Interviewing for a Job I Don't Want

Post Reply New Topic

I'm interviewing for a job tomorrow. Programming position. I don't really want it but I'll do my best at this thing anyways.

The thing is it's for a Java developer position and the word "Java" scares me. At my prior jobs, (Both Java shops), I learned the hard way the consequences that go with lacking an aptitude for office politics. I've been through the ostracism and managing out stuff. I've been through the situations where I've been benched and they "just couldn't find me a proper project".

On one hand, maybe those places just happened to be Java heavy situations. But it gets difficult sometimes to shake the feeling that maybe certain technology biases tend to attract a certain kind of person. Java feels like a language that best suits those with strong social and political office survival skills.

Those are just my reservations and biases. And, for whatever it's worth, I'm kind of happy with my own projects both with respect to math and Python projects. I'm happy in my little home office because there's no small talk chit chat in the background and I have a door I can close. Being in control of the pace and direction of my endeavors is kind of nice too. I don't really want to give all that up. I know how much I've lost before.

Done ranting for now.

Good luck. I hope you get decent health benefits with this job.

Oh I'm not worried about the health benefits. It's the potential health detriments that make me nervous.

I feel you there. That worry about ending up in an unhealthy environment scared me, too.
Every time I interviewed someplace, I tried to keep an open mind and not give myself an excuse to find something to hate. Sometimes, I could tell people were stressed or not talking to each other, or whispering in little groups. I avoided those places like the plague.

My current company, I watched everyone I walked in. Both floors I was on, people were open and discussing and looked relaxed.
Sure, there's still a little bumping against people, but, nothing that has seemed to fester. My last company was the same, which was why I was so slow to leave.

If I have to leave here, I am sure I will go through that same worry again.
I can't work by myself, though. Even though I hate the cube farm noises and bright lights, I know I am not structured enough to do fulltime work from home (I do enough freelancing to know that about myself). I need the reason to get up at a certain time and stop at a certain time, otherwise my life would have no boundaries and that makes me uncomfortable.

I would recommend going on an interview even if you have no intention of taking a job just to get the practice.

I do not know why companies using Java would have more intense office politics then companies that use other programming languages.

By the time the OP reads this the interview will probably be over, so I hope it went well.

I dropped out of the interview because I had to confront a nasty reality of something in me that changed. To put it plainly, I became a little too honest.

Short version is this. Before I got fired from my last job, I tried for ADA accommodations from HR and got blindsided by a "good cop, bad cop" routine. The shock of those meeting caused something weird to happen. The best way to explain it is it felt like my "social mask" shattered. Something snapped.

The consequences, in retrospect, are kind of interesting. I became a lot more honest and unfiltered with people in general. I'd like to think I still do okay at not being rude but things like "feigning interest" wasn't something I had the energy to do anymore. I still don't.

That's kind of a problem for interviews. You're supposed to show you're "interested in the job". I just wanted to survive and collect a paycheck so I can keep a roof over my head. I would seriously struggle to claim otherwise. It sucks because I feel like I've lost a key survival tool for getting by in life.

Sadly enough, that's likely true.