“Working” Interviews

August 8, 2013 · Filed under Uncategorized

It has come to my attention that many employers, during the hiring process, insist on “working” interviews. “What is a working interview?” you may ask, if you, like me, are used to getting something called a “paycheck” in return for labor expended. So I will enlighten you. A working interview is when you go into the employer and perform the job requirements for a certain amount of time for no pay to “prove” that you can do it. Other prospective employees will also be coming in during other time periods to “work” for no pay.

In theory, the person that shows the most amount of work in the least amount of time should get the job. My cynical self (oh, hush!) thinks that usually the job is going to go to the boss’s BFF’s son’s girlfriend regardless of work ethic shown and the other candidates are known as “suckers!” because they’ve expended their time and their money and even taken time off from (paying) jobs in order to compete for free for this position.

I’ve only got one comment about this. WHY, oh, WHY didn’t I think of this scam when I was hiring people? Noooooo, I had to do it the usual way, hiring people the going wage for their expertise in a certain area of construction only to find out, when they arrived to work, that they had never actually SEEN wet concrete before, let alone possessing the skills required for pouring and finishing it. *sigh* “Here’s your hour’s wage. Go away and buy crack.” I often thought that I should just hand out crack and/or marijuana instead of a paycheck and it would be a win/win situation for everybody concerned since their entire paycheck was going to the drug dealers anyway.

This “working interview” thing has potential. For example, if I want veterinary care, I should be able to take Puppy to various veterinarians and have them prove their expertise in Puppy’s medical problems by doing procedures for free so that I can evaluate their work. But wait, there’s more! I might want plastic surgery. Perhaps I can go around to various plastic surgeons, interview them, then schedule free mini procedures for myself while I decide on which one is perfect for youthifying my body. How about restaurants? How do we know whether the food is good if we haven’t eaten there? We need to schedule a time for free appetizers and samples from their menu. I can have housepainters out to paint sections of my house while I decide which company or individual does the best job.

Something tells me that the people that demand free labor from prospective employees wouldn’t be too happy about providing free labor for customers.