Time for a change
The latest performance review confirms what you already knew. There is no future for you here. No vindication. No recognition. Only a quiet death of a thousand cuts.
Your manager used the word “alignment” seven times. That was new.
You close the tab.
You open LinkedIn, and force yourself to the icon you’ve always tried to ignore. The unknown lands marked only as Jobs. You tell yourself it’s just to look.
Then somewhere on page 3 - jackpot! A position at that cool new office across town. Stock photo professionals beam at you from a rooftop barbecue, promising fulfillment, foosball tournaments, equity, and a dog-friendly office. Didn’t they land that client that you so desperately wanted last year?
What’s this? They’re looking for someone like you.
No - exactly like you.
“I would rock their world… and - wait - are they just putting salaries in job posts now? A 20% bump. I’d be stupid not to.”
You hover over the Apply now! button.
But you hesitate.
Your cursor lingers.
You remember the last one. The 9-stage circus. The take-home project that was never acknowledged. The interview where someone asked you to “just brainstorm, like, a new product.”
You remember smiling. You remember crying. You remember the cheese-eating grin of the founder’s son announcing an “exciting new opportunity” the very next week.
But still…
Maybe this time.
The Gauntlet
You’re redirected to a site that looks like purgatory.
Bland. Impersonal.
Devoid of… anything.
In clinical terms, it asks you to upload your resume.
You comply - dragging in the PDF you finished only moments ago, that spookily matches the job description exactly.
“God, I hope nobody checks the creation time.”
The spinner races with the delusion that it’s deciding the fate of the universe.
It’s not.
A form appears, pre-populated with a blind man’s best efforts of using a keyboard for the first time.
You correct your name.
Your address.
Where you went to school.
And then, everything else too.
Success!
Your submission is complete.
And just like that, your self-worth has entered the pipeline.
Now, if you’ve got “just five more minutes,” why not answer some extra questions? You know, for fun - it’s definitely not a test.
What attracts you to this company?
Certainly not your debt, your crippling anxieties, or fear of being found dead in a WeWork bathroom.
Now you wait. Endlessly. Pointlessly. Heroically.
A week goes by. Then an email:
They’re excited to meet you!
Book a 30-minute screener with HR!
Presumably to prove you’re not a sociopath.
As if a sociopath couldn’t fake it for 30 minutes.
But isn’t that, exactly what a sociopath would say?
Your week’s a little full. You suggest Thursday. Maybe Friday.
The system books you a slot on Thursday… two weeks from now.
You accept your fate. Like a good applicant.
The first screen went well - Mandy, a cheerful recruiter confirming you’re not (completely) unhinged (yet) and can speak in complete sentences.
Now you’ve been invited to the real test: the technical screen.
“Nothing too hard,” they say.
“No surprises. Should be a piece of cake for someone with your experience.”
You take an early lunch and log onto a sneaky Zoom that somehow failed to appear on your work calendar.
You meet Dmitri.
Dmitri appears annoyed by your daring to be alive.
“You are familiar with the XYZ language, yes?”
It’s the first word on your resume. Ten years of experience.
Surely this won’t be an issue.
The interview consists of two questions.
First:
“How would you compare two lists?”
Easy. Though, let’s be honest - comparing lists is something you’ve never actually needed to do in real life.
You fumble slightly.
Dmitri doesn’t break his dead-eyed stare.
Second:
“Now, what if both lists were infinite, filled with streaming prime numbers, in n-dimensional space, during a solar flare… and you only had a Casio watch?”
Dmitri’s mouth twitches.
“Well, that’s all we have time for.”
And just like that, he’s gone - leaving you to stare into your own vacant video feed as Zoom confirms
“You are alone - no one else is here.”
Tuesday. Mandy’s back.
Peppy. Buzzing.
“Dmitri was impressed.”
Dmitri is never impressed.
They’re now considering you for a more senior role.
They just want to see how you’d handle a real-world scenario.
It’s a “light” take-home exercise.
Shouldn’t take more than 90 minutes.
“We know everyone’s busy - jobs, kids, commitments… just take a crack and send it over when you can!”
The brief is sixteen pages.
The scenario is disturbingly familiar:
A product launch imploding.
Teams at war.
Tech debt with the gravity of a second mortgage.
In the old days, you’d be checking the binder for the last page,
flipping over the last page to see if it printed double-sided.
There is no final page.
No ask.
Just pain.
You could ask Mandy for clarification.
But then you remember you told her in round one:
“I thrive in ambiguity.”
“I relish a challenge.”
Damn it! Why the hell did you say that?
You sigh. Crack your knuckles.
And start fixing something no one asked you to fix.
Mandy’s excited. Too excited.
“Your take-home was amazing - it was even shown to the VP!”
Now it’s time to meet the team.
They call it The Panel.
Capital T, capital P.
It sounds like an honor.
It feels like sentencing.
You say “Let’s set it up”.
Because what else can you say?
Zoom opens. The power imbalance is immediate.
Bob wears a white collar, blue shirt and tie like it’s still 1997.
He makes a joke about the weather.
Laughter follows - half-hearted, like bonuses depend on it.
Bob apologizes. He can’t stay for the full 90 minutes.
Wait - ninety?
Your invite said sixty.
The interrogation begins.
Most are clearly multitasking.
Others are clearly unqualified.
A product manager says: “Tell us a little about yourself.”
A developer frowns: “You mentioned Kafka. We use RabbitMQ.”
After 20 minutes, questions echo around the room with deja-vu that makes Groundhog Day look quaint.
This isn’t about insight.
This is about obedience.
Silence.
A week passes. You finally break and message Mandy.
“A lot of exceptional applicants. Just a few more interviews to wrap up.”
Other applicants.
You expected it.
But it still stings.
You can feel your ego protect itself as history starts being rewritten.
You didn’t really want it.
Your current job isn’t that bad.
They were always going to lowball the offer anyway.
You haven’t waited this long for anything since Pokemon Gold.
Then - your phone rings.
Mandy.
A phone call?
Who does that?
The committee has met.
They’ve chosen.
You were “the one” all along.
Just a bit of paperwork to go.
Formalities.
Offer letter soon.
Welcome to the loop.
“One of Us”
“Welcome to the team. We’re so excited to start this next chapter with you.”
You got the offer.
Of course you did.
All that effort. All that suffering. The 8 rounds of interviews, the take-home project, the three-week delay because the CTO was on vacation. Worth it. Just demonstrating your character.
They said you asked the right questions. That you handled the ambiguity well. That you showed “grit.” You smiled when they said that. You’d never felt so validated.
They invite you to orientation. There’s an attached pre-read PowerPoint.
Then comes the usual Slack invites and 43 pages of legalese from HR to read and sign your life away (“Don’t worry, all standard stuff.”)
Blain, the intern hovers nervously - assessing whether he should orbit in your gravity.
Then something new:
“Hi! Just letting you know we’ve added you to the hiring loop.”
A SharePoint administrator deems you worthy to access The Spreadsheet.
The Spreadsheet has names.
Scores.
Vague notes like “asked about vacation” and “smiled weird?”
You understand the game in an instant.
You don’t hesitate.
You update the sheet.
You schedule a tech screen.
You see that they are the same timezone as you.
Excellent.
7 AM it is.
In 3 weeks.
Do they need a seventh round interview?
Of course they do. It helps us calibrate.
It tests emotional range.
Repeat questions.
Contradict previous interviewers.
Internally, they call it The Gauntlet.
You call it… fun.
You start running side bets with the other interviewers.
“Five bucks says this one cries during the behavioural screen.”
“Ten if they still thank us at the end.”
You get good.
Too good.
You begin to forget what it was like to apply.
All you know is the rush.
A new application rolls in.
Stanford. McKinsey.
Father’s a partner at a VC fund - ooh! But not a good one.
Perfect.
You schedule them a technical screen in round 1.
Then jump them to round 4.
Then back to round 2.
Then the technical screen again.
Just to see if they notice,
to see if they’ll say anything.
You lean back.
You smile.
God, I love recruiting.
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