Why Didn’t I Lie?

Photo by Jaanus Jagomägi on Unsplash

Interviews should be a meeting of minds. A decision about the future of a company, and one particular individual.

I don’t believe that for a second. An interview is an individual and a company trying to tell the other party what they want to hear whether that is true or not.

Now I need to ask myself the question. Why didn’t I lie?

The Question

“How long would it take you to get into the office?”

I get that interviews aren’t about radical honesty. They’re about “strategic narrative alignment” which effectively means lying in the way everyone expects. Yet I wanted to be compliant and show that I want to do well in the position. The job was pitched as remote and I wanted to show that I’d be a good fit in the office. So, when I got asked in the final interview where I lived, I decided to be relentlessly positive.

“I’m about 40 minutes from the office, so going in is no problem”

The interview went on with the usual set of technical and behavioral questions. It went well, and I was lucky enough to be offered a position.

I felt lucky, especially as I’d been recently laid off and frankly needed a job.

The Offer

I got the typical phone call from the recruiter. They wanted to proceed with an offer, and was I still interested? Certainly. They would email the contract over and we would be able to talk through the offer.

I looked through the final contract. I’m required to come in twice a week. Not optional. In fact, there is a clause that if I don’t come in twice a week they will hold back 10% of my salary.

The company policy was that if you are further than 50 miles from the office you will have a remote contract. They tore up this policy, just for me. Everyone else got to stay fully remote. It probably goes without saying that the door-to-door transit time for me was a little over an hour a day.

Hmm

When you have a remote gig it gives you a number of advantages. You don’t need to wake up so early in the morning. You don’t get stuck in traffic. You also get time as your own. Plus the money, because of course the remuneration wasn’t changed for this variance in conditions for me.

This little bespoke clause was a handcrafted, artisanal condition just for me. I had unlocked a unique punishment tier in the employment game. My reward for being a trustworthy grown-up? Less flexibility, more commuting.

A Decision

The office isn’t a hive of production and collaboration, at least for me. When I’ve worked in an office typically no-one else is around when I’m there. There might be a plush table tennis table but frequently there is no-one in my team to play with. The place typically has all the atmosphere of a ghost town.

When a colleague wanders around with their microwaved fish it feels like a real morale booster.

It’s actually worse. The time spent commuting is time that I’m unable to work, and when I commute, I feel unable to give that little bit extra in time or effort. 

Learn the Lesson

This was the final interview. In all of the previous interviews, they’d spoken about the company policy of fully remote contracts if you were further than 50 miles from the office.

I thought that I was safe, and being positive was the most important thing.

I mean, how stupid can you be? So, lesson learned. Next time I’m asked about my commute, I’ll say, “Oh, it’s about four hours” I’ll tell them the Wi-Fi is good for calls and see if they’re happy with that.

Because apparently, if you want to keep your job remote, the worst thing you can do is tell the truth.

Conclusion

Although I had been laid off and really needed a job, I got lucky. I was at the final interview stage with a couple of other companies, and this gave me some power.

I could have negotiated the offer. I could have asked for it to be remote, but I felt the idea of fining employees for not coming into the office was a red flag. 

Then those other offers started to come through. But that’s a blog post for another day.