I Dodged a Bullet
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague of mine this week, "Hsu". He's a fellow solutions architect. We overlapped briefly at another small software company three years ago. Now we're coworkers again. We get along well. I helped him ramp up at that other employer when he hired on; now he's helping me ramp up here.
Hsu and I caught up over lunch, talking about what we'd each been doing professionally the past few years. Hsu has been with this company for a few years. "A few years minus approximately 5 weeks," he noted.
"Five weeks," I asked. "What happened?"
Hsu explained that he left to take a job at another company. The place was a nightmare. He quit after a month and came back here to get rehired.
"It must have been a bad place. Are you comfortable telling me about it?"
When Hsu named the company the conversation got really interesting. It turns out I know a bit about that company and its executives. I interviewed with them back in May. It's the company that called me "too assertive" and "confrontational".
I told Hsu briefly about the interview with the braggart and the non-sensical, lying followup. "Oh, man," he said after hearing my story. "You dodged a bullet."
Five Things I learned from chatting with Hsu:
1) The founder is a pariah to many tech leaders in his area of expertise. He presents himself as the sole creator of an open source tool that- like most open source projects- was the work of many contributors. (Understand that in open source there's rarely actual pay. Authors benefit from recognition. A person who steals credit is thus stealing the open source world's primary currency.)
2) The founder is a nut-job about security. When someone in the office had to go to the bathroom, they were required to log out completely from their machines- not just password lock the screen- and then lock the machine in a metal cabinet before leaving the office suite. ...Just for a trip down the hall to the toilet!
3) The founder thinks nothing of lying to employees and violating written agreements. The primary reason Hsu decided to leave was the boss reneging on critical terms agreed to in writing in Hsu's offer letter. At least one other person hired around the same time also decided to quit when the boss reneged on terms in his written offer.
4) The head of product who lied that I "attacked" him (verbally) during an interview hates sales people. Hate, hates, hates them beyond any ability to reason. Of course, I presented myself as a seasoned technical sales professional who would apply those skills to help advance their company. So in his mind I probably don't just "pick fights with coworkers" but also steal candy from babies and kick puppies.
5) The head of product is also a raving narcissist. He routinely monologues about how he's smarter, wiser, and more successful than everyone else in his role, and he hates being interrupted. Of course, I interrupted him several times during our interview.... Well, "interrupt" is too strong a term. I took advantage of momentary pauses in his soliloquy to a) agree with him about his opinions in his area of expertise and b) describe, constructively, how my professional skills aligned with that. I was the candidate in the job interview so the conversation needed to be partly about me. But the fact that I forced in words edgewise surely made him hate me.
At the time, after the interviews, I felt bummed about the negative feedback. Especially as the recruiter grilled me about what happened I spent a hot minute of soul searching to gauge whether I'd legitimately done something wrong. The absurdity of the feedback gave me a sense that I did myself a favor by playing myself during the interview and getting rejected. Now, having talked to Hsu, I see that I totally dodged a bullet.
Hsu and I caught up over lunch, talking about what we'd each been doing professionally the past few years. Hsu has been with this company for a few years. "A few years minus approximately 5 weeks," he noted.
"Five weeks," I asked. "What happened?"
Hsu explained that he left to take a job at another company. The place was a nightmare. He quit after a month and came back here to get rehired.
"It must have been a bad place. Are you comfortable telling me about it?"
When Hsu named the company the conversation got really interesting. It turns out I know a bit about that company and its executives. I interviewed with them back in May. It's the company that called me "too assertive" and "confrontational".
I told Hsu briefly about the interview with the braggart and the non-sensical, lying followup. "Oh, man," he said after hearing my story. "You dodged a bullet."
Five Things I learned from chatting with Hsu:
1) The founder is a pariah to many tech leaders in his area of expertise. He presents himself as the sole creator of an open source tool that- like most open source projects- was the work of many contributors. (Understand that in open source there's rarely actual pay. Authors benefit from recognition. A person who steals credit is thus stealing the open source world's primary currency.)
2) The founder is a nut-job about security. When someone in the office had to go to the bathroom, they were required to log out completely from their machines- not just password lock the screen- and then lock the machine in a metal cabinet before leaving the office suite. ...Just for a trip down the hall to the toilet!
3) The founder thinks nothing of lying to employees and violating written agreements. The primary reason Hsu decided to leave was the boss reneging on critical terms agreed to in writing in Hsu's offer letter. At least one other person hired around the same time also decided to quit when the boss reneged on terms in his written offer.
4) The head of product who lied that I "attacked" him (verbally) during an interview hates sales people. Hate, hates, hates them beyond any ability to reason. Of course, I presented myself as a seasoned technical sales professional who would apply those skills to help advance their company. So in his mind I probably don't just "pick fights with coworkers" but also steal candy from babies and kick puppies.
5) The head of product is also a raving narcissist. He routinely monologues about how he's smarter, wiser, and more successful than everyone else in his role, and he hates being interrupted. Of course, I interrupted him several times during our interview.... Well, "interrupt" is too strong a term. I took advantage of momentary pauses in his soliloquy to a) agree with him about his opinions in his area of expertise and b) describe, constructively, how my professional skills aligned with that. I was the candidate in the job interview so the conversation needed to be partly about me. But the fact that I forced in words edgewise surely made him hate me.
At the time, after the interviews, I felt bummed about the negative feedback. Especially as the recruiter grilled me about what happened I spent a hot minute of soul searching to gauge whether I'd legitimately done something wrong. The absurdity of the feedback gave me a sense that I did myself a favor by playing myself during the interview and getting rejected. Now, having talked to Hsu, I see that I totally dodged a bullet.