I wanted to share this brief post about quite possibly the worst interview I have ever had. For some very important context, this interview was only about 30 minutes long, and it took place at a daycare. Here is a short bulleted list of occurences that happened in again, only a half-hour long span of time.
– As soon as I was coming in, a very exhausted, disheveled looking woman came up to the director asking for a transfer to a different room because, and I quote, “they just broke me.”
– They are a “corporate-owned daycare.” She referred to parents of children as “customers.”
– Because they are “corporate-owned,” I absolutely have to work 8 hours a day 5 days a week. Zero four-day workweeks. The owner whom I interviewed with tried to spin this as them wanting us to “be there and be consistent for the children” but I feel like a lot of it was just them trying to work all of their employees as much as humanly possible (daycares are not open on weekends, which is probably the only reason that we don't have a 7-day workweek).
– Even after the interview that I got after APPLYING on Indeed, they also wanted me to submit an application on their website, email the director 3 references, AND do 2 days of unpaid training assuming I get the job before I see a cent.
– Would not actually tell me what my pay would be. She said “within less than a year” it would “probably be around 14 to 15 dollars.”
– Would not actually tell me what age group I would be put with. For teachers, it's very vital to know how old the children you're working with will be, as ages of kids in daycares can range from a few months old to 10yrs, sometimes older.
– Actively encouraged coming into work sick. She said something like “If you're feverish and vomiting, obviously don't come in. But if you have a head cold? You can come in.”
As for the last point specifically, I cannot even explain how fucked up that is to say. A “head cold” can become MUCH worse for babies, toddlers, preschoolers etc. YOU CAN KILL BABIES BY WILLINGLY AND KNOWINGLY EXPOSING THEM TO ILLNESS. Illness does NOT affect adults the same way as it does little ones, they can get severely sick and even die and it is so fucked up to literally encourage teachers to come in sick and expose extremely vulnerable parts of the population to sicknesses that their immune systems might not be able to handle.
I didn't like where the interview was going for certain parts already, especially with the lack of even a possibility of a four-day workweek, but hearing the director of the school encourage someone to come into work sick during the first interview absolutely sold me on the fact that I would not work here in a billion years, nor would I ever want to send a child here. Despite their request for follow-ups, I did not email the director or log onto their site.