About a year ago the team I work with now hired a contractor to help cover certain development duties in our realm. He generally knew his stuff but he got to being somewhat difficult to work with… I came to call him ‘codependent contractor’ after he ended up hitting me up 11 times during a single lunch hour as I’m eating in my cube, for instance. Other people had similar issues, coaching him wasn’t helping, so the boss decided to drop the contract and interview for a replacement.

Right, interview number one. The whole team got pulled in when one of our regular consultants with Pricewaterhouse Cooper popped up saying he had someone to fit the bill. We all gathered in a conference room to meet and greet etc. It, ah, didn’t go well.

In general although he could throw some acronyms around, he clearly didn’t know what he was talking about, at least not at the level we need. We were able to determine that rather thoroughly and dismissed him.

On the other side of it, though, was the general presentation of self. I mean, listen, if you’re going for an interview you clean up a bit, right? And there’s plenty I’m willing to overlook if you’ve got the technical chops, because it’s IT and these things happen. 

But listen, step one, trim your fingernails. I didn’t notice them at first until very early on he tapped his nails on the table. They were all different lengths, with the thumbs and left hand ring finger at least at that sort of cocaine-snorting length in proportion to the others. And step two on that, clean your nails. If the guy sitting across the boardroom table can see how fucking filthy your nails are, you have a problem.

Item two, the neckbeard. It’s not like it takes more than, what, ten minutes to trim a beard? Come on. It’s also just a momentary thing to actually tuck in the back of your shirt. Or to wear a nicer one that doesn’t have some other company’s logo on it. 

And although I did my best to overlook it, he thumb-sized growth on the side of his head was a distraction. I feel bad for even noticing it or bringing it up, but in conjunction with everything else, why the hell not. Jesus, get it looked at. Take a chisel to it. Something.

The lack of knowledge and general way he presented himself made this the most hilariously bad interview I’ve ever witnessed. And that’s including the one where, inside of five minutes, I had to cut it short and tell the applicant they’d applied for the wrong job (it wasn’t what she thought she was interviewing for… awkward but no point in wasting time, eh?). Our PwC consultant, as soon as the guy was out of the room, was busy apologizing to us for wasting our time. The team unanimously agreed on ‘no’. 

The downside being that this means more time with codependent contractor. Dammit.