Yawning? Are you four?

Have you ever talked to someone for the first time and immediately disliked everything about him/her?

No?

Do my job, and you'll quickly become familiar with that kind of situation.

I hit a new PR (that would be a Personal Record) of twenty-four seconds recently. Yep, twenty-four seconds into a phone conversation, I decided I liked absolutely nothing about the guy on the other end of the line. Nothing. And the longer the conversation went on, the more he pissed me off.

Now, why would I waste my time by continuing a conversation with a guy when I knew I wasn't going to hire him? Because I'm petty, that's why. Because I wanted to waste as much of his time as he was wasting mine.

Oh, and because I felt like collecting a story that I could rage to others about at a later date.

I'd first like to preface this story by telling you this happened around noon (and no, I was not hangry, though that can and does happen). The dude calls in to follow up on his application and was yawning--yes, yawning--throughout the entire fourteen-minute interview. There was no, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry" or "My apologies, I worked an overnight shift last night but wanted to make sure I reached out to you today to follow up" kind of an excuse for the yawning. And it wasn't a quiet yawn. No, it was the obnoxious loud yawn that someone does to ensure everyone around them knows they're yawning. Like a child. Like an entitled man-child. Which is way worse.

1. First off, why are you tired? You don't have a job.

2. Second, it's noon. Stop. It’s the time of day where even if you DID work night shift doing God knows what, you would have been able to get a solid five hours of sleep in before your interview.

3. Third, if you were actually serious about getting a job, it doesn’t matter if you were tired or not, you sure as hell wouldn’t be obnoxiously yawning throughout.

Anyway, I was immediately irritated with this guy when he let out several large, casual yawns in the first twenty seconds. I almost asked him if he'd like to call me back to continue our discussion when he wasn't so tired to carry on a conversation without the yawning interruptions, but I was already too irritated to bother offering him the option. If I'm going to be irritated, let's go the distance.

Let's discuss his work history. He said he left Job X "about 2 years ago." (my math puts that sometime in 2021) but, interestingly, he worked there for "about four years" and his resume indicated he started Job X in 2019. I ask him to verify the year he started: 2019 (yawn). I tell him that 2019 to 2021 is two years, but he was adamant that he was there for four years (yawn). I'm all about engaging this guy, so I politely explain that, if he left a job two years ago, that would be 2021, and if he started in 2019, he could not have possibly worked at Job X for four years. He then changes his story to leaving in 2022 (yawn).

Mind you, that still doesn't equal four years, but whatever.

I ask him if he was working at Job X and Job Y at the same time since his resume placed him at Job Y the same time that he was working at Job X if he was, truly, working at Job X until 2022.

Yep, he was working both jobs at the same time (yawn).

Alright, sure. Sometimes people need to work two jobs. I can have sympathy for that. What about Job Z that also happened to be listed during the same timeframe as Job X and Y?

Oh, oops. Not sure what happened there. There’s probably a mistake somewhere on the resume (yawn).

I guess there is, buddy. I guess there is.

After he starts getting a bit miffed about me drilling into his work history, I decide it's time to move on. We get into the open-ended questions phase of the interview: the tell-me-about-yourself bit.  

• When asked to describe the training he received during his last job, he said he didn't need any training because he already knew it all (yawn).

• He has never faced a single challenge at any one of his jobs because he could do it all (yawn). Not one! Can you believe it? Me, either.

• I asked him to briefly describe what assets he would bring to a company should they choose to hire him and learn that he "can do anything, you know, that kind of stuff" (yawn).

We wrapped the interview, wherein I lied and told him that I would send his information over to the supervisor for consideration. If the supervisor was interested, we would reach out to schedule an interview. Have a nice day.

I ended the call and promptly notated all the reasons why I wasn't going to hire him. Perhaps I was a wee bit hangry at that point because I ran out of comment space in the box where we type our notes, and it sounded a bit like a rant by the time I was done. Hmm. Oh, well.

Have fun in your job search, dude. Don't bother resubmitting an application with us because I put you on our blacklist.