Woke up this morning feeling relatively positive about the interview I was gonna have today, since it was a firm the institute found for me, I thought the chances of me getting hired would be pretty high, even the lady from the institute whom I spoke to a few days ago was quite confident about me getting the job when I asked her about office location.
Even though the office was located all the way at Paya Lebar, I was hoping that they would have other offices scattered around Singapore, since the address written on their website stated a different location, and even referred to that location as it's Headquarters, I thought that the place I was going to be interviewed at was probably the HR and Admin office or something, the place where all the non-design related stuff are done and they would have their design offices at various parts of Singapore with the Headquarter being the office where the big boss works or something.
So after a 2 hour ride to the place, I finally reached the office, and it was in some dingy looking 5 storey building in the middle of Joo Chiat Road that looks a lot smaller than I thought, l didn't even know there were 5 storeys until I actually went into the lift and saw the level 5 button, hell, I didn't even know the building had more than 3 storeys when I first looked it up on Google Maps. In my head, I just pictured all the employees bending over as they are walking about the tiny office.
Headed straight to level 4 and was ushered into the office, which looked like how any office would look, boring. And I asked for this lady called Sophia, because that was the person I was asked to look for during the interview... so I waited for a while while the employee went to look who I thought would be the Sophia person... but No~, instead of getting Sophia, I get this other person who was obviously not a Sophia, unless Sophia was a transgender going through a transition period.
For the purpose of this blog post I shall just call this dude Steven. He never bothered to tell me his name.
So Steven walks up to me and shakes my hand, asking me for my name and ushered me into what I thought was his office. And from the moment I saw Steven, I knew he was one of those people who has what most would call a "resting bitch face".... or maybe he really was being a bitch because for the entire interview, he hardly smiled, he had this disinterested look in his face anytime I was speaking and even when he was speaking, he sounded like he was about to fall asleep.
The first question he ask me when were both seated down at the interview table.
Steven : "What's your name again?" I just fucking told you like less than a minute ago.
Me : "It's Timothy"
Steven "Okay, so how do you spell that?" Normal question I get since most people always spell my name with an extra N for some reason, TimoNthy, which isn't right, like how are you pronouncing my name in your head with that extra N ? I don't get it.
Me : "T I M O..."
*proceeds to write on paper in his atrocious handwriting*
T I N....
Me : "Ummm, it's a M not an N"
*scribbles off N and continues with butchering the spelling of my name*
T I
Me : "It's H Y not H I"
*scribbles off the letter I and butchers my name even more*
T I
That was how he spelled my name, at that end I didn't really bother correcting him anymore because it looked like it wasn't going to be of much help, people usually add an extra "N" in my name and that's as far as the spelling error goes, but this Steven guy manages to mangle it up, because as if having an atrocious handwriting isn't bad enough, he decides to decorate it further with the awful ass scribbling of his. My name on the form that he wrote for me didn't even look like a word anymore, more like the ground where a race of blue aliens were massacred.
At that point in time, I didn't really think too much about his lack of spelling skills or his lack of the basic understanding of phonics because the interview was all about the job, not my name.
So he proceeds to ask me about what I was doing before this and I told him I was working as a baker professionally after I left the army and he decides to ask me.....
Steven : "How's your baking?"
I didn't really see the relevance in that question because the only reason I could think as to why someone would ask that question would be if they were actually genuinely interested in the person's baking or if you were hiring me as a baker, Steven was obviously not interested at all and I am being interviewed for an interior designer position, so I just sat there wondering what I can say to make it short because if you ask me about baking... you are gonna have to be a lot more specific with your questions.
Like what do I bake or how often do I bake ? My skills in baking? Whether I am fast or not or whether or not I tend to over bake or under bake my cakes? PLEASE BE MORE FUCKING SPECIFIC !
So after an awkward few second of realizing that this Steven guy isn't going to continue the interview until I answered the question, I just went..
"Ummm...good I guess? It's edible. Well my boss said my baking speed was great but....." and I just mumbled the rest of my sentence until Steven interjects with another question because I know he wasn't going to stay interested in the topic, or as "interested" as he already wasn't, if I went any longer he would probably just take out a pillow, wrap himself in a blanket, suck his thumb and fall asleep.
He looks down at his paper, looks up again and ask me..
Steven : "What have you been doing after you graduated from Poly? "
Me : " Well I was in the army for 2 years and after which, I decided to explore other career options."
Steven : "So why did you decide to come back to to Interior Design ?
Me : "Well to be honest, it was because the pay wasn't good for the long term"
Steven : "Okay~ But you were the one who made the decision to go into baking right ?"
YES STEVEN I AM THE ONE WHO MADE THE DECISION TO GO INTO BAKING PROFESSIONALLY, BUT THE PAY WASN'T GOOD SO NOW I AM BACK! SO CAN WE CONTINUE THE INTERVIEW WITH YOU NOT SOUNDING LIKE A CONDESCENDING ASSHOLE.
I had to further emphasize how low the pay was and how it wasn't a good long term career for me. He then decides to ask me to rank my software skills from 1 to 10, so I had to remind him that I hadn't been using this software for at least 3 years.
Steven : " Why?"
OMG STEVEN THAT'S BECAUSE I WENT TO THE FUCKING ARMY FOR 2 YEARS AND WAS IN THE F&B INDUSTRY FOR ONE YEAR. What the fuck am I suppose to do with those software? Bake a cake with it? Stop asking me so many stupid fucking questions!
It's like a parent telling their kid not to touch any apples because they are infested with bugs and then the kid goes... "Oh but can I eat them?" I have been a baker for the past half a year, I have no use for the software, connect the fucking dots dude.
After rating my software skills, I felt like I have to give a disclaimer to Steven...
Me : "The reason why I am not so good at the software is because as you know I haven't been using them for a while now, my skills are a bit rusty, and I am hoping that by entering the design institute, it will help me with getting used to the software again."
...and instead of nodding his head and understanding my reasons for the mediocre ratings I gave myself, he goes...
Steven "Yeah, so how does the institute work? I'm not too sure about it?"
Are you fucking kidding me? You are the one who requested my resume from the design institute and you don't know how they work?
Me : "Well I called the institute up a few days ago and they told me that we will have about 2 days worth of lessons every week blah blah blah" Information you should know when you decided to find employees through the institute's candidate's database.
Steven : "So how much are you expecting in terms of salary then."
Me : "For starting pay I am looking somewhere around $1800 ?" My original asking price I had written in the resume was $2000, so I have already reduced the asking salary by quite a bit.
Steven : " $1800? And you will only be working for us 3 days a week" *looks up to me with a "are you fucking kidding me" face*
In my mind, I was thinking $1800 does sound quite high if I were to working only 3 days a week, so I was waiting for him to set a quote for me and just looked back at him, waiting for him to recover from his disbelief, but he just kept looking at me waiting for me to reply back.
It's very obvious he thinks my pay is high, but what was he expecting the scenario to play out be like...
Me "Oh yeah, okay why not $1700, cheap cheap, no where else can get this price"
Steven : " $1500 my offer!"
Me : "$1650! Very low already, no where else can find so cheap"
Steven : "$1600 Final Offer!"
Me : "Okay. Set! $1600 it is."
This isn't a fucking night market, and even if it was, if you think my asking pay is too high, then set a quote so we can discuss further, what the fuck am I suppose to do if you just keep staring at me, have a discussion with myself about how low of a pay I can settle for?
I just smiled at him and when he realized that I wasn't going to give any other response other than my stupid smile, he looked down at the paper, looked up at me and said...
"We will have to discuss this with the management..."
Yeah, discuss all you want because I am no longer interested in working for your fucking company. I had initially thought that Steven was the boss because when he ushered me into the interview room, I thought it was his own office, but after seeing how unprepared he was for the interview and how "knowledgeable' he was with the institute, I have come to the conclusion that he is just a foreigner hired by the boss to do renderings, he can't even spell my name without butchering it, and it's not just my name he can't spell, he even spelled the bakery I worked at wrongly.
So after that he gets up from his seat and sends me out, normally at the end of the interview, it's always the interviewee's time to ask question, he doesn't even bother with that... there wasn't any...
"So before we end this, do you have any questions regarding our company?"
None of that, just gets up, shakes my hand and shows me the way out. All that happened within a 5 minutes time span. The interview was suppose to start at 10.30 am.... I remember looking at the time as I was entering the building, it was around 10.21 am. When I came out of the interview room and was heading to the ground level of the building, it was just nice 10.30 am. The whole interviewed ended on the time it was suppose to start.
I traveled 2 hours just to get interviewed by the boss's lackey who doesn't know shit, doesn't even bother to introduce the company to me at all in the beginning, because most of the other firms I have went to get interviewed at usually, after asking me to introduce myself and present my portfolio, would in turn show me their portfolio and talk about their company and their working style, this guy just fucks all, brought his cheat sheet interview paper into the interview room and that was it.
Fuck You. I did not travel 2 fucking hours from Bukit Timah to Paya Lebar so I could be a practice interview for one of your resting bitch face employee. Oh and I also asked about the different address location on their website right before the interview ended because I thought it was their main headquarters, I was wrong, they aren't that big of a company, they were just too fucking lazy to update the address on their website, just like how the boss was too lazy to interview me and instead sends her employee who's too lazy to do any preparation for the interview he has carried out today.
It was a pure waste of time. Left a really really bad first impression, in fact they weren't even the one who emailed me about the interview, it was the institute who acted as the middleman, so prior to today's interview, I have never spoken to or exchanged email with any of the employees there. They have no Facebook page so I couldn't get any more information from them apart from their shitty website which they obviously never bother to update.
If you are planning to hire new employees through your website's career page, at least update your company's fucking address so people can actually make a proper and informed decisions about whether or not the company is right for them location wise.
Their old location was at City Hall and their new undisclosed location is at Joo Chiat road, that's how far the new location is to the old one.
All I can say to the company is....
That's F U C K Y O U you illiterate twat and your shitty ass design company.
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