My Very Last Job Interview Ever

The day I interviewed at a big tech company, when my desire for a "normal job" died forever.

[This article has a voiceover feature. Click the “play” button to hear it out loud.]

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This building is the headquarters of a global technology company with 10,000 employees where I once had a job interview. My desire to work for an employer died that day, and I decided I would never, ever be an employee again if I could help it.

In 2017, I was tired of being self-employed. After almost a decade of running my own business, it just wasn’t fun anymore, and the insane roller coaster of highs and lows was wearing me down, so I did the unthinkable: I became a job seeker again.

I figured I could ease into it or maybe straddle the fence a bit by getting a part-time job where I could keep most of my clients yet also have a regular income with a steady paycheck and be part of a team.

I started browsing job listings on Craigslist (bad idea), used LinkedIn to sleuth for job openings (worse idea), and even created an account on Indeed (worst idea of all) and started applying for jobs.

It was a terrible, humiliating, time-wasting, miserable experience.

I looked for job openings that had anything tangentially related to my skill set: web designer, front-end web developer, digital marketer, content marketer, marketing manager, whatever. Basically, anything that had “marketing,” or “digital” in the title.

I spent months going to job fairs and even met with career consultants who helped me take personality tests and career interest surveys and helped critique and improve my resume so it would look perfect and was filled with all the lame buzzwords that employers like to see.

I even joined a special networking group made just for job seekers that met every Tuesday morning. It offered networking, announcements about job openings, and more.

We learned about the astonishingly evil and insidious “ATS” (applicant tracking system) programs that employers use these days to discriminate against people they don’t like, and which prevent hiring managers from ever seeing your resume in the first place, ensuring that you can never speak to a real live human being.

We also had workshops on mastering your interview skills, where they held mock interviews to help you pretend you care and say just the right thing that talentless hiring managers want to hear you say — IF you’re lucky enough to even meet with a person in the first place.

We learned how to answer dumb questions like “So, tell me, Ron, why do you want to work at XYZ Software?” and “What would you say your biggest weakness is?”

I tolerated this for a few weeks, figuring it would all be worth it if it improved my chances of actually getting a job. But one morning, I met a woman sitting at my table who told me she had been attending this group and looking for a job for nine months.

NINE MONTHS?!!!

I was so frightened by this that I panicked, left the group, and never went back.

Whatever they were teaching in this group, and whatever job-seekers are doing these days, it was clear that the hiring process in America is broken beyond repair.

If someone can be unemployed and actively looking for a job for nine months, that’s utter insanity.

There was absolutely no way I was going to waste any more time with this nonsense. I’d rather be dead than looking for a job for three-quarters of a year.

I went home and went back to work for myself. I kept trawling a bit online, looking for jobs and submitting my resume and figured if a good job opening popped up, I’d look into it, but I would no longer spend time actively job seeking. I did finally get two bites in the next few weeks that I followed up on.

The first company was a startup that was an offshoot of an existing company that made social media management software. They had an opening for a part-time “content marketing pro.” That sounded good to me, so I replied to the person who emailed me.

The company was called “ROPIG”, and the staff were very secretive about what exactly they did and what they were building. They were based in the central time zone, so I had to get up extra early for a video meeting.

The morning of the interview, I got up super early, dressed nicely, brushed my hair, and went into my home office for a video chat. We talked for a bit, and at one point, I asked, “So, what does Ropig mean, anyway?”

I was told: “It’s two words: it means robot pig.”

This was what my life had come to?

I was getting up early for video interviews to be a part-time content marketer working remotely for a company in the Midwestern United States called ROBOT PIG?

I finished the interview and then went back to bed, totally depressed. I decided not to pursue the job any further.

The second—and final—job interview I had was set up through a connection I made earlier at the networking group. It was for the company that made the software “Sketchup.” That, I thought, was kind of cool. It would be fun to work at a company where I could contribute toward a popular product like SketchUp.

The job itself sounded good: “Content Editor.” It would be super heavy on writing and editing, but I didn’t mind this. I figured it would be nice to get back into working for a larger tech company again.

I went in for the interview and saw that their office was a giant, glass building out in the middle of nowhere in a desolate prairie with no restaurants or stores nearby. If I ended up working here, I’d have to bring lunch with me whenever I came to the office since there were no walkable locations anywhere nearby.

I was checked in by the security staff at the front desk, given a “guest pass,” and escorted to the elevator. It all seemed so big, so serious, and so fancy.

I rode the elevator to a few floors above, where I met the hiring manager in a giant conference room. She introduced me to a young man, about my age, or perhaps slightly younger, with a thick British accent who would, apparently, be my boss.

He was somewhat polite but, for a Brit, seemed cold, curt, and unfriendly. He spoke in short, clipped sentences and never smiled. I imagined how hard it would be to work under someone like that, who seemed so serious and humorless.

We talked for a while about my experience, content I’d created over the past few years that had earned millions of dollars (yes, literally) for clients in the construction industry, and how I might do that again here at a much larger company.

The more we talked, the more I realized that I really didn’t want to work under this guy at all, and, in fact, I actually wanted HIS job. I wondered if I might be able to take this job for a while and then replace him someday or take his role if he quit or was transferred back to the UK.

Things seemed to be going well until I mentioned working from home, at which point the entire tenor of the room changed.

“Oh,” the Brit said. “That’s not going to work… I’m not a big fan of people working remotely.”

This confused me because I had specified in my initial calls with the hiring manager that I wanted to work remotely and would only be able to come into the office on occasion since the commute took an hour each way, and there was no way I was interested in a job like that.

“Well, I could maybe come in once a week… would that work?” I offered.

“Nah, mate, we really need you here in person. I’m the kind of guy who likes to pop in and have a chat from time to time, so I need you here to be available for that.”

I do not recall what I said in response. But I know that the look on my face killed any chances of my getting this job. My gut reaction was a combination of disgust and fear, and I’m sure it showed in my body language and on my face.

I hate it when people just “pop in and have a chat.”

I hate it when managers force me to come to the office so they can keep an eye on me.

I hate it when people hire me to do a job and then feel the freedom to come interrupt me from doing that job whenever they feel like it.

Actually, come to think of it, I hate working for other people. I hate being an employee. I hate having a boss or being told what to do. And I hate working for someone who has a job that I want.

I decided right then and there, in that split second, that this kind of work environment would be stifling. I had no interest in any of this at all. I never wanted to be an employee ever again. And I knew that this would be my very last job interview ever.

We ran out the clock in our meeting, he left, and the marketing manager escorted me back, down the elevator, and into the lobby.

She said, “We’ll let you know.”

Two weeks later, I got an email that said:

“This email has been automatically created by Trimble Inc. to notify you that the requisition Content Editor / Writer has been filled.”

I just laughed. I didn’t care at all. I had already moved on.

What a crazy experience.

That was six and a half years ago.

I’ve never had a job interview since, and I don’t intend to.