• Per our rules, don't comment on linked posts. Anyone from this community who is caught brigading on another subreddit will be banned.

    In case this story gets deleted/removed:

    My friend recently applied for a position at a private company that employs a large number of female staff. The interview started off very well. The HR manager was engaged, the atmosphere was positive, and my friend genuinely felt he was making a good impression. Toward the end of the interview, the HR manager asked him a standard question: “What are your weaknesses in a work environment?” Trying to be funny and lighten the mood, my friend replied, “Women are my weakness.” The HR manager’s expression immediately changed. He became noticeably more serious, ended the interview shortly after, and told him, “We’ll contact you later.” It has now been a full month with no update, and my friend is convinced that his joke cost him the job and that he unintentionally sabotaged his chances. The position, however, is still open and posted on the company’s website. Given the situation, is there still a chance he could be considered if he reapplies for the same position, since it’s still available?


    I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

  • "Why do you think you'll be a good fit in our finance department?"

    "Well I've been embezzling for a while now and figured I'd go legit. JK."

    Later - "I wonder why they haven't called back."

    Imagine if he gets the company sued and it comes out that in the interview he said "women are my weakness" and they hired him anyway.

    Nothing is funny in a deposition transcript. Well, farting, assuming the court reporter has some chops.

    Former court reporter here; can confirm.

    Especially if the next line is "[Laughter]"

    Maybe, but only if it’s a fart that you know that they’re trying to conceal/let out, either way what comes out instead is a peep noise. That or the ones that go on for horrifying amounts of seconds and sound like you’re on a bridge that’s snapping away underneath you.

    As colossally stupid as the joke was the fact that he is asking how to still get a job there, which presumably means he think that is somehow possible, truly defies all logic. That bridge has been burned with hellfire. Im surprised this guy has managed to survive into adulthood.

    If I made a stupid joke at an interview, I'd be too embarrassed to show my face (or résumé) at that place ever again. This guy has no shame.

    My mom used to do HR and hiring, and one person interviewing for a janitorial position told her that he stole a lot of cleaning product from his old employer and would bring them in if he got the job.

    My mother was not impressed. His previous employer got a heads-up after that interview.

    Oh, and my mother used to do HR and hiring for a church.

    Churches have to forgive everything you do, right? /s

    My friend's church had to let go of their pastor because he was doing the horizontal tango with a woman who was not his wife. He was going to have some kind of discipline by their religions's governing board, so he renounced his ministry. That made him ineligible to continue being the minister for the church.

    Friend said for months people would mutter that their church council was not very Christ-like for not forgiving the minister. She said it was really hard to keep her mouth shut about the sixth commandment.

    She later found out that this was the second time the former minister had done that.

    I think that would probably have gone over better than wat OOP’s friend said. Because this is obviously a joke and “women are my weakness” is not, it’s an expression of his world view.

  • I think it’s telling that after being completely inappropriate to a Woman he goes to r/askmenadvice for advice on how to fix it. Instead of you know.. asking a women

    No, no.

    You got it wrong.

    It was a "friend".

    He goes to a school in Canada, you wouldn’t know him

    Especially because he doesn't have a phone or access to computer and only communicates through letters.

    It’s even dumber than that. He was inappropriate to another man about women. 

    [deleted]

    Didn't help him, though. Dude got destroyed in the comments. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

    I love the fact that every comment is like "bro, you are a massive idiot" or "I used to do HR/hiring/interviews and you outed yourself as a massive liability. This company would be foolish to hire you."

    That makes this so much worse

    He probably knew that the response from women would be “HA HA HA! Oh, wait, you were serious? In that case, let me laugh even harder!”.

    Looks like men are giving him the same response. Because, facts.

    Honestly puts a wholesome spin on the "not all men" phrase cx

  • Of course he's never going to get a job there. His name will be red-flagged because they don't want to be burned with law suits. That man is a complete idiot.

    "Not a good fit for company culture."

  • Some jokes are never in good taste

    Seriously. I was just talking with a friend about how uncomfortable a lot of older workplace sitcoms make me because sexual harassment is one of the most common tropes played for laughs.

    The episode of “Mad Men” where they landed the riding lawnmower account was soooo uncomfortable to watch - in part because of the sexual harassment every 20 seconds.

    At least they sorta have an excuse (?!) with Mad Men in that it was set in the 1960s; but for shows set in the 80s/90s it’s somehow worse, at least for me. Like I caught an episode of Frasier recently and yeah, Roz clobbered Bulldog when he touched her, but still it was so gross to know that even in 1995, that was played for laughs.

    True! I was re-watching “Scrubs” recently - which I think is a little more recent than “Frazier” - and there’s a lot of sexual harassment played for laughs in there too.

    Tbf to mad men, I'm pretty sure that was the point

    A lot of 70s and older shows can be a good example of what you don't want to see/hear in the workplace. I love mash but rewatches have shown how badly men behaved and women just had to deal with it at the time.

    And with MASH, it’s still wayyyy better than the source material, which doesn’t actually help with the YIKES. (It’s also a helluva lot more progressive in other ways than the source material, especially inre: racism, but still the fact that the only major Black character was called “Spearchucker” is … not good.)

    It's an ugly nickname but I'm sure that was the sort of name you'd get in those days playing football while black.

    It’s the original name of the character in the book and film, so I’m assuming that it was an actual nickname for one of the doctors the author served with — but it’s absolutely a racial epithet (if not outright slur, though it is included on the Wikipedia list of slurs), and it’s definitely not something that would be okay to just randomly call someone, then or now.

    Obv, the character shares a strong camaraderie with his fellow doctors, and it doesn’t carry the same ugly vibe as the other slurs used in the show (especially directed toward the Korean characters).

    (And funny you mention football, because the actor who played him in the show actually had a pro ball career before acting.)

    I didn't say it was okay, just that it fit the time.

    I looked him up before I commented because I recalled the same thing... But as it turns out that's a "common misconception".

    I was agreeing with you, sorry if that wasn’t clear. There are a lot of things that weren’t outright antagonistic / hostile back then that are massively YIKES now, my only real point was more that it was from the original source in the 1950s, not something they came up with for a Black character when the show was being written in the 1970s.

    Edit: I’m not sure what the misconception you were talking about is, but Timothy Brown played for the Greenbay Packers, the Chicago Bears, and the Philadelphia Eagles.

    Sure, but the part was played by Fred Williamson. That misconception. ;)

    Ahh, yeah, Williamson was in the film, but Timothy Brown was in the sitcom.

    But Williamson was also a Steeler, a Raider, and a Chief.

    Thats not a joke. People tell you the truth or Show you who they are in 3 situations: being drunk, angry or "joking".

    The HR person believed him. Good.

  • This is a great "my friend" post because even if we take it at face value, and believe that OOP has a friend that did this, OOP is still admitting they are incapable of telling if the joke ruined the friend's chances or not. And had to ask the internet a month later.

    Of course, because they are "friends", clearly based on "their" "shared" sense of humor! OOP probably thinks his "friend's" joke was funny and clever.

  • Bruh...that joke demonstrates he would be a liability. Of course they're not considering him anymore

    The fact that the guy claims that this was a “man-to-man” joke in the comments (HR manager was male) leads me to believe that he thought that making a sexist joke would actually give him a leg up (bros before hos, amirite?), which demonstrates even worse judgment/liability. Not only “I don’t see female coworkers as real employees and will likely hit on them” but also “I expect a boys’ club environment where other men will cover for me.”

    (OOP also claims to work in construction with 90% men, in reply to someone saying that men shouldn’t work in offices with a lot of women because women are out to get them, so….)

    [removed]

    We don’t allow posts or comments about controversial subjects or public figures, politics, politically adjacent topics or world events. Leave it off this sub.

    We know this isn’t a popular rule but we’re not going to allow this sub to turn into constant fights, rule breaking, verbal abuse and harassment again. We don’t like having to ban people.

    An explanation for this rule, what kind of content counts as breaking it, how to make an appeal and full list of consequences can be found here:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/OhNoConsequences/s/l2k9hbMbkG

    And also, not very funny.

    I was expecting a “hurr durr” at the end of him telling the joke.

    Now to be fair to all that arent oop.

    Any joke you tell in an interview isnt going to be very funny because its just not the place.

    The most risky level you can go to is wholesome dad joke.

    I've said the tried and true.

    Why do you want to work here with

    I am very passionate about paying my mortgage.

    Thats an interview level joke.  Shows you loke to be positive but you dont say inappropriate shit.

    Also they weren't asking for his stand up routine, it was a serious interview question.

    especially because the questions specified "what are your weaknesses IN A WORK ENVIRONMENT". He wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on with that answer if the question was about his general weaknesses but they asked about the work environment specifically so his answer indicates he'd be a problem with the women in his workplace

    Misogyny and liability aside, it kinda demonstrates he's ass at thinking on his feet and performs horribly under pressure, both of which could have been mitigated by adequately preparing for a very expected and oft-encountered situation with the billions of available tips on the internet. For which he didn't prepare adequately.

  • "I'm letting you know I'm gonna try to fuck every single woman in this company. So, when do I start?"

    “I’ll say far dumber shit than this in staff and client meetings in the future. When I’m not, ya know, trying to make a classy first impression and shit.”

    your comment reminded me of a grad student I had once.

    Our PI (boss) liked kinda giving us like "life lessons." This time he was telling us about one of his previous students, and his ending remark of advice was "and that's why students shouldn't procrastinate."

    This kid, with zero pause, immediately replies "Oh, procrastinating? I LOVE PROCRASTINATING! I always procrastinate on everything!" with the biggest, happiest, most sincere smile on his face. I could see the short-circuit going on in our PI's brain at that moment.

    And no, before anybody asks, it did not turn out to be a joke. He quit the programme less than six months after starting, without obtaining any data at all

    "And even when I am, because everyone is on their best behavior in an interview."

    “I won’t be able to help myself lol, fair warning” 😉 😉

    Or best case scenario “I don’t know how not to say dumb shit, I can’t stop myself”

  • It was definitely OOP and he's a creep

    One of the guys in the comments says exactly that, and one of the other guys took great umbrage at how unfair it was to brand OP(‘s “friend”) a creep, and went on and on about how that word is so overused and abused by women…

    I was actually surprised that the guy who took issue with the “creep” label actually got downvoted. (Though a few others also took umbrage — how maybe it was “inappropriate,” but “creepy” was a bridge too far 🙄)

  • I don't understand why they don't want to hire the walking HR nightmare. /s

  • Military law: a thousand attaboys are negated by one oh fuck.

  • I, also, believe that this was the poster's "friend" and not the poster himself that did this.

    /s

  • Even AskMenAdvice is ripping this witless buffoon a new one, which tells you something about how pointless it is to ask this question.

    EDIT: By the way... great username, OP. (OP, not OOP.)

    [deleted]

    Dudes who freak the fuck out on people using the word “creepy” (not even in reference to them!) are really telling on themselves.

    Only creeps have a problem with creeps being called creepy. 

  • I've got to say, I love that all the men responding to him (well, the ones at the top, at least) are calling him out. It's always nice to see times when one man, or some men, are shitty, and even more men call him/them out.

  • Wow.....scary to think anyone would think there was a way back from that.

    HR people are their to protect the company. No way they will risk that liability.

  • It's like he doesn't know HR people deal with sexual harassment all the fucking time or something...

    I'd call him an asshole, but assholes are useful.

  • I wouldn’t even make any joke during a job interview. I’d be too scared to screw it up. This was just reckless.

  • Oh lord, if he reapplies he's going to get flagged so hard.

  • If that’s kind of stupid stuff he says in a job interview, how much more of a liability is he going to be in the actual job?

  • Who hears a story about messing up a job interview from a friend and the posts it to reddit? Nobody in real life would do this. This site is becoming unreal. 

    And yet there are people who get canned for TikTok and go immediately on TikTok to complain. A friend going on reddit to share the story ain't that far of a stretch.

    It's most likely the poster that did the interview and made the joke. It's such a common thing It's cliche. It's a TV troupe. Like my girlfriend goes to another school, you wouldn't know her.

    And conveniently he remembers every details down to the interviewer’s face. It was him.

  • Oh I saw that earlier, why wouldn't be announcing you're the reddest flag ever be a great idea...

  • Why on earth would he think that a job interview - particularly that question in a job interview - was an appropriate time to say THAT! I would say chances are slim to none.

  • "My friend"

    Not at all suspicious that OOP knows every vibe and facial expression throughout the meeting he ostensibly wasn't present for.

  • The fact this was posted in AskMen and says Men input only says all u need to know about this guy. That business dodged a bullet by not hiring him.

  • Man... and I thought I popped off at times... Sheesh.

  • Funny man showed he will run his mouth

  • For extra fun, sort comments by controversial. A story related to the potential harassment of female employees, in a sub called "AskMenAdvice"? You know you won't be disappointed by the roaches who absolutely LEAPED out of the woodwork to defend OP and his friend with their whole chest.

  • I once interviewed a guy and we asked that weakness question (which I find ridiculous), and the guy responded “Coffee.” We politely chuckled, thinking he was trying to be clever, but no, that was a serious answer. We didn’t hire him.

    What exactly are companies expecting to get out of this question? An honest answer?

    That an interviewee can lie creatively? It seems so stupid and self defeating on both sides.

    I hate job interviews because of dumb questions like this. How do you even answer that?

    I think my manager thought she was being clever. She had a whole host of ridiculous questions. When she was unable to attend an interview, we didn't ask them.

    What didn't we ask? If they could do the job! I swear, there was nothing in there about actually using software. My boss insisted we hire this one person because she was SO great. When I asked her to turn on her computer, she had no idea what to do. I had to point to the obvious power switch. She then couldn't open Word. She'd been "trained" on how to use it, but had no experience. She lasted until the end of the day and then didn't come back.

    [removed]

    Be civil in your comments, please. Insults or overly aggressive comments directed at other people commenting on the post or moderators will get taken down.

    If you think your comment has been misunderstood by moderators, please let us know in modmail so we can discuss it.

  • Heh I got hired answering that question with "probably my bad memory. What are we doing here again?"

    I replied to that question in an interview with "coming up with answers off the cuff" and got a good commiserate chuckle and (eventually) the job so. Jokes aren't an absolute No Go Zone for interviews. Just that kind of joke

  • What are your weaknesses?

    I enjoy harassing women and/or joking about harassing women and making people uncomfortable

  • Came here right after finding the post in Amithedevil l. No one believes that it is for a friend and also asking only men's response. Way to go. 

  • Reminds me of an interview I did in my 20s.

    A sporting goods store asked me to help with a store wide overnight inventory after I randomly walked through to get to someplace else ( this was in a mall). They also asked if I was looking for a job and I said yes and was told they’d interview me after the all night inventory was done.

    I was BEYOND exhausted when they did the interview and could barely form coherent sentences. At one point they asked me what I’d being to the team atmosphere and I groggily replied I was gonna infect everyone with pixie dust and happiness.

    I did not get the job, only a $25 gift card for my hours of hard work. Looking back later, I realized it probably sounded like I wanted to sleep with everyone and give them some kind of STD. 🤣

    I think they just wanted to get cheap labour for overnight inventory.

    Probably.

    But also since I had no idea what I was doing , I probably caused inventory to be fuxked up a bit. 🤣

  • The poor judgement of making a “joke” like that in an interview really helped that employer dodge a bullet.

  • Reminds me of the Family Guy sketch wear the company asks Peter where he sees himself in five years and he’s thinking “don’t say doing his wife” and he ends up saying doing your son.

    Or Homer talking to the cops 'don't say a bar' "A pornography store. I was looking for Pornography." 

  • I mean the fact that he asked this question to an ask men only subreddit tells you most of what you need to know about him and his friend. There are things that make sense to ask just men, but this ain't that.

  • "my friend" LOL

  • OOP should learn not to be a fucking creep.

  • Whew! I’m glad I passed that drug test! I just got a new type of weed that I can’t wait to try!

  • Of course it's a friend. Like, really, a "friend" of OOP's. Nope, not OOP himself. No way, no... 

  • “I do a bit of sexual harassment “

  • And OOP is friends with this person because?????

  • If he'd say that in an interview what would he say normally?