdated experience (3) either (a) straight up lied or (b) are so oblivious to your own mistakes as to not see them. (4) Argued with her about your answer when she pushed you to try again. (5) insulted her education and expertise during said argument. All in the course of what, half an hour? less? She was not fine with it and did not move on, she decided this was a lost cause, wasn't going to hire you, and wanted to end the interview quickly and easily without you arguing as she walked out, which we both know you would have if she did the "let's end this here" wrap up. Any two of those would lose you the job anywhere I've worked. Even just one of those could cost you a job. So yeah, messaging this poor woman to tell her she is wrong rather than owning your mistakes and moving on would be a terrible move. If I was her, the linkedin message would make this a prime story at my next networking event, which means all my industry buddies would hear about it at happy hour and know not to hire you, either. Work teams are like MMO guilds: the number of women is (generally) inversely proportional to the amount of bad behavior the team puts up with. The fact that everyone you spoke with was a woman implies they are not here for the gaslight/gatekeep/gross misogyny script you seem to be working off of. So as I said, take the L, learn a lesson, and have a better answer about mistakes for interviews, because you clearly make a lot of them. Reply | 91. [svg][ab800]Czhorat* February 13, 2024 at 2:44 pm I honestly feel a little bit bad for the OP; he's internalized a very toxic mindset that if you're good enough at the technical parts of your job nothing else matters. It's Gregory House, it's Shelden Cooper, it's too many portrayals of Sherlock Holmes. These characters are often portrayed as successful despite their barely-concealed contempt for mere mortals, yet the real world does not work that way. I'd MUCH rather work with someone who has slightly less technical acumen. This jumped out at me: ""I asked why she was interviewing me since it was a technical position and she was clearly some kind of middle manager."" Even IF the grandboss has zero technical ability, there's more to the job than knowing the technical ins and outs; I'd honestly say that in many roles that's the easy part. Working with a team, navigating different stakeholder expectations, and dealing with competing priorities is much harder to learn and, ultimately, more important. Even if you don't ahve a good answer at hand to "how you handled a mistake" you could try to talk about how you WOULD handle one. Is this ideal or even good? No. But ANYTHING is better than "I never make mistakes". Again, there's too much culture that reinforces OP's kind of thinking. I hope this is a turning point for him. Reply | 1. [svg][]General von Klinkerhoffen* February 13, 2024 at 3:11 pm Spot on. There was an opportunity to say, "I avoid mistakes by xyz, but if an error did slip through then it would most likely be identified during process abc and I would loop in my boss and then expect to correct it in such a way and would revisit my procedures to prevent a reoccurrence." Diligence, check. Humility, check. Honesty, check. Responsiveness, check. Adaptability, check. Reply | 92. [svg][]Pink Candyfloss* February 13, 2024 at 2:44 pm I see self-awareness is not high on the LW's list of qualifications, either. Reply | 1. [svg][ee262]bd* February 13, 2024 at 2:48 pm my thoughts exactly. I said it with more words before getting to your comment :-) Reply | 93. [svg][]TeapotNinja* February 13, 2024 at 2:44 pm I would've rejected you as well, and I have, in fact, rejected candidates for exactly this reason. Everyone makes mistakes, small and big. The truly smart people learn from those mistakes and don't repeat them. People who claim they don't make mistakes are horrible team mates, because they're either completely unaware of their flaws, and/or they find excuses, blame others for their own mistakes, hide their mistakes and are not empathetic towards others who do make mistakes they can't sweep under the rug. Reply | 94. [svg][]danmei kid* February 13, 2024 at 2:46 pm LW, I can think of one big mistake you made, and you just told us all about it. It's the entire contents of this letter. So now for your next interview, if the question comes up again, you'll have an example! Reply | 95. [svg][]bjlong60* February 13, 2024 at 2:46 pm WTAF?? I'm speechless. If I was the potential grand-boss, I'm pretty sure the interview would have ended quickly. Reply | 1. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 3:45 pm Yes, kudos to the interviewer for reacting so calmly when inside she must have been screaming and/or guffawing. The interview was over as soon as LW doubled down -- he just didn't know it yet. Reply | 96. [svg][907d6]Twix* February 13, 2024 at 2:47 pm LW, I am a senior engineer at a Fortune 500 company in the same field and have sat on interview panels before. I would never recommend we hire someone who displayed such arrogance, pompousness, lack of self-awareness, and most importantly poor judgment. Seriously, you thought insulting your potential boss's boss and questioning her competence was a good move? I guarantee you the interview was over right then and there. This kind of work is a team effort and an employee who's competent and works well with others is almost always preferable to an employee who's brilliant but impossible to work with. If Alison is right about you being newer to the workforce, here's a very important lesson I learned early on in my career: People do not expect you to know everything and be perfect. You're not going to get fired for making the occasional mistake. People do expect you to own your mistakes. You will absolutely get fired for refusing to accept that you're not infallible. If you're not newer to the workforce, you're being a jerk and nobody wants to put up with that, and you should know better by now. Reply | 97. [svg][ee262]bd* February 13, 2024 at 2:47 pm It's almost unbelievable to me that this is the first time this person heard this question. It's such a standard question. And while it's not surprising how this particular episode panned out, I think what is more broadly interesting about this story is that it goes to show how difficult it is to become aware of how others see us and interpret us. Even with a lot of dedicated work on ourselves. I often think about this, sometimes it takes just a few minutes to form an opinion, and, while I'm willing to change my mind, I often find over the following months or years that those first green/red flags turn out to be the most accurate indicators of someone's character. Reply | 1. [svg][]RagingADHD* February 13, 2024 at 3:06 pm There are a lot of tells here that this person hasn't been on a lot of interviews, or not outside of very, very junior positions: 1) Is blindsided by a really common question. 2) Thinks that "boring" interview questions have a right or wrong answer that you can "ace." 3) Thinks it's really weird to be interviewed by their boss' boss. 4) Didn't bother looking up the director on LinkedIn until after he got rejected and wanted to tell her off. Reply | 98. [svg][]Hastily Blessed Fritos* February 13, 2024 at 2:47 pm Everyone makes mistakes. The key is not to make the same mistake more than once. And people who don't think they make mistakes are likely to make worse ones, because they don't check their work, or think they're too good for code review, etc. Reply | 99. [svg][]BH* February 13, 2024 at 2:48 pm How can anyone be this devoid of self-awareness? You acted like an arrogant tool, dude. Your tech chops better be stellar cause that's all you've got going for yourself. Reply | 100. [svg][]Elastigirl* February 13, 2024 at 2:48 pm So the LW is spectacular in all the tech skills that AI can ace (or will soon be able to ace). And he is completely deficient in the highly necessary soft skills that AI cannot master. I foresee a long and illustrious career for him. Yeah. Sure. Reply | 1. [svg][]The Other Sage* February 13, 2024 at 4:47 pm ChatGPT is able to generate more polite answers than he can : / Reply | 1. [svg][ca6b5]Elle* February 13, 2024 at 5:19 pm How many times would you need to tell ChatGPT, "Make it more pompous" to get something on par with this guy's actual communication style, I wonder. Reply | 101. [svg][ec3c4]KellifromCanada* February 13, 2024 at 2:49 pm I love it when the LW is both arrogant and clueless. So much fun! Reply | 102. [svg][]Margaret Cavendish* February 13, 2024 at 2:50 pm Anecdata: I went to school for my career, and I've been a subject matter expert for 20+ years, and I made a mistake today. I just...it boggles my mind that OP genuinely thinks he doesn't make mistakes. Everybody - literally everybody - makes mistakes. And not only that, but he is so thoroughly convinced that he doesn't make mistakes, that he's about to email a person two levels up at a company he doesn't even work at, to make sure *they* know he doesn't make mistakes. Reply | 103. [svg][41ab5]bmorepm* February 13, 2024 at 2:50 pm This individual can't possibly be a regular reader of this blog and be so un-self-aware and think this way-can they?? Reply | 104. [svg][d37ab]Retail Dalliance* February 13, 2024 at 2:51 pm If we are honest many of us who read this site LIVE for letters like this. Is it rage bait? I don't know. It definitely occurred to me. But I relished reading it and of course reading Alison's scathing reply. It satisfies something in my messed up soul. And I will always love this letter for the rest of AAM history. (It's going up there with "My employee wasn't polite enough when we messed up her paycheck for 5 weeks") Reply | 1. [svg][]Juicebox Hero* February 13, 2024 at 3:10 pm (raises hand) Reply | 1. [svg][907d6]Twix* February 13, 2024 at 3:21 pm Oh man, "My employee wasn't polite enough when we messed up her paycheck for 5 weeks" was an instant classic. Reply | 2. [svg][]Evil Queen of Dysfunction* February 13, 2024 at 3:51 pm Mine was can I tell my ex employee she was unprofessional for quitting on the spot because even though she was a hard worker, and at the same time going to school, I could not give her the time off to go to her own graduation as it was her responsibility to find coverage? Reply | 105. [svg][]Cheese Tax* February 13, 2024 at 2:51 pm My brother in Christ: Take the L and realize you too, will be replaced with AI. Reply | 106. [svg][]Darkling* February 13, 2024 at 2:51 pm I am astonished that instead of realizing he's potentially already alienated someone with deep ties to others in positions of power in their industry, LW wants to double down - by emailing grandboss how she was WRONG - and therefore firmly ensure he will never be hired not only by this grandboss, but by anyone the grandboss knows in the industry and can warn off this toxic, arrogant, nightmare of a candidate. Reply | 107. [svg][]Boss Scaggs* February 13, 2024 at 2:51 pm I know it's an AAM rule to always believe the OPs, but in this case I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this guy has made a mistake or two Reply | 1. [svg][]BellaStella* February 13, 2024 at 3:18 pm Hhahahahaha agree. Well done. Reply | 108. [svg][9f1e4]TootSweet* February 13, 2024 at 2:51 pm Unfortunately, I've worked with a couple of people like this. I don't remember which personality test this was, but there was one at a former job that grouped everyone by color. Someone like this spoke for the "yellow" group: "We think we're always right. Because we are." This LW is solid screaming yellow. Reply | 109. [svg][]Dust Bunny* February 13, 2024 at 2:52 pm My mother never makes mistakes. She also wonders why she has no friends and her kids are on selective speaking terms. Fix this sooner rather than later, LW. Reply | 110. [svg][66b56]Lady_Lessa* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm I just checked the dictionary for the definition of "toxic arrogance", this letter and the guy's picture was all that it had. One of the more succinct definitions. Reply | 111. [svg][]Bluebird* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm "(I don't know if it matters but I'm male and everyone I interviewed with was female.)" I honestly would have loved to see if this letter had been posted without this paragraph if we'd have all guessed anyway. Reply | 1. [svg][]Pink Candyfloss* February 13, 2024 at 2:56 pm There sure would have been a lot of virtual meaningful looks exchanged among the female readership. Reply | 112. [svg][]Optimus* February 13, 2024 at 2:53 pm Wow. This person is dripping with superiority and condescension. And he's so full of himself he won't learn from it. I worked with a guy like this once, and he had such a reputation for being arrogant (and often wrong about things, but totally blind to that and unwilling to hear a word of feedback) that every time he applied for a step-up role, he was denied. He had risen as far as that level and once more people worked with him and got enough of him, he could rise no further - not because of his technical skill but because he treated people poorly. OP, your degree matters less and less the longer you're in the workforce. But your attitude will ALWAYS matter. Learn something here, please. Reply | 113. [svg][]MisterForkbeard* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm Jesus, this guy just oozes arrogance and hubris. The entire thing sounds like he knows every single thing about the job, the interviewer, how it went, and it boggles my mind that he thinks its weird his grandboss wants to interview people (at least for a 'team fit' perspective).... and denigrates his management chain's abilities. For fuck's sake, no one's going to want to hire that kind of prima donna. Reply | 114. [svg][]Mel99* February 13, 2024 at 2:54 pm This seems obviously fake to me (not specifically in the story it tells, but with the information they share within it. I'm sure lots of people are this unselfaware and entitled, but they'd word it differently). I think posting this kind of thing just encourages other people to make up outlandish stories as rage bait. Reply | 1. [svg][ab800]Czhorat* February 13, 2024 at 3:03 pm I believe it; there are people who think they know it all, who don't recognize the value of "soft skills" and who in general don't think that anything matters more than their technical acumen. I can completely see this being a real person. Reply | 2. [svg][]Fluffy Fish* February 13, 2024 at 3:07 pm Alison has addressed the fake letter issue before. Basically even if this particular letter is fake there are absolutely people who think and act like this so treating it as real has value. Reply | 115. [svg][]Synaptically Unique* February 13, 2024 at 2:55 pm For those who think this can't be a real situation - if LW hadn't specified that the entire interview team was female, I would have thought it was from an interview I participated in a couple of months ago. These walking, talking red flags are out there and they are applying for jobs regularly. Reply | 1. [svg][]Fluffy Fish* February 13, 2024 at 2:59 pm ABSOLUTELY. We had an interviewee be blatantly loudly sexist - he must have felt really comfortable because the panel was all men. Unfortunately for him the agency is full of women. Who would have eaten him alive. I kind of wish they would have invited him for round two and let me sit in on the panel just for funsies. Reply | 2. [svg][]Boss Scaggs* February 13, 2024 at 3:25 pm I think it's not so much that we can't imagine people are like this, but would such a person actually write into AAM for advice? Also the "Not sure if it matters that I'm male and they were all female" line is a little too perfect. But I agree that it doesn't matter if this specific letter is fake or not, still lessons to be learned Reply | 1. [svg][dd871]Katie A* February 13, 2024 at 3:31 pm Yeah, that line is part of what makes it sound like bait. Commenters here would have been likely to assume that, but adding it in so clearly makes it an even more appealing target to rage at. At least this letter doesn't cause any harm to publish even if it is fake, except for raising some people's blood pressure. I do feel like if someone doesn't know not to say something like "I never make mistakes because I went to school unlike you", they're a bit of a lost cause, at least for something on the level of an advice column lol. How could they ever acknowledge they didn't say the right thing if they think they don't make mistakes? Reply | 116. [svg][]Punkella* February 13, 2024 at 2:55 pm The sad thing is, if LW works in tech, there's probably some toxic workplace out there he'd be a perfect fit for. A workplace the vast majority of AAM readers would run screaming from, because it's full of people just like LW from the execs on down, tech geniuses with zero soft skills. Reply | 117. [svg][]Calyx* February 13, 2024 at 2:56 pm It's fun to read an AAM letter and immediately know it's destined to become part of the canon. This one will be on "best of" lists for at least the next decade. Reply | 118. [svg][]SheLooksFamiliar* February 13, 2024 at 2:56 pm 'She seemed fine with it,' is how professionals react in interviews, when in their head they are screaming, 'HOW can you be that obtuse?' OP, I hope you're the kind of person who learns from their mistakes because, duuuude, you have a serious learning curve here. Reply | 1. [svg][2879b]sofar* February 13, 2024 at 4:33 pm "She seemed fine with it" was the thing that struck me the most in this letter too. LW, I would strongly suggest doing a little life/career audit of all the times someone seemed "fine" with something you did. And in the future, questioning every time someone seems "fine" with something you did/said, because your meter is WAY off. Reply | 119. [svg][16bb2]Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow* February 13, 2024 at 2:56 pm Occasionally posters here claim indignantly that soft skills should not matter in their career when they are so brilliant at technical skills. We can bookmark this thread as an example why at least basic soft skills are essential for an employee in any reasonable organisation Reply | 120. [svg][]Fluffy Fish* February 13, 2024 at 2:56 pm Every time one of these wildly obtuse LW pop up, I'm genuinely baffled. They clearly are familiar with askamanager which would lead you to believe they should know they are not the good guy here and yet....they write in and ask for advice. It's truly a feat of obliviousness. My guy, your entire end of the interview was a giant mistake so I'm very confident you make lots of mistakes in your work life. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 3:10 pm They clearly are familiar with askamanager Eh, that's not a given. Some people who write in have never read AAM before; they just have a work-related question and probably google around a bit to find an advice column (or a few) to submit it to. Famously, the update on the "I ghosted my ex, and she's about to be my new boss" letter-writer wrote: I was on my holidays when I found out and a friend of mine gave me your email. I did not realize my message would be fully replicated on your blog. I am sure you get tons of requests and I thought I would be lucky to get a reply within one of those short scenarios at max. The first update of the "is the work environment I've created on my team too exclusive?" letter writer wrote: My ex employee made me look bad and I thought that as Ask a Manager you would side with a manager. So, at least some letter-writers aren't familiar with AAM. Reply | 121. [svg][]Wendy* February 13, 2024 at 2:58 pm possibly the problem is you don't respect women? Reply | 1. [svg][1cfb9]Heffalump* February 13, 2024 at 3:12 pm ONE of the problems. When he's in a hole, he should stop digging. Reply | 2. [svg][]BellaStella* February 13, 2024 at 3:13 pm +10000000000000 Reply | 122. [svg][c40cb]It's Me. Hi.* February 13, 2024 at 2:59 pm Hoo boy, I'm mad. Like someone didn't actually write this, right? This is the like the crazy stories that get sent into all the advice columnists? Make it make sense. I actually came here to say - I absolutely sit in on interviews with my direct report's hire b/c it MY BUTT on the line if it goes south. Reply | 123. [svg][]Pam Adams* February 13, 2024 at 3:01 pm Clearly, a twin to this candidate. https://www.askamanager.org/2017/07/ ceos-wife-ruined-my-job-prospects.html Reply | 1. [svg][]BellyButton* February 13, 2024 at 3:10 pm I love this letter! Reply | 2. [svg][]Alex* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm I was thinking this must be the same person! Reply | 124. [svg][]Mmm.* February 13, 2024 at 3:01 pm Holy crap. The ego on this one. The only reason gender matters here are all is in the typically-gendered words they probably used to describe you and your behavior after you left. Reply | 125. [svg][]Jaina Solo* February 13, 2024 at 3:01 pm Question related to this-is it bad to say you're having trouble thinking of a failure because you learn from them and move on? I've been asked the "failures" question before and have a hard time coming up with something not too nuanced because I always learned something for the next time. But reading this letter, wondering if I inadvertently put my foot in it. Reply | 1. [svg][]Fluffy Fish* February 13, 2024 at 3:05 pm You're over thinking it - that's exactly what they are looking for. A time that you failed and what you did/learned about it. It's a softball question - they're not secretly trying to trick you. There really are people out there like LW who think they've never made a mistake, people who can't demonstrate they learned from a mistake, and people who will confess to something absolutely wild/possibly criminal. They're weeding out those people. Just pick literally any example. Reply | 1. [svg][]SheLooksFamiliar* February 13, 2024 at 3:12 pm I think the word 'failure' throws people, when the interviewer usually means 'mistake.' Smart interviewers know people make mistakes, they just want to know how the candidate handles them. I ask this question too, and have been asked the same. When I interviewed, I always had a few examples of mistakes I've made and owned, but also shared what I did to fix the error, what I learned from that mistake, and what I did to prevent making it again. Reply | 1. [svg][]Fluffy Fish* February 13, 2024 at 3:18 pm Good point. I can see where the world failure would lead people to think they mean something unfixable. Reply | 2. [svg][]LCH* February 13, 2024 at 4:07 pm yes, i think this is the issue i've had in the past. sometimes the question wasn't formed in a way that made me think normal small mistake, it sounded like caused major problem. also, if you are learning from your mistakes, it is sometimes hard to remember what they were. but i would never be dumb enough to assume i haven't made any. Reply | 1. [svg][]Jaina Solo* February 13, 2024 at 4:14 pm Aha! Thank you all :) These examples and feedback are super helpful and am definitely going to put them to use when I interview in the future. You all are awesome!!! Reply | 2. [svg][]UKDancer* February 13, 2024 at 3:15 pm Yeah. You don't want the sort of failure where you blew up / trashed the company and went bankrupt. You absolutely want an example where you made a mistake, learnt from it and did better in future. Reply | 3. [svg][]A Person* February 13, 2024 at 4:05 pm The only other advice I'd add is that if you're prepping pick something related to your area of expertise or the tools/skills asked for in the job ad. You aren't going to lose points with me if it's not related, but if your mistake also demonstrates you've directly worked with the systems and tools we need your expertise in that's going to strengthen your case. Reply | 2. [svg][]Rainy* February 13, 2024 at 3:10 pm I think when I'm answering this question I begin with something like "I try really hard to never make the same mistake twice-when I realize I've failed at something, I try to figure out what happened and put systems in place so that I don't fail that way again." Then depending on the role or the tone of the interview, I could go in a couple of directions: a failure that happened because of something I can't control and how I dealt with that, or a failure that exposed a flaw in an existing system, or a failure that required a whole new system. So for me, the answer wouldn't start "I'm having trouble thinking of a failure" but "I work hard to turn failures into learning experiences, so let me tell you about one of my biggest, most stressful learning experiences!" :) (If the vibe is good, I'll sometimes add something like "Of course, this means that over my career I've created opportunities to fail in more and more exciting ways!" to that initial framing, especially if I'm going to talk about a *really* exciting failure.) Reply | 126. [svg][1cfb9]Heffalump* February 13, 2024 at 3:03 pm I'm reminded of the woman in HR who was having an emotional affair with an intern. Similar level of cluelessness, and it didn't get any better as my eyes moved down the screen. Reply | 1. [svg][]Hlao-roo* February 13, 2024 at 3:11 pm Link to the letter Heffalump is referencing: https://www.askamanager.org/2020/07/ my-coworker-told-me-to-stop-flirting-with-a-student-employee.html Reply | 127. [svg][56210]Hrodvitnir* February 13, 2024 at 3:03 pm I cannot be the first person to say this, but this is peak Poe's Law right here. Did a real life person write this and think they don't come across insufferable? "I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem." ??? We shall never know. lolsob Reply | 128. [svg][]RMNPgirl* February 13, 2024 at 3:04 pm This part of the letter jumped out at me: "I looked the grandboss up on LinkedIn after the rejection and she was a developer at two industry leaders and then an executive at a third. She was also connected to a number of well-known C-level people in our city and industry." If she has these connections and was interviewing for soft skills that means she's probably well-liked in the industry and hasn't burned bridges anywhere. So if she hasn't already warned her network about you, I guarantee if you email her like you want then she will absolutely let these other industry leaders know. And you'll find yourself unofficially blocked from getting a job at any of those places. Reply | 1. [svg][]BellaStella* February 13, 2024 at 3:09 pm BINGO Reply | 2. [svg][]Jennifer Strange* February 13, 2024 at 3:20 pm I was thinking the same thing. It's possible she'll very kindly just write him off from this company, but the LW should remember that people talk (especially about rejected candidates who reach out to tell them why they're wrong about their hiring decision). Reply | 1. [svg][]HonorBox* February 13, 2024 at 3:35 pm I was thinking this too. Not in the "I'm going to email my entire professional network to warn them" but in the "hey, friends and colleagues at a cocktail party or networking reception, let me tell you about this dude who we interviewed." Reply | 2. [svg][]Fluffy Fish* February 13, 2024 at 3:36 pm I generally write off unsuccessful candidates. But ones like this guy? Thats a wildly terrible candidate? Those are stories I tell others. Including colleagues. And people I work with in other businesses. He might want to consider a deeply apologetic note because I have no doubt he will be known by others in the industry and not in a good way. Reply | 129. [svg][]BellyButton* February 13, 2024 at 3:07 pm I knew things were going to go downhill after this sentence " I asked why she was interviewing me since it was a technical position and she was clearly some kind of middle manager." Dude.... "some kind"???? the disrespect in that one phrase told me so much. LW obviously thinks very highly of himself. LW's technical skills may be great, but those things can be taught. Emotional intelligence, coachable, culture, self-awareness, humility, and empathy are equally, if not more important. And for the record- the CEO at my company is on every interview panel and conducts a 45 day 1:1 with everyone. It doesn't matter if they are a IC or a VP. Also, every job I have ever interviewed for the boss's boss was in on the panel. Reply | 130. [svg][]BellaStella* February 13, 2024 at 3:08 pm I just searched the page for the word entitlement and see it once above. Forgot to search misogyny. I hope the OP learns that his showing to interviewers this level of entitlement, misogyny and arrogance here is a specific frame of mind related to his lack of many, many people skills. He lacks self awareness, empathy, respect for others who do in fact know more than he does, respect for cultural and work norms, and he lacks a sense of wonder/curiousity ... which to me makes him dim because he is not interested in really examining the world because he is so perfect. Really dude get some therapy on why you are so defensive and snotty. Oh I am a woman and yeah my tech career ended in 2008 after 10 years at the most influential software firm in the world back then. Since then I kept my tech chops up while also changing careers because I am curious and being multi disciplinary with broad and deep skills as a PM, tester, writer, and manager of people and holding an MSc in a hard science makes me a valuable employee. You really should look to get rid of the chips on your shoulders and focus on becoming a less aggressive jackass and a better employee. And I hope you never manage people either until you fix the attitude because you will not be good at it with such a black and white and condescending attitude. Finally most international orgs and larger firms have multiple people in loops incl grandbosses. This is normal. My interview loop four years ago incl my grandboss. Reply | 131. [svg][]I've met you* February 13, 2024 at 3:08 pm Opposite take:OP please send the email explaining how all the female bosses/managers are wrong and you, a male, is right. Also, have you considered the game industry? Reply | 1. [svg][]Rainy* February 13, 2024 at 3:13 pm The laugh I just laughed, friend. Reply | 2. [svg][]BellyButton* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm LOL. Yes, please send that message on LinkedIN and then share it and the response with us all. Reply | 3. [svg][]Jessica* February 13, 2024 at 3:37 pm *standing ovation* honestly I hope OP gets an opinion piece in Forbes about why the company was wrong not to hire him, with his real name in the byline Reply | 132. [svg][]SnickerdoodleSandwich* February 13, 2024 at 3:11 pm LW, when she pushed back against your answer in the interview, she was giving you feedback and an opportunity to reframe your answer/response because it did not meet her expectations. You should pay attention to why you doubled down/insulted her instead of revising your approach and trying a different approach. Interviews are not about proving how right you are to some third party; they are about demonstrating to the person interviewing you that you will be an asset and someone they want to work with. Reply | 1. [svg][ab800]Czhorat* February 13, 2024 at 3:19 pm Yeah. When she said "Everyone makes mistakes, what's important is how you react to them/learn from them" she was throwing OP a lifeline. It was a chance to back up, reassess what they were expecting, and give them something. Reply | 133. [svg][]Alan* February 13, 2024 at 3:14 pm Software lead here. I once had someone tell me that they had never had a bug in their software, and I responded that either they'd never developed anything of significant complexity, or they didn't test well enough to know where the bugs were. *Everyone* makes mistakes when doing non-trivial work, and having worked with people who refused to consider that they ever made them, I will *run* anytime I get a whiff of "I can do no wrong." These people are simply too unaware, and a huge drain on development. They're exhausting. I've gotten rid of them before and would happily do so again. We don't have the schedule/energy to deal with it. Reply | 1. [svg][]BellyButton* February 13, 2024 at 3:28 pm I agree! It is one thing to not be able to have an example at the ready, but they should at least be able to tell me how they handle mistakes. And besides, mistakes are how we learn , develop, and grow. Mistakes aren't bad. Reply | 2. [svg][]Daughter of Ada and Grace* February 13, 2024 at 3:35 pm My husband is in QA. In his entire career, he's had exactly one developer whose code he never filed a bug report on. It surprises both of us that he's had that many. As I understand it, this particular developer was exceptionally thorough about testing through every possible scenario before merging their code. So it wasn't a matter of never making mistakes - it was a matter of catching the mistakes so early that other people didn't get a chance to see them. (I suspect they probably did make a big mistake before my husband worked with them, and the thoroughness of their own testing is a result of what they learned from that mistake.) (That said, if I met this developer and they told me QA never finds bugs in their code, I wouldn't believe them, or at least not without corroboration from QA at minimum.) Reply | 134. [svg][]roann* February 13, 2024 at 3:14 pm ...Huh! Reply | 135. [svg][]SpicyCrawdadAmoeba* February 13, 2024 at 3:16 pm I read the headline and prepared for a few gentle chuckles reading about someone who got too overconfident in an interview and expecting them to reflect on how they handled that poorly. By the end of the letter my jaw was on the floor and my eyes were so wide, I no longer had a forehead, just eyes. I sense an underlying misogyny in the letter as well. I suspect that OP might have excellent technical skills but can't understand why he can't get or keep a job in his field. I am extrapolation and may be wrong, but the complete lack of understanding the need and value of soft skills is not a good look. Reply | 1. [svg][]MonkeyPrincess* February 13, 2024 at 3:24 pm Right? I can 100% see blanking in an interview and sputtering something out about "I can't remember! I don't think I make any!" and then as soon as you're outside on the sidewalk thinking "OMG I did NOT just say that. Is there ANY way to fix this situation?" And the answer there is "no, probably not, but at least it's a life lesson to come prepared with answers for common softball questions." This story, however, is really something else... Reply | 1. [svg][]HonorBox* February 13, 2024 at 3:31 pm Yeah, I've totally brain farted in interviews before and after sitting for what seemed like a day and a half in silence (it was probably 7 seconds) and asked if we could come back to the question. But that's far different than refusing to answer or not being able to admit a weakness or a mistake. I have those answered cued up and practiced, because you know they're going to be asked. Reply | 2. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 3:26 pm "...my eyes were so wide, I no longer had a forehead, just eyes." LOL thank you for the chuckle! I've worked with a lot of people who are similar to the LW, and mostly they're not that good at their job. They may have had excellent skills once (maybe early, right out of college), but then they get arrogant and reject feedback and don't continue to learn, so they end up falling being their peers. There are still a lot of people who assume that arrogance = expertise, so they may still get hired occasionally. But generally I find them to be pretty average. Reply | 3. [svg][]edda ed* February 13, 2024 at 4:50 pm tbh count me as another who greatly underestimated how much and how acutely LW is the source of his own problem here. From the headline I thought this was going to be like "They asked me why I want this job. What does that even mean??? "-type confoundment, like, really common, mundane overthinking-this, could-really-brush-up-on-interviewing-skills-type problem. Reply | 136. [svg][]Ari* February 13, 2024 at 3:17 pm It sounds like you have a lot of technical skills. That's wonderful. But it also sounds like you don't understand the value of "soft" skills. The ability to communicate clearly and effectively works best when you don't insult your potential future boss/employer, for example. I wouldn't have hired you either, but the good news is you can learn those skills. Be open to the feedback you've gotten here. Reply | 1. [svg][9d192]NetNrrd* February 13, 2024 at 3:34 pm A while back, someone introduced me to the idea of using the term "Professional skills" rather than "Soft skills" Reply | 1. [svg][]Ari* February 13, 2024 at 3:50 pm I like that! Reply | 2. [svg][]Irish Teacher.* February 13, 2024 at 3:53 pm That sounds like a better term really, because I think some people read "soft" as "easy". Reply | 137. [svg][]BellyButton* February 13, 2024 at 3:20 pm This reminds me of an interview I conducted about 10 yrs ago. I was hiring for a corporate sales trainer for a very successful and growing sales team in a technical field. So the person needed to be an engineer and an experienced trainer. This guy walks in, reeking of cigarette smoke, THROWS, a whole bunch of training binders on to the middle of the table, I grabbed one-- people, it was from the 1980s- it was that purple mimeograph. When he walked in and saw that the interview panel was 5 women and 1 man, he decided only the man was important. Incidentally, the man was the youngest and most junior member of our team. If one of the women asked him a question, he would look at the man to answer. I don't think I have ever ended an interview as quickly as that one. I wasn't even that polite about it, if he was going to be an as$, I was too. Reply | 1. [svg][]t-vex* February 13, 2024 at 4:26 pm I'll be honest I'm a little bit jealous of Potential Grandboss here because she's got a CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS EFFIN GUY story that's hard to beat Reply | 138. [svg][]Immortal for a limited time* February 13, 2024 at 3:20 pm This letter made me laugh out loud. That's all I have to say about it. Reply | 139. [svg][8b190]ELIZABETH* February 13, 2024 at 3:21 pm this is a scary question. Will you get cut from a screw up? But... I would respond better to "I don't know" rather than "I'm god's gift to the profession" Reply | 140. [svg][]hello hello* February 13, 2024 at 3:23 pm It's especially wild because CS is one area where you very notably don't need to have a degree to be an expert in it. It can help a lot, certainly, but plenty of extremely skilled computer engineers went to boot camps or just taught themselves. Learning how to code in your garage and either skipping or quitting school to make it big is, like, a key part of the whole aggrandized mythos of the tech startup genius. Reply | 1. [svg][]ArtsNerd* February 13, 2024 at 4:26 pm Yeah I was sitting here thinking "am I just old? I thought developers idolized enrolling in, and then dropping out of [Stanford/MIT] and self-teaching?" Reply | 2. [svg][]Magpie* February 13, 2024 at 5:27 pm 100%. I'm a software engineer and I've worked with some mediocre developers with masters degrees and some amazing developers who are completely self taught. Formal education has nothing to do with how great you are at writing code. Reply | 141. [svg][]Three Flowers* February 13, 2024 at 3:23 pm The hiring manager must have been *so* embarrassed to have put this person in front of her boss as a serious candidate and only then discovered what he was like. I feel for her far more than LW. Reply | 142. [svg][]NerdyKris* February 13, 2024 at 3:23 pm The "I never make mistakes" comment reminds me of a student in my programming class when we got to error handling. He asked "Why should we bother? If someone puts in bad data, that's their fault, the program should just crash. Code doesn't make mistakes, humans do". The teacher's response was "So the pacemaker should just stop, or the airplane should fall out of the sky?" There's something about engineering that convinces people that they're infallible, instead of showing all the ways simple errors can lead to huge problems. Reply | 1. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm This kind of thing is why humanities and social science courses are so important for STEM students, IMO. When you work with apparently objective facts a lot, and do a lot of assignments where there's one right answer to each question (even if there might be several ways to get to that answer), you can start to believe that that's how the world works, so it's good to be reminded that actually the world is messy, muddy, unpredictable, and full of living creatures who behave in sometimes confusing ways. Reply | 1. [svg][]Panhandlerann* February 13, 2024 at 4:42 pm Yes! Reply | 2. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 5:00 pm This is so spot-on. I spent most of my later high school years focused on math and computer science, and I noticed that the thought process that I used to do that work was bleeding over into other areas of my life. Subconsciously, I started to treat everything like a problem that could be solved with logic. It was weird and uncomfortable and it was one of the main reasons that I decided to major in English during college. Reply | 2. [svg][]Elbe* February 13, 2024 at 4:57 pm This is a great story for illustrating this type of thinking! "Code doesn't make mistakes, humans do" That statement is true to a certain extent, but it completely misses the broader context, which is that code is built by and for humans. If your product doesn't work for the flawed humans that are using it, then it doesn't work. Reply | 1. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 5:26 pm Yes. The code makes the mistakes that the humans coded into it, and that makes the humans responsible for whatever atrocities the code commits. Reply | 1. [svg][]SheLooksFamiliar* February 13, 2024 at 6:01 pm A developer we were interviewing told the panel she wrote code 'by the book.' The hiring manager asked, 'What if we didn't read that particular book?' The look on the developer's face said, 'Damn. I'm a one trick pony.' Reply | 143. [svg][d290e]Bluz* February 13, 2024 at 3:26 pm Whoa. The arrogance oozes off of the page. Just reading this I wouldn't hire them. Everyone makes mistakes no matter what. Are you humble enough to admit it and fix it? Reply | 144. [svg][]HonorBox* February 13, 2024 at 3:26 pm LW, I want to actually answer your question: DO NOT CONTACT THE BOSS! And if you want to stay happily married to your wife: LISTEN TO YOUR WIFE! Everything about your assessment of this interview is incorrect, and your desire to double down is even worse. The fact that you can't and don't see your many missteps in this interview and subsequent thoughts should give you pause. The fact that you can't see and admit that you've ever made a mistake should give you pause. I hope you take some time to reflect on the feedback from your wife, from AAM, from all of the comments and start thinking about how you approach things. You've put yourself in a tough spot because you're never going to be hired by this company. A reframing of your work and your approach will be necessary if you want to land a job elsewhere because EVERYONE will react the same way (though maybe not as professionally as this panel did) if you continue to see yourself as better than others. Reply | 145. [svg][]The Bill Murray Disagreement* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm This reminds me of a lot of the deeply misguided content out there on LinkedIn talking about how hiring managers just don't get it. Anyway, since Alison did a great job of addressing the overall snotty tone of the letter, I'll tell you that from my perspective if I asked someone about the biggest mistake they ever made and they answered the way you did, my most charitable assumption would be that you've forgotten times you've made mistakes. I would be slightly mollified in my reaction if you followed up with details around how you've incorporated steps to eliminate errors (because at least that would have some substance to it), but even with that -- I'd assume that you were doing very low-impact work. Reply | 146. [svg][]octopi* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm 100% the reason this guy is writing in is because his *wife* couldn't possibly be correct. Reply | 147. [svg][]Nook Nook* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm Humility and kindness will get you far, sometimes further than actual technical skills at first (think: fake it til you make it). Learn from this experience, OP, or this will be the end result of all future interviews. Kind of hoping for an update. Either by OP with lessons learned, or Alison herself after she receives a reply from OP stating how wrong he thinks the advise was! Reply | 148. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 3:29 pm LW, in the spirit of being kind and constructive in the comments ... * Even for a developer role, "Tell me about a mistake you've made and how you handled it" isn't necessarily about coding errors, and this question is almost never about the mistakes themselves. Because humans make mistakes. It's a way to gauge how you handle mistakes at work, how you handle feedback, and your level of self-awareness. Even if you never made errors in your code -- which, having worked in software QA, I find extremely difficult to credit, but let's say it's true -- surely there must still be things you've messed up in other areas that you could talk about handling? Because I can absolutely promise that you will get this question again in future interviews. * When you're told an interviewer is evaluating your "soft skills", be aware that they are doing that throughout the process , not just by listening to the plain text of your answers. Reply | 1. [svg][ab800]Czhorat* February 13, 2024 at 3:35 pm Yes. Those are probably more interesting mistakes to help the employer decide to hire you. "I misunderstood a client requirement and built to the wrong specification. I apologized for the miscommunication and found a way to get them what they want. Since then, I've made a point to reflect my understanding of the requirements back to all of the clients and get their sign-off before continuing with development". If you managed to navigate something like that and walk away with a positive relationship with the client that's a positive, and a way to turn the answer into a selling point. Reply | 1. [svg][b29eb]iglwif* February 13, 2024 at 4:04 pm Yes. I mean, as much fun as it is to talk about the time I made a website CSS change without carefully checking the scope of the pages it would be applied to, the thing that's going to be interesting to the interviewer isn't the technical aspects of how I fixed it, it's the way I immediately ratted myself out to my boss and the rest of the team (aka "took ownership of the issue"), volunteered myself to fix the damaged pages, documented the process of doing so, and explained to the team what had happened and how not to make the same mistake I had. Reply | 149. [svg][]vox* February 13, 2024 at 3:30 pm anyone else getting "this guy is trying to imitate sheldon cooper" vibes? Reply | 1. [svg][]Oh yeah, Me again* February 13, 2024 at 4:32 pm HeeHee! Reply | 150. [svg][]Don't Send Your Kids to Hudson University* February 13, 2024 at 3:32 pm I think it's very telling that letter writers typically present their questions with a description of their conduct in the most favorable light. Even perfectly objective and genuinely stumped letter writers often reveal some detail that Alison and the commentariat are able to point to as something worthy of further reflection and introspection. In this instance, the LW has revealed a stunning lack of self-awareness, so I really hope that Alison's response and these comments are reaching a real person who will sit with this feedback and learn something. LW, if you are really the rockstar that you believe you are when it comes to your technical skills, then please take this experience as a lesson and a gift. You have professional shortcomings that are going to hold you back no matter how talented you are because you are signaling that you would be a nightmare for any manager to manage. Healthy organizations that are good employers want to hire technically skilled staff who are also going to work well within the organization. Hiring is almost never about finding the person with the highest degree of talent and the best training and is almost always about finding someone with proficiency or expertise AND the skills that will make them an effective team member (like self-awareness, discretion, good judgment, solid listening and communication skills, etc). You should never think of the objective in an interview being to prove how much smarter or more talented you are than the people interviewing you (or even the other candidates). Instead, think about demonstrating why you are a good fit for the role and the organization. That means demonstrating a willingness to learn and receive feedback because employers often want to invest in employees who will grow. To put it bluntly, employers rarely want someone who has never made a mistake because they are looking for someone who can handle inevitable mistakes responsibly and professionally, and not be derailed by them. They want to find someone who responds to mistakes by learning from them, making changes, and reducing the likelihood of that mistake recurring. Similarly, it will only ever hurt you professionally to assume you are the smartest person in the room or that you have nothing to learn from a manager without your technical background. Here, I think your biggest blunder was not realizing that this grandboss would likely have had a high degree of influence over your compensation and advancement within the organization. That interviewer who you displayed such disdain towards would likely have been the person signing off on your performance evaluations and compensation decisions, and you treated her like it was an inconvenience to you to be interviewed by her. I'm not suggesting that you need to become a shrinking violet (and I see no risk of that), but you do need to figure out how to show some deference and respect to people who rank higher in an organization than you do. Assume they are in their roles for good reason and that you can learn from them. Employers of any size will have some organizational structure and hierarchy. Demonstrating in an interview that you believe you don't need to operate within that hierarchy is solid way to guarantee you will not be selected. Good Luck, LW. I really hope you are able to learn from this. Reply | 151. [svg][]Stephanie* February 13, 2024 at 3:32 pm When I see submissions with such obvious bad decision making it makes me wonder if we're truly hearing from the actual person or from someone who was on the opposite end of that interaction. What "professional" would re-read their question and think- yup this sounds perfectly valid. Plus the fact they say they are male and the interviewers were women. Cringe!! Reply | 1. [svg][]lolwut* February 13, 2024 at 3:46 pm professional men in tech talk like this all the time Reply | 152. [svg][]Glitterspuds* February 13, 2024 at 3:33 pm I just scrolled through 400+ comments hoping the OP was in them, defending their terrible take. My jaw is on the FLOOR. I think I've managed to cringe so hard that I am now inside out. Reply | 153. [svg][]JTP* February 13, 2024 at 3:34 pm I can't believe someone wrote out this letter and didn't realize why they didn't get the job. Reply | 154. [svg][]AceInPlainSight* February 13, 2024 at 3:36 pm I just... wow. My dude. I had an in person interview for a technical position yesterday. I've been over analyzing whether admitting to a mistake I made/ safety practice I learned the hard way during the lab tour disqualified me, but... my dude. My Dude. Treating everyone interviewing you with respect and answering their questions politely (as long as they aren't illegal) Is The Bare Minimum Of Interviewing. I just... no. You have made mistakes and you absolutely should not track down this director (!) to lecture her about a standard question! Reply | 155. [svg][]BellyButton* February 13, 2024 at 3:36 pm "but my wife says it's a bad idea." I couldn't possible trust or respect my wife's professional opinion. F***k I hope this guy takes all of this feedback and reassesses his view of himself and women. Reply | 1. [svg][]My Boss is Dumber than Yours* February 13, 2024 at 3:43 pm I'll bet any amount of money that LW didn't know Alison was a woman when he wrote in, and once he realizes that he'll just ignore her advice. Reply | 156. [svg][]Jiminy Cricket* February 13, 2024 at 3:36 pm LW, you've gotten an earful, but I will add this: Professionals make mistakes. What makes you a professional is how you communicate about them, correct them, and learn from them. So, the good news is, you can release some of your perfectionism. The bad news is, you are going to need those soft skills the interviewer was looking for. Reply | 157. [svg][]Pretty as a Princess* February 13, 2024 at 3:37 pm Wowza. I am a grandboss. I am involved in the hiring of EVERY individual on the two teams I lead. EVERY candidate interviews with me either 1:1 or in a small group interview. I am there for exactly what this grandboss was there for. I can't imagine why anyone would think it weird that a senior manager wouldn't... be interested in who their teams are hiring and that those people can effectively prioritize about their work and treat teammates, collaborators, and clients with basic personal respect. Reply | 1. [svg][]Metadata Janktress* February 13, 2024 at 4:00 pm Yeah, I'm so confused why LW thinks that it's such an odd thing to have an interview with a skip-level boss. I thought that was common with most interviews for a position in an hierarchical organization. Pretty much every professional job I've interviewed for required me to interview with the department head. Reply | 158. [svg][]Red5* February 13, 2024 at 3:40 pm If there is any goodness left in this universe, at least one of those interview panel members is an AAM reader and will write in to share their perspective on this train wreck of an interview. I would pay good money to read that. Reply | 1. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 4:56 pm Scroll down for "Ann." Reply | 159. [svg][]Whyamihere* February 13, 2024 at 3:41 pm Well now you have the answer to the first part of that question, now how will you handle the second? Because I am shocked you didn't have a prepared answer because this is a super common question. I think this is one of my most rehearsed answers for job interviews as I have been asked it at every one. Reply | 1. [svg][]Sunflower* February 13, 2024 at 5:05 pm I'm sure he didn't feel the need to prepare for this question because he never made a mistake. Ever. Reply | 160. [svg][]SkaneAmerican* February 13, 2024 at 3:42 pm Please, please, PLEASE send a note to the interviewer... then send in an update!! Reply | 161. [svg][]lolwut* February 13, 2024 at 3:45 pm screaming my best day at work was coming in to discover they fired my coworker/bully who spoke exactly like this. his behavior in the job was worse, glory hound, stealing credit, lying, talking over skip skip levels, fighting with the software architect, shouting in design meetings. OP until you get over yourself you will never ever get where you think you deserve to be, because right now you dont Reply | 162. [svg][]Peon* February 13, 2024 at 3:48 pm I worked with a programmer who thought EXACTLY like this LW, but only until her PIP was over. I work with a lot of other programmers who admit to making mistakes, and they're awesome to QA test for because 1. They write unit tests to catch things, 2. They do a quick acceptance test of their own in Dev before sending it to me, and 3. They're humble when I find stuff and bring it to them. A programmer that ACTUALLY, truly makes no mistakes probably isn't working on anything with much complexity. Reply | 163. [svg][ef587]OMG Becky* February 13, 2024 at 3:52 pm Ooofff.... So much cringe in this letter, it was almost hard to get through. I read this to my husband (a manager in tech, who has been in the industry for 30 years) who said it is VERY common to have skip-level managers in hiring interviews since tech is not just about tech; it's also about soft skills as no one works in a bubble. He said he also would not have hired this LW based on his lack of appropriate soft skills and his insistence that he has never made mistakes. Then he asked me, "I wonder, if he's like this at an interview, what is it like being married to him?" Plenty of food for thought. Reply | 164. [svg][]Observer* February 13, 2024 at 3:52 pm I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem. and I looked the grandboss up on LinkedIn after the rejection and she was a developer at two industry leaders and then an executive at a third. Together is this is an AMAZING pair of comments. And not in a good way! You knew *nothing* about the woman and yet you took it upon yourself to snark about her education, qualifications and work quality?! As someone who is in management but also directly involved in development, this alone is a total dis-qualifier for almost any job requiring the least bit of judgement, end user interaction and / or dealing with specifications that have not been broken down to recipe level. As for the idea that having "actually gone to school" and being "a professional" means that you never make mistakes? What exactly are you smoking or otherwise ingesting? Yes, that's snarky, but it's SO divorced from reality that it sounds like the kinds of drug trips where people think they can fly etc. but that she was interviewing for things like communication, ability to prioritize, and soft skills. I still thought it was weird to interview with my boss's boss. Why? I don't care how technical a role is, so called soft skills are not optional. Neither are the ability to communicate clearly nor the ability to prioritize work appropriately. As for writing back to the interviewer? Allison correctly points out that 'All that would do is get your name bolded and underlined on the "never interview/never hire" list. It will confirm that their initial assessment was right.' But also, if you are dealing an external recruiter, it would probably push them from hesitating to work with you any further to "Drop this one like a hot potato". Because recruiters are trying to make successful placements, if they are any good. What they do *not* need are arrogant jerks who have absolutely zero self awareness or understanding of minimally professional behavior. Oh, and it's very, very normal for a position's grand boss to do at least one interview. Even for "technical" positions. The fact that you found the idea "odd" tells me that you are new in the work world. And also, it's another clue that you are not actually as much of a professional as you seem to think. Reply | 165. [svg][]Bruise Campbell* February 13, 2024 at 3:54 pm I...... have no words for this letter-writer. Reply | 166. [svg][85030]Just Want A Nap* February 13, 2024 at 3:57 pm ok if you want the helpful answer to that question, you choose an early career mistake, and talk about how you learned from it to prevent that mistake again. (I rarely make mistakes but when I do, I write out a lessons learned for myself and slap a sticky note on my computer so I don't do it again. By the time the sticky note falls off my computer I've trained the good habit into myself.) If you somehow, truly, do not ever make mistakes, even in the beginning, how do you keep up with changing standards? Right now you sound arrogant and instantly not a culture fit for many offices. "I don't make mistakes" says that if you do make one, the person who caught it has to assess if you can take the feedback and help fix it.... or if you're going to fight it enough to need to escalate. Reply | 167. [svg][]Hybrid Employee (Part Human, Part Wolf)* February 13, 2024 at 4:00 pm Maybe a little imposter syndrome is healthy, actually Reply | 1. [svg][]jane's nemesis* February 13, 2024 at 4:56 pm underrated comment, 5/5 microwaves (idea to resurrect this stolen from a poster way down below) Reply | 168. [svg][]Betsy S.* February 13, 2024 at 4:01 pm Oh man I have worked with this guy. There's also, if you haven't made mistakes recently, talking about what you do to prevent mistakes. I had a former manager (when he was no longer my manager, fortunately) insult me in a group chat because he realized I was writing a step-by-step plan for work scheduled for a live customer site at 2am. He said something like "I expect people on my team to know what they are doing". Writing down the steps of a change was not only a good idea, to think through possible issues ahead of time; it was also company policy at our new parent company. I continued to write plans. My planned work continued to go well. Reply | 169. [svg][]sparkle emoji* February 13, 2024 at 4:02 pm If I were to try to give any actual advice, I'd say LW needs to understand that there are more types of mistakes than technical ones. He seems to think interpersonal faux pas, like the ones he's unknowingly outlined, don't count as mistakes. LW, they very much do count. If you truly don't believe you've made technical errors at work then the next time you are asked this question, talk about a work soft skills mistake and what you did to fix it. And it will be asked again, I've heard some version of this question in almost every job interview I've ever had, it's super normal. Reply | 170. [svg][]AG* February 13, 2024 at 4:03 pm "(I don't know if it matters but I'm male and everyone I interviewed with was female.)" It probably is key to your story, just not in the way you mean. Reply | 171. [svg][]Kevin* February 13, 2024 at 4:04 pm Was this letter written by Roddy from Slow Horses? He's the genius techhead who doesn't know why he's been relegated to the loser crew of spies and spooks, and it turns out it's because he's an arrogant jerk who has offended every manager. Reply | 1. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 4:17 pm Roddy's whole character is a great illustration of how technical brilliance is not enough on its own. Reply | 172. [svg][]SparklingBlue* February 13, 2024 at 4:06 pm Is this level of cluelessness worthy of the "wait, what?" department? For someone who prides themselves on making no mistakes, this whole letter is a huge one-with a capital M and neon lights. Reply | 173. [svg][]Reality.Bites* February 13, 2024 at 4:07 pm I love how much the headline undersold the story! This is a prize-winning letter if I could figure out a category Reply | 1. [svg][]NotAnotherManager!* February 13, 2024 at 4:58 pm Yes! I read the headline and was like, well, duh, they didn't hire you if you said that... but then there was so much more!! The only person who's ever told me they didn't make a mistake was a vendor my company was interviewing for a project. The sales rep also insisted their company had never made a mistake, and that basically took them out of the running - per my boss at the time, it was either a red flag that they didn't take accountability for their errors or that they had no actual experience doing the work. FWIW, this is a question and I also ask, and it's generally very illuminating in hiring. If anyone tells me they've never, ever made a mistake, they're not going to get the job. Reply | 174. [svg][]Annie* February 13, 2024 at 4:08 pm Remember the letter just a few days ago in which the interviewer told the interviewee "thanks for making this easy" when the interviewee told them she was going to join a Master's program in a year and a half. That's what this interviewer, the Middle Manager, grand-boss, should have said, "Thanks for making this easy," and got up and walked out. Haha. Reply | 175. [svg][]Annony* February 13, 2024 at 4:09 pm When someone tells me that they have never made a mistake, what I hear is that they never take accountability for their mistakes. I would absolutely not hire someone who said that. Reply | 1. [svg][]el l* February 13, 2024 at 4:48 pm Yes. That's pretty much the definition of arrogance. Mistakes are always someone else's fault, or the mistake is ignored or rationalized as not a mistake. You'll never get anywhere with people like this. Reply | 176. [svg][]MistOrMister* February 13, 2024 at 4:09 pm Yikes. My jaw actually dropped with the comment about never making mistakes like the grandboss must. I cannot imagine a single place where giving that response would have been acceptable. I think if you honestly cannot think of a single mistake (and really, the odds of someone never making even 1 mistake in their career seems beyond unlikely), you can say you're having trouble thinking of one and pivot that to how you avoid mistakes and what checks and balances you have in place to keep your work error free. Goodness knows not everyone can think up examples on the spot so at least some interviewers would likely be ok with that sort of answer. Reply | 177. [svg][]Proud Millennial* February 13, 2024 at 4:14 pm I think what the OP is actually really missing is that he doesn't know for sure why he didn't get the job. It could have had nothing to do with his arrogance to grandboss and bombing of the mistake question. There could have just been someone more qualified than he was. I mean, I know it's most likely the arrogance and we're all hoping that's why - karma, amiright? - but it's certainly possible he just wasn't the best person who applied. Reply | 1. [svg][3a7c8]Lenora Rose* February 13, 2024 at 5:25 pm I think that's far from the only thing he was missing in his letter, but yeah, it's strange how he leapt to that one specific question as the definite absolute reason for his rejection when nobody else said so. Maybe because in his opinion he "aced" everything else - despite the obvious gaffe of also asking his grandboss why she was interviewing him at all. Reply | 178. [svg][160ae]Office Plant Queen* February 13, 2024 at 4:15 pm The only times I haven't interviewed with the bosses boss were 1) kitchen jobs and 2) jobs where I never made it to the final interview. (Technically I didn't at my last job, but I interviewed with the team lead and my boss, and then the team lead became my boss like a year later.) Interviewing with that person is indeed very common! Anyway, fundamentally, you *have* to default to respect for your manager and their manager. This is not a situation where these people should start out with no respect and then earn it. (Is any situation really?) This is a situation where you need to start with giving them respect, which they only lose if they demonstrate repeatedly or egregiously that they're incompetent or unkind. It is helpful to assume that everyone you're meeting in a job interview is extremely competent and smarter than you are. If that hurts your ego, you have some growing up to do. And I'm saying this as someone who is used to being the smartest person in the room! Because I've figured out that, while I can learn to do most things very well and very quickly, I'm not good at the things I haven't spent time doing. And there are a ton of things that I haven't spent time doing! Reply | 179. [svg][]Trek* February 13, 2024 at 4:19 pm Instead of contacting the interviewer I would identify someone who is a straight shooter and who you respect. Reach out to them and take them to lunch and ask for their opinion on how you come across. Explain your perception of yourself may be off but you need someone to tell you the truth. if they don't know what to say show them this letter and discuss the interview. Listen carefully to what they say and don't focus on responding or justify your actions. just take in the feedback and think about for a few days. Reply | 1. [svg][]ArtsNerd* February 13, 2024 at 4:54 pm I love this advice. Hopefully LW is actually open to taking it. Reply | 2. [svg][1e913]Falling Diphthong* February 13, 2024 at 4:56 pm This is solid advice. Reply | 180. [svg][]Senorsoupe* February 13, 2024 at 4:20 pm As someone who has interviewed candidates (including ones that were pretty hopeless) I know exactly what happened as soon as he left that interview. Everyone looked at each other and asked variations of "did that just happen?", " yikes?" and "what was that?" Before immediately depositing his application in the rejected pile. I would wonder how someone could lack self awareness that badly but you see it all. Alison's answer was perfect and I hope this guy reflects on his experience (although he probably won't) Reply | 181. [svg][]RebeccaNoraBunch* February 13, 2024 at 4:21 pm I am a woman who has worked in tech (in sales no less) for 11+ years. Unfortunately, this is totally believable. And also totally triggering. Reply | 182. [svg][]CraigT* February 13, 2024 at 4:23 pm I just wonder if the letter writer would have acted this way if his interviewer have been another male. I'm guessing not. Reply | 1. [svg][3a7c8]Lenora Rose* February 13, 2024 at 5:21 pm It varies. More men like this are like this because of sexism, but there are people (any gender) who are just that arrogant and superior to everyone. The fact that *he* brought up their genders tips my personal opinion towards "he's a sexist." Reply | 183. [svg][54e13]ReallyBadPerson* February 13, 2024 at 4:25 pm The most shocking thing about this very shocking letter is that the writer got someone to marry him. I hope she's okay. Reply | 1. [svg][]ActualTeacher* February 13, 2024 at 4:44 pm Wow, this is really uncalled for. Reply | 184. [svg][]Ann* February 13, 2024 at 4:28 pm This sounds very, very much like a person (who also happened to be a man) I just interviewed. So much of this sounds like an interview from about two weeks. Right down to three women, including the boss's boss being in on the interview. I am not questioning if it is real, now I'm wondering if there is more than one of these people floating around. We did a skills test (he did fine, but not the best compared to other candidates, but this is not a complete "not qualified" criteria), first round of interview (kind of information gathering, not in depth) was normal, but then the more in depth interview...woof. It went way off the rails, in more ways than one, but what definitely stood out was his absolute certainty that he has never made a mistake. He was an internal candidate that my counterpart had previously managed, and she described him as a middle performer with plenty of room for growth and development. She also knew of several large mistakes he had made. To this letter writer: you have definitely made mistakes, the question is if you have identified them, owned them, resolved them, and then prevented their recurrence. Setting aside the arrogance/rudeness/childishness, it is a bad answer to say you never have made a mistake. It means, at best, that you do make mistakes, but someone is cleaning them up while you remain blissfully unaware; at worst, you make mistakes and then refuse to accept accountability for them. Either way the biggest advantage a candidate can have in front of me is a firm sense of self awareness. I'm not asking "what is your greatest weakness" because that question isn't helpful, but what are you good at, what are you ok at, and most of all what are you still developing. Anyone who tells me they have nothing left to learn and nothing left to improve is someone without awareness or ambition. So, I do not care about your education (indicative more of ability to pay, then actual skill or intelligence) so much, but about ability to reflect and willingness to learn. As you have learned about this woman who you felt was not worth your notice: she has the notice of people who matter to your career, both from previous work and connections with C-suite level individuals at other employers in the industry. Your behavior may have more reaching consequences than just being blacklisted at this one company: we all talk. She might just spread the word in her network about this interview. Reply | 1. [svg][]President Porpoise* February 13, 2024 at 5:27 pm I really want this to be the same interview, if only because I hate that there might have been two recent examples so similar. Reply | 185. [svg][0171c]Pithy Moniker* February 13, 2024 at 4:28 pm I am a woman in tech, and I would also confirm that this is a very likely story. I was the interviewer in a nearly identical scenario a decade or so ago. In this case, I was interviewing a UI Designer. When I asked him what approach he took when someone disagreed with one of his designs, he told me that in the entire course of his career not a single aspect of any of his designs had ever come into question. I lobbed him a few soft balls to course correct on that one, but to no avail. I ended the interview shortly there after, and also called the recruiter he was working with to gently explain that he was never going to get this guy hired without some serious changes - as that answer was just the last straw rather than the first flag. Reply | 1. [svg][]ArtsNerd* February 13, 2024 at 5:03 pm >When I asked him what approach he took when someone disagreed with one of his designs, he told me that in the entire course of his career not a single aspect of any of his designs had ever come into question. LOL that is... not the brag he thinks it is. Reply | 186. [svg][]Oh yeah, Me again* February 13, 2024 at 4:30 pm I think this one that will need to go into "Wait, what!?" Reply | 187. [svg][]Sad Desk Salad* February 13, 2024 at 4:42 pm I got to the third sentence of the question and very strongly considered getting up to make some popcorn. Reply | 188. [svg][]Catabouda* February 13, 2024 at 4:43 pm I just... I mean.... How did he get through to that level of interview? Did he just hide his personality for the first round? Were there no other candidates? Reply | 189. [svg][]Develop Some Class* February 13, 2024 at 4:46 pm Developers don't make mistakes. That's why we only have major version numbers, and I'm not currently trying to patch security vulnerabilities. Reply | 1. [svg][]Dasein9 (he/him)* February 13, 2024 at 5:04 pm :D Reply | 190. [svg][]ChipDust* February 13, 2024 at 4:47 pm I am a retired medical professional with 3 degrees. My best manager ever was someone who had a high school diploma. It didn't matter that they didn't have the licenses and skill set that I did. What mattered was that they could effectively manage people. It's really hard. Reply | 191. [svg][]Sunflower* February 13, 2024 at 4:49 pm Wow. It just gets worse as it went on. Well, at least you have an answer for the next time you get asked about a mistake. That is if you're not too arrogant to actually see it. You questioned why "this middle manager" interviewed you and then you gave answers that's dripping with condescension. Interviewing is not just about work skill. They want to know if you'll fit in with the company and work well with others. You failed at that part and still failing with wanting to call her to tell her how "wrong" she was. What the?! I don't think she was wrong to interview candidates and ask certain questions since it worked. You told her exactly what kind of person/worker you are and she made her decision that she felt best for the company. Reply | 192. [svg][c47c3]LTLurkerOccasionalPoster* February 13, 2024 at 4:52 pm I just had to add... 5/5 Microwaves Reply | 1. [svg][]jane's nemesis* February 13, 2024 at 4:53 pm I upvote this comment LOL Reply | 193. [svg][]Bes* February 13, 2024 at 4:57 pm Unrelated but this jogged my memory: once long ago, I had just made a very costly mistake that was totally innocent and therefore management laughed it off and counted it as a learning experience, and I had joked with another employee while she and I fixed the issue that "I never make mistakes!" An unrelated, eavesdropping employee brought it to HR saying I was telling junior employees that I never made mistakes (!!) Reply | 194. [svg][36917]La Triviata* February 13, 2024 at 4:59 pm Back in the mid- to late- 1970s I was working at a PR firm. All the lower-level employees were women, there was one woman in the upper levels, the rest were men. We lower-level employees were expected to maintain a "professional appearance" - not suits, but nice skirts and tops (no pants). One day, my boss was interviewing a new journalism school graduate - he took him around, introduced him as "Mr. last name" and introduced all the women by their first names. The young man was wearing jeans, a flannel shirt and a well worn jacket. So there's been SOME improvement, but there's still a way to go. Reply | 195. [svg][]An Honest Nudibranch* February 13, 2024 at 4:59 pm "I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn't have that problem." Okay I snorted at this: honey, this right here is an example of you making a mistake. As a lady who works in tech, I would've immediately written you off for that answer, too: I deal with the sort of dude who's convinced he must be infinitely more experienced than any woman he's interacting with all the damn time, as well as with the type of programmer who causes all sorts of trouble because they do not and cannot understand the immense value of management/production/ docs/QA/etc. teams working with them. I would never willing hire a person like that, if I could help it. OP, I hope you take this as a wake-up call! Reply | 196. [svg][8c094]Bluebarramundi* February 13, 2024 at 5:03 pm Great to see a smart and effective interview process - getting the grand boss to test for soft skills for a technical role by asking questions like this. *Chef's kiss* While the OP is not happy with the outcome. The interview process worked highlighting a serious issue with a potential hire. Reply | 197. [svg][]Angela Zeigler* February 13, 2024 at 5:14 pm Is LW Poe Dameron?? Reply | 198. [svg][]QuietTurtle* February 13, 2024 at 5:15 pm This makes me think of a guy I worked with once in my last factory job. Guy was a brand new hire and the first thing he told the line lead was "If you put me in a room full of 'indians', pretty soon I'll be the chief." I trained him and explained one crucial detail to watch for in the production of that specific part. He decided he was so good that he worked super fast, piling of parts behind the next station. Not only were many of them damaged and useless from ignoring my input, but many of the parts were not completed. This happened so often that the next guy in line who relied on those parts started THROWING them back into his station. As his trainer I was keeping an eye on him and offering help/ correction as needed, but he would not listen. I was just another grunt, not paid to train but I listened to peoples concerns and tried to work with them to help them get up to speed on the job. After I saw that he wasn't listening, I had to get the lead involved. He was coached and later iced the cake with a post on the company Facebook explaining everything that was wrong with the company and how they could improve. He was asked not to return...he only lasted a week. Reply | 199. [svg][]Bookworm* February 13, 2024 at 5:20 pm Thanks for asking the question, OP. I think the majority of questions re: mistakes are always about how to answer, how to frame it, etc. At least we have an example of what not to do and why. That's pretty useful, too. Reply | 200. [svg][]Hermione* February 13, 2024 at 5:20 pm OP, I hope you step back and consider how you're treating all of the people in your life, because you present your behavior here as though it is run-of-the-mill for your daily interactions, and that deeply concerning. This director was a stranger to you, someone who has done you no harm and who, whether you like it or not, had input on whether or not you get hired to a job you wanted. You should have treated her with respect because she is a human being, but if that is not enough of a reason, because you were being INTERVIEWED by her. Instead, from your first interaction you made assumptions about her skills, her background, her intentions, her importance to the team/organization, her ability to manage, and her role in relation to the position. You added up those assumptions and decided she and her questions were not worthy of your time or attention, and then treated her with arrogance and rudeness. You should've been on your best behavior, and yet that you think you did nothing wrong here makes me wonder if you think this was your best behavior. It's disappointing that you do not see that. If this is how you treat your current colleagues (or friends, family, neighbors, strangers in the street) when you disagree with their opinions, skills, etc., then you DO make mistakes regularly, and you should learn from this one. People are deserving of kindness as a matter of course. Reply | 201. [svg][]works with realtors* February 13, 2024 at 5:37 pm I am floored. Just floored. I hope you learned a lot, LW. Reply | 202. [svg][]Jellyfish Catcher* February 13, 2024 at 5:49 pm I had a niche medical subspecialty, referral based. Knowledge and skill etc is mandatory, but also communication and empathy. The location I chose already one other practitioner, known for rudeness and poor communication.. I opened my clinic right across the parking lot from that office - and did very, very well. LW: You only have half of what you need. The other half is communication, and ability to work with others. Hire a management consultant who will be tough enough to teach you some people skills. Invest in some psychological assessment to address the underside of all this, as well. I Dare You to be that brave and good luck. Reply | 203. [svg][]Mrs. Hawiggins* February 13, 2024 at 5:50 pm Never say never, because you kinda just did. Reply | 204. [svg][]TrixieD* February 13, 2024 at 5:50 pm Heaven help this man's wife. If he's *that* insufferable with total strangers, imagine how densely offensive he is with someone who sees him naked. Just...wow. Gotta say, if this was on Twitter, dude would be ratioed right out of relevance. Reply | 1. [svg][]Looper* February 13, 2024 at 5:58 pm CAN YOU IMAGINE?!? That poor wife, she must have bit her tongue clean off. Reply | 205. [svg][115fa]casey* February 13, 2024 at 5:56 pm Oh my. Reply | 206. [svg][2a7b8]Dawn* February 13, 2024 at 6:01 pm I audibly-to-my-neighbours exclaimed before I was halfway through this. 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