Interviewer playing mind games?
When I was younger, I used to read stories (fictional & non-fictional) about people in hiring positions doing "creative" interview work like that & always enjoy the warm-fuzzies from them. Then I got a job managing a pizza restaurant. I cared about exactly 3 things on a daily basis:
1. Did you show up?
2. Did you show up
on time?
3. Did you DO something?
Most job positions just require a warm body capable of delivering on the required tasks consistently. Some jobs have rockstars (Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, etc.) but mostly it's just plug & chug across the board. Some of the best workers I know would fail every single one of these little mind-game tests, especially for people like me who are on the spectrum & have things like ADHD, Autism, etc. Those types of stories tend to judge people on the wrong characteristics required for having a good employee!
Because what people
need is steady income & access to healthcare. Businesses need to make money to survive & employees need money to survive. I was just reading this article about how "some Tesla engineers secretly started designing a Cybertruck alternative because they 'hated' it; they didn't want to have anything to do with it":
"They were like, 'You can't be serious.' They didn't want to have anything to do with it," Franz von Holzhausen said, according to Walter Isaacson.
www.autoblog.com
And yet,
people need jobs, so they gotta do what the boss wants if they want to keep their jobs:
"Von Holzhausen, who is as gentle as Musk is brusque, spent time listening carefully to their concerns. 'If you don't have buy-in from the people around you, it's hard to get things done,' he says," Isaacson wrote.
But Musk was "less patient," Isaacson reported, and did not want to hear concerns related to the Cybertruck.
"I don't do focus groups," the CEO said, according to Isaacson.
Rather than focus on adjusting the design, Musk told von Holzhausen that he wanted a driveable version of the vehicle that he could demo at a Tesla event in November, which von Holzhausen said "forced the team to come together, work twenty-four-seven," Isaacson wrote.
Unfortunately, some people in hiring positions (HR people, managers, etc.) like to go on ego-boosting power-trips when hiring people, rather than focusing on getting the right person for the job (i.e. someone who shows up & works consistently, plays nice with others, is in it for the long haul, etc.).