<story><title>Walking out of an interview</title><url>http://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/3492/is-it-rude-to-leave-an-interview-early-if-you-have-already-made-your-decision</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alecco</author><text>I strongly disagree. Perhaps he should have made up an excuse and be less confrontational. But it&apos;s not OK to let people abuse you. If you don&apos;t respect yourself nobody will.</text></item><item><author>patio11</author><text>My answer on this depends on whether we want to be an emotionally supportive group for people who make a badge of honor out of being socially and professionally inept, or whether we want to give advice which will actually move careers forward.&lt;p&gt;A company which is not a cultural good fit for you, and the employees thereof, can &lt;i&gt;still be very valuable allies.&lt;/i&gt;  I would not act to antagonize them absent substantial provocation.  &lt;i&gt;Not being like you is not a substantial provocation.&lt;/i&gt;  Most people in the world will, after all, not be like you, and you&apos;ll end up not working for approximately all companies in the industry.  That&apos;s OK.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;ve already got the day blocked off in your calendar.  Smile.  Firm handshakes.  Thank them for taking the time to interview you.  Heck, they&apos;re giving you free live-fire practice for your next interview, &lt;i&gt;make the most out of it&lt;/i&gt;.  You should never say a word of criticism about the company to anyone but your primary point of contact and you should be darn circumspect with how you word it to him.  (I like something along the general lines of &quot;Thanks for your time and allowing me to get to know $FOO_CORP better.  We&apos;re really in the same boat: I only want to work at employers where I&apos;d do my best work, and you only want to hire people who&apos;d do great things at $FOO_CORP.  Having had the opportunity to hear you guys out a bit more, I don&apos;t think we&apos;re a great mutual fit.  &lt;i&gt;I will keep my ears open for you in case any of my friends would be a good fit for your position.&lt;/i&gt;&quot;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>harryh</author><text>Exactly how was he abused? He lists a few reasons:&lt;p&gt;1)  He was criticized as being wrong for not following very dogmatic principles to the letter of the law.&lt;p&gt;2) He was also concerned that nobody really seemed to care much about his relevant business experience and really only judged him intensely on his programming skills, which he felt was only one aspect of his software development experience.&lt;p&gt;3) It was an open floor plan where everybody wore jeans, t-shirts and sandals.&lt;p&gt;4) The vast majority were in their early 20&apos;s with the oldest person and lead developer being 30.&lt;p&gt;5) They expected him to be involved in side projects and code for fun when he wasn&apos;t in the office.&lt;p&gt;Which of these are really abuse? Only #1 seems in any way negative, and that sounds more like a slightly bad interviewer than any sort of &lt;i&gt;abuse&lt;/i&gt;. Honestly it seems like the OP felt that he was interviewing poorly and decided to walk out instead of being rejected. Now that&apos;s a perfectly natural human response; everyone wants to be in control of their own destiny.&lt;p&gt;But is it a professional response to some sort of abuse? No, it doesn&apos;t really seem like it.</text></comment>
<story><title>Walking out of an interview</title><url>http://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/3492/is-it-rude-to-leave-an-interview-early-if-you-have-already-made-your-decision</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alecco</author><text>I strongly disagree. Perhaps he should have made up an excuse and be less confrontational. But it&apos;s not OK to let people abuse you. If you don&apos;t respect yourself nobody will.</text></item><item><author>patio11</author><text>My answer on this depends on whether we want to be an emotionally supportive group for people who make a badge of honor out of being socially and professionally inept, or whether we want to give advice which will actually move careers forward.&lt;p&gt;A company which is not a cultural good fit for you, and the employees thereof, can &lt;i&gt;still be very valuable allies.&lt;/i&gt;  I would not act to antagonize them absent substantial provocation.  &lt;i&gt;Not being like you is not a substantial provocation.&lt;/i&gt;  Most people in the world will, after all, not be like you, and you&apos;ll end up not working for approximately all companies in the industry.  That&apos;s OK.&lt;p&gt;You&apos;ve already got the day blocked off in your calendar.  Smile.  Firm handshakes.  Thank them for taking the time to interview you.  Heck, they&apos;re giving you free live-fire practice for your next interview, &lt;i&gt;make the most out of it&lt;/i&gt;.  You should never say a word of criticism about the company to anyone but your primary point of contact and you should be darn circumspect with how you word it to him.  (I like something along the general lines of &quot;Thanks for your time and allowing me to get to know $FOO_CORP better.  We&apos;re really in the same boat: I only want to work at employers where I&apos;d do my best work, and you only want to hire people who&apos;d do great things at $FOO_CORP.  Having had the opportunity to hear you guys out a bit more, I don&apos;t think we&apos;re a great mutual fit.  &lt;i&gt;I will keep my ears open for you in case any of my friends would be a good fit for your position.&lt;/i&gt;&quot;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>paganel</author><text>&amp;#62; But it&apos;s not OK to let people abuse you. If you don&apos;t respect yourself nobody will.&lt;p&gt;Plus, it was a one-day interview. I&apos;ve been in job-interviews like this one, where mid-way through the whole thing I was realizing that I would not be a good fit for them, but in my case I could afford to be patient because the interview wasn&apos;t going to last more than a couple of hours anyway. But a one-day thingie where for at least 6 hours I would be reminded of me not being worthy for the guys trying to hire me would utterly depress me. I&apos;m scared shitless of depression (pardon my French), so I&apos;d just run away.&lt;p&gt;And a second thing. Once you get through more things in life which a 20-something man hasn&apos;t confronted yet (divorce, leaving your parents behind etc.) you begin to value honest no-bullshit decisions like this one. There&apos;s no gain in playing actors.</text></comment>