The Worst Job Interview
I talk about my next Realms of Pugmire book, "The Thursday Murder Club," and the worst job interview I ever had.
Let me tell you about the worst job interview I ever had.
First, some caveats:
It’s about institutional ableism, so if you’re not into that, feel free to jump ahead to the News section;
I won’t be naming the company in question, because this isn’t about naming and shaming—the only parts that matter are that it was a US-based video game company that wasn’t in Atlanta (as those parts are relevant to why I’m telling this story)
It was twelve years ago, so I suspect none of the people involved are still working there anyway
The year was 2014, and I had just been laid off from CCP after the World of Darkness MMO had been cancelled (which is itself a funny-sad story I’m always happy to tell in person), so I was applying at video game jobs all over the world. One of them was for a technical documentation job. That was a bit outside my usual skill set, but it was an interesting slant on the job, and I wasn’t too fussy, so I decided to give a shot.
The process got all the way to the point where the management wanted to fly me out for a day of in-person interviews with various managers and key personnel. There were enough interviews scheduled that they paid for a nearby hotel room and taxi rides. Although it was never said, I assumed I would also likely be having a meal with some of the potential colleagues, as that’s pretty typical in these kinds of all-day interview processes. All in all, it felt like they were really keen on hiring me, so I was excited and nervous about it.
I went to the site, met up with the HR person who was helping to coordinate the interviews, and we chatted for a bit. Then they led me to the interview room, asked me if I wanted a drink (they didn’t have any tea, so I accepted some water), and three interviewers came in.
It started with the usual warm-up chat. While I am an introvert, I have learned the art of casual, non-threatening chat. I’m not great at it, but I understand its role as social lubricant, and as I said, I was excited at the prospect. They asked about things like my ride over and the weather.
Then one of them pointed to the hearing aid streamer around my neck, and asked what it was. I’m always happy to talk about my assistive devices, so I said “Oh, it’s for my hearing aids. It allows me to connect my phone to them, and I can do all sorts of things.”
Before I could finish explaining how cool it was, he stood up and walked out of the room.
Another one of the interviewers explained they can’t legally ask about my disability. I said that was okay, not only because they didn’t ask me about my disability (they asked about a device), but also I felt it was good for them to know about my disability if we were going to work together.
Another one of them suddenly got a phone call on his (not ringing) phone, made an excuse, and also left.
At this point, it was pretty clear how this was going to go, but the final interviewer went through the motions. After that, I was scheduled for more interviews, but the HR person came and collected me. They brought be back to their office, and we talked more about the position. I brought up the point about my disability, and she reiterated the line of how they legally couldn’t ask me about it (even though I was the one who was repeatedly volunteering the information).
I left the building a few hours after I arrived, with no meal and a lot of time to kill before my flight home.
At the time, I just chalked it up as a weird experience, and probably a bullet I dodged, because if management were going to be that weird about it, I didn’t want to work there. But over the years that interview has stuck in my mind, because it was a prime example at how a law designed to protect me ended up making me feel like less of a person.
As an aside, the people in the interview were technically correct. As I understand it, the Americans with Disabilities Act does say employers cannot ask about the existence or severity of a disability before making a job offer. However, it also says employers can discuss the need for reasonable accommodations, and that the questions should focus on my ability to do the job instead of my disability.
None of that happened, though. The question came out, and the interview was immediately shut down. Because here’s the thing: companies don’t care about disabled people. It’s about protecting the company from liability.
While no one ever confirmed this, I know enough about how companies work to suspect the reason everyone bailed on the interview was for damage control. They thought I would attempt to sue the company, so they shut down any opportunities for me to create a scenario where the company can be held liable for discrimination. The safest course is to never have the conversation, and since no job was offered, they can’t be accused of discriminating because of my disability.
Except for the minor fact that I didn’t get the interview because of my disability.
Again, I don’t want to name and shame, because it wouldn’t matter. All companies do this. And as my assistive devices get more and more prominent, it’s harder and harder to dodge the issue. Plus, I shouldn’t have to fake not being disabled until I pass an arbitrary legal threshold where I’m suddenly allowed to admit my disability.
To be fair, it hasn’t happened since. It was twelve years ago, I live in another country now (with somewhat better laws around this), and US companies have taken the mask off and stopped pretending to care about inclusivity anyway. So why bring it up now?
Because it’s important for abled people to understand that you can’t just point to a law and say “there, you’re covered.” Malicious compliance might be compliance, but it’s also, you know, malicious. And even well-intentioned liberal people can fuck this up, because capitalism sucks and in the end they need their jobs just as much as we need ours.
I don’t have an answer. (I rarely do in these newsletters, it seems.) But it’s good for everyone to be aware that these things happen, and they happened long before Trump’s America was around. It’s easy to blame one politician and think once you get rid of them, these problems will go away. They won’t. But we can be better people and find a better balance between what we’re legally required to do and what’s the right thing to do.
News
Let’s talk about psychic rodents! In case you hadn’t heard, the next book for Realms of Pugmire will be Lair of the Rat Kings. It’s a large underground adventure sandbox thing with loads of information about playing mice and rats to boot. Some of the first drafts are filtering into my Dropbox as we speak, and if the discussions the freelancers have been having on our private Discord are any indication, there’s some really fun stuff in the works.
In the world of things you can buy right now, I was the developer of the first Tasty Bit of the year, Massive Monsters! These are short PDFs designed to be easy to buy and easy to use, and this year all of them will be focused on ways to add more to the upcoming Storypath Ultra Core Manual. I’m juggling a few of these monthly releases right now (including writing one myself), and I’m really enjoying working on these small-but-punchy mechanical bits.
In news that doesn’t directly involve me, my dear friend Danielle Lauzon has released her first self-published game, Tabloid Talk Show. I watched a playtest of this years ago, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. If you’ve ever wanted to put together your own late-90s trashy talk show, now’s your chance! It’s a great live-action party experience, and I highly recommend folks check it out.
Finally, my actual play with Red Moon Roleplaying is getting close to 50 episodes!
My Media
I need to make a confession. Despite being the kind of nerd that loves science fiction, fantasy, and comic books, I also love mystery novels. For most of my life I’ve read not only a huge amount of Sherlock Holmes tales, but a lot of the so-called “hard boiled” crime and mystery novels. But despite being very knowledgeable about the “cozy” mysteries of writers like Agatha Christie, I had never actually read any. I didn’t think I would like them.
Then I saw the Knives Out movies, which led me to actually reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (which has an amazing twist that somehow had not been spoiled for me), which led to The Thursday Murder Club.
Now, depending on where you’re reading this, you might be having one of two reactions. If you’re in most of the world, you’re likely going “huh?” or maybe “Oh, the Netflix movie?” If you live in the UK, however, you’re probably rolling your eyes and going “oh god not another person talking about The Thursday Murder Club.”
Because you have to understand: Here in the UK, these books are a juggernaut. When a new book comes out, there are posters on the Tube about it. The BBC will find a way to cram a reference to it in their reporting. Bookstores will have stacks and stacks and stacks of them, and they will have to replace those stacks every day or so. Hell, a recent spin-off Doctor Who audio I listened to made a joke about “the bloke who writes the murder books.” It’s rapidly becoming an institution.
They’re also weirdly good. And I do mean weirdly.
The author, Richard Osman, is a comedian and TV presenter, and he never wrote a novel before The Thursday Murder Club. And as someone who has had to work with people on their first pieces of fiction, it shows (even though their editors do seem to have done a great job). There are a few too many characters, it jumps viewpoint a bit too often, for some reason one viewpoint is a first-person diary while the rest are third-person experiences, and the actual mysteries (there are three, depending on how you count them) are a muddle. It should be exactly the kind of book I read, go “well, you tried,” and find a charity shop to donate it too.
But the characters are good. It’s a strange blend of puzzle box mystery (i.e. how did they kill that person?) and hard-boiled mystery (i.e. why did they kill that person?) I’m being reductive, because there’s a lot of nuance in the 150 years of mystery genre evolution, but what it boils down to is that the book jumps between character and plot at an almost frenetic pace, which does lead to an avalanche of character names and events, but it makes the 400+ pages go by in a flash. The mysteries are sufficiently outré and compelling, the characters are enjoyably flawed and entertaining, and the prose clips along.
It’s also unapologetically British, so for me there’s an additional thrill at understanding references like listening to the shipping forecast and shopping at Waitrose.
Anyhow, I’ve already started the second book (The Man Who Dies Twice), and it’s clear Osman learned a lot from his first book, so I’m really looking forward to reading the next four.
Hell, these media segments in my newsletters can’t all be about nerdy games and TV I watch, okay?
Anyhow, I really need to find out what happens to Elizabeth’s ex-husband, so I’ll end it there. See you next time!