Someone posted earlier about walking out of a job interview and it reminded me of an experience years ago:
I first moved to Houston in 2000 and signed up with a placement agency, someplace inside the loop. First of all, they made me get a suit with a skirt instead of letting me wear my perfectly good–and expensive–pantsuits. A fucking skirt. In the fucking twenty-first century. I should have walked at that point. I swear, moving to Houston was like stepping back in time forty years.
Anyway, so they sent me on this interview. It was a situation where the HR staff member would escort me from office to office where I’d be interviewed by people one after another after another. I started to feel that sense of pervasive doom and gloom coming on, I knew that I didn’t want to work there. When one person said, “okay, let’s take you to see so-and-so,” I interrupted them as politely as I could and asked for the HR staff member. I said to her, “I’m sorry, I don’t think this is going to be a good fit, and continuing with this interview would be a waste of everyone’s time, so I thank you and have a nice day,” or something to that effect. I wasn’t an asshole about it, I just wanted to get the hell out of there. To be clear, nobody was a dick to me that I remember, I just didn’t want that job. Well. Apparently that was a cardinal fucking sin because the placement agency dropped me like a hot potato. I thought my actions were civil and fair under the circumstances. 🤷️