Interview Nightmare: Lens Crappers

Quite a while back I attended one of my college alumni career fairs and happened to talk to a company that we’ll call “ACME Lenses”.  I talked to a recruiter for the parent company and she was pleasant with me and while I wasn’t exactly looking for a retail opportunity she convinced me to give her my resume and said she would forward it to the local store in my local job market.

Six months later I get a phone call from a representative of ACME Lenses and the girl I spoke with said she had just been faxed my resume and was willing to interview with me.  She was very coy regarding what the position would be, she only said they had part-time and full time positions.  Clearly not thrilled about the lead off with a part-time positions after having years of professional office experience and a newish degree, I set up the interview at a retail mall location in the area (but not the store I’d start at).  The interview was for 2p.m.

I ended up wearing a suit because she was so coy about the open position and as they say dress for the job you want.  I showed up about 10-15 minutes early figuring that naturally it is good to be punctual, and you never know how retail works.

A good couple of minutes pass before someone even acknowledged my presence in the store (which was odd, because I had walked the mall a bit, and I was the only crazy guy wearing a suit).  Oddly he didn’t even try to sell me anything but I told him I was looking for the Manager and he told me she had just left for lunch.

I about hit the roof on the second story of this mall.  I asked if he knew when she would be back, and he said that he had no idea, but he would leave a note that I was here at 2pm and he invited me to walk the mall as I waited.

Eventually I circled back to the retail store about 25 minutes later, and was told that the manager still was not there. I walked around a little longer and came back nearly an hour after my original interview slot and low and behold the manager is just strolling up to the store. She eventually realized that we did have an  appointment and we proceeded to have an interview in the middle of the mall courtyard area. It was already the strangest and probably most unprofessional interview when the interview seemed to switch to less of an interview than a date. It was a total waste of time.

Needless to say after about 45 minutes of odd questions there didn’t even seem to be a part time job in the store. The whole thing was frustrating, and needless to say if I ever need glasses one day, I will not be going to Lens Crappers.

Have an Interview Nightmare you’d like to share with us? Send us your story at [email protected] or send us some tweets #interviewnightmare to @careerpurgatory.