Then they tell you the previous person was incompetent or something to try and make it seem like they were a bad employee, not that it’s a bad work environment.
“Oh? And who was in charge of their interview?” because unless they have a large hr department to handle hiring interviews, it was probably the person who hired you.
This is when you take notes in your notebook you should have brought with you.
I’ve noticed interviewers get visibly uncomfortable when I write in my notebook. It’s like they’re either trying to figure out if they just lied about something I will be able to reference later, or they just get that natural “someone is writing about me and I can’t read what it is” feeling, I assume the former.
Simon Pegg wasn’t lying in Hot Fuzz. The notebook is a powerful weapon if used right.
This is absolutely true. My former employer (a big box retail company) reduced my pay while I was on holiday. I had been there for years and accrued a bunch of pay rises - but the company got bought out and the new owners thought they could strip me of these because they felt they were temporary and non-contractual.
I got some legal advice that basically said they can’t do that sort of thing and had a meeting scheduled with HR. I went in with my notepad, I stayed calm - pleasent even - no angry shouting or slamming tables with fists, I just politely asked them questions and wrote down everything they said, then read their answers back to them to confirm thats what they said. I had about 6 questions prepared and by the 4th they were visibly uncomfortable, it was an amazing feeling making them squirm like that. After I got done asking my questions, I dropped the legal advice I had been given on them and it was obvious the answers they gave supported my case very heavily. They panicked and reversed all there decesion plus I got back-pay.
But if the first thing I had done is charge in making accusations and quoting the law I know nothing constructive would have happened.
See the goal is to bury them in their own words.
Edit: predictably the company went bust the next year. So long Office Outlet!
Always get them to bury themselves before dropping your intentions.
My wife is currently dealing with her employer and their complete lack of handicap spots, despite over 200 regular car spaces scattered all around a warehouse lot. She doesn’t quite get how to “play the game” like this but she’s learning.
One party recording state so I’d like her to go in to talk about it while recording, but her anxiety is completely stonewalling her from bringing it up.
Hit record on the phone, slip it in a pocket that has good clearance for the whole conversation, and get them to say the things they’ve said when they think nobody else can hear them.
Apparently the front office woman screamed at her to move her car (she parked there because the offices are isolated from traffic and have access to her work area)and “it’s not our goddamn problem we don’t have handicap spots, it’s yours so deal with it”
I’m about to just skip around waiting for her to do things and file a complaint with the EEOC or at least the ADA government site complaint form. I’m sure that would take months, if not years before anything ever happened, but I can’t hold her hand and be there when she confronts the owners about their 6-8 missing handicap spots.
When I go to client sites I carry around a pad, and I tell people that ask it’s just a prop to make it seem like I’m being thorough.
Really I have extremely good spatial recall and estimating retrofit jobs is a piece of cake in that respect.
I did this at the interview for the power plant I’ve been working at for the past 2.5 years. There was a 3 person panel interviewing me and I think they were impressed that I not only asked this but kept asking it through vague bullshit answers. They initially just said “the previous guy left.” And I just sat there for about 10 seconds, waiting for more info than that. Then I said “okay, did he quit, get fired, put in his notice, retire, get demoted, get promoted, become disabled, die off site, die while here…?” He had gone to a different company, but I was uneasy from their hesitance to be forthcoming, so I dug into questions about the culture there, work/life balance, advancement opportunities, safety record, management style, and (maybe my favorite) “what does success in this role look like and how are your feedback and expectations of that communicated to employees?”
They seemed uncomfortable and impatient, but because I already had a decent job at the time I had nothing to lose by swinging my dick around and cutting the bullshit. I highly recommend applying and interviewing for jobs while you’re already reasonably well-employed. It’s great practice, it keeps your resume up to date, you learn real negotiation tactics, and you get to decline offers that aren’t a substantial step up. About a year and a half ago, I did a video interview in my underwear where the manager and supervisor running the interview couldn’t hear me so I was live troubleshooting and resolved their issue. I got an offer, rejected it by telling HR to come back with a higher offer, got the same offer a week later, asked the HR lady why she wasn’t capable of listening to my instructions and was wasting my time with greedy negotiation tactics (which really annoyed her), asked for her name and the name of her supervisor while wholeheartedly rejecting any offer that would come from her, reported the experience to her supervisor, got a call back from the HR lady full of apologies (which I didn’t forgive but thanked her for), and emailed the supervisor I had interviewed with to thank him and let him know that everything sounded great but I couldn’t work for a company whose HR department was that shitty to me before I even verbally accepted an offer. Because of the nature of my industry and our relatively young ages, I told him I wouldn’t be surprised if I wound up working with him somewhere within the next ten years anyway, and I looked forward to that within a company that respects its employees as much as he seems to.
For those who don’t already know, HR exists to fuck the workers in order to benefit the company. Do not trust a goddamn thing HR says. Get everything documented. Record everything they say if it’s legal to do so in your state. If not, draft immediate, timestamped memos (like an email to yourself) of everything that just happened and was said, and be objective with your phrasing.
That’s my least favorite kind of standoff…
What is US Congress debt ceiling brinkmanship?
Oh God, you’ve found my actual least favorite kind of standoff… how did you know??
This just made me sad about Alex Trebek.
What’s your favorite standoff? I only know vanilla and Mexican vanilla
He was promoted.
Boom dead
I haven’t left, convince me to.
