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A disorganized interview can tell you everything you need to know about a workplace.
One man realized that while interviewing for a job at a local Harris Teeter.
The manager conducted the entire conversation in a noisy break room while employees constantly interrupted them.
Although the store later offered him the job, he declined and never worked a single shift.
Then, months later, another manager called on Thanksgiving demanding to know why he had not shown up.
Read on to see what happened next.
Manager called to check if I was coming for my shift… I’ve never worked there, lady
When I was in my early 20s, I filled a job application at a local Harris Teeter and was later called for an interview.
I got there and the manager (let’s call her Christie) asks me to follow her to what I thought was gonna be her office. Turns out it wasn’t; it was the employees’ break room. Okay, a bit unorthodox but hey, maybe the office wasn’t available at that moment for whatever reason.
We sat at a huge table and Christie started the interview, but between questions, employees from every department would come in and start asking her questions, or plop down on chairs next to us and start casual non-work related conversations with her, or ask me who I was, lol.
It didn’t take long to figure out what was going on.
It took me all of five minutes to realize that Harris Teeter was chaos central.
As I pondered how much I actually wanted that paycheck, this huge guy built like a fridge literally slams the door open and yells from across the room “YOOOOO, CHRISTIEEE!!!!” and (still mid-interview) Christie yells back “YOOOOO, [guy’s name]” and they have a brief yet loud friendly exchange from opposite sides of the room.
Yeah, I don’t think I want that minimum wage paycheck *this* bad, Christie. Thank you for your time, see you never.
After being offered the job, he declined.
A few days later I was offered the job, but I politely declined and never signed a contract.
Fast forward a few months.
It was Thanksgiving morning and I receive a call from an unknown number. I pick up and the lady on the other end, sounding mighty irritated goes, “Hey [my name], are you going to come to work for your shift today?”
Confused, I ask who’s calling, and she replies “Harris Teeter’s manager, Tracy” (same store, different manager).
Finally, he caught onto what was going on.
It all clicks into place, I chuckle, she huffs in annoyance on the other end of the line, and before she loses it and fires me on the spot from a job I never had because how dare I, I tell her, ”
Oh, I’d love to, Tracy, but I don’t work there. I never have.”
And I hope she guessed the unspoken “and believe me, I never will.”
Boy did I dodge a bullet declining that job offer, lol.
Oh my! They definitely sound pretty chaotic.
Let’s see if the people over at Reddit have experience with the company.
Here’s someone who encountered something similar.
This person has never had that happen.
Now, this is funny.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a researcher who complained about being excluded from a trip only to watch the university cancel the whole thing.
Seriously? No way!
She clearly dodged a bullet by turning down that job.
The chaotic interview gave her a warning, and the Thanksgiving call proved she made the right choice.
After all, a store that schedules someone who never accepted the job probably creates plenty of other problems.
But hey, in the end, at least she got a funny story instead of a miserable shift!