Lollipops and Rainbows

When you interview with a company, anyone you talk to will tell you that the place is a wonderful place to work. This makes sense: the people you're talking to work there because they believe that their company is a wonderful place to work. Otherwise, they wouldn't be coming in day after day.

Or they're lying because they're desperate to get you in the door.

At the interview for my last job, my boss said, "We're a small company, so we're like a family. Everybody who works here, has been here for years. They love it here. No one...ever leaves because they want to." There are enough landmines in that statement to tell you otherwise, but my problem in believing it was my confidence in myself. I thought, "I can already tell that at best that statement is partially true, but I'm going to change their minds when they see what a great worker I am."

It was quite a surprise on my very first day to be kept two hours late in the boss's office while he spun me a tale of woe: the development team used to be 3 people, but two of them quit. As did the head of sales. I got a long story about how awful they were as employees, how misguided of them it was to leave, and by the way, we're suing them as well. Followed by more stories about exactly how bad some of the other people who worked there had been.

It was even more surprising to find out that the one other developer left on the staff had only started a few weeks before me. As did one of the two network techs. Leaving only 2 of 6 employees as anything resembling "long-term". Digging around the network revealed quite a number of names of people who weren't working at this place any more.

When I get into an interview, I have a trick for finding out if it's a good place to work. I wait until the end of the interview and get into a short "chit-chat" conversation with whomever is interviewing me. If there's a programmer in this mix, that's ideal. I'll give you this example from my interview yesterday:

Employee: Well, that's it then. You're free to go. *laughs*
Me: (smiling) Great! I'm going to get back out there and enjoy this beautiful day!
Employee: That sounds great. I wish I could do the same.
Me: You will! (checking watch) It's already 4 o'clock, and it's a Friday. You've only got one hour left, haven't you?
Employee: (bitter laugh) Ha! That would be nice. But that never happens.
Me: Well, I'm sorry to hear that. But just the same, I hope you have a good weekend.

If a place is really awful, they'll answer that last line with "I'd like to, but I'll probably be spending it here." No company will ever tell you outright that something sucks about their work environment. Ask them directly because they expect you to, but whatever they say, either read between the lines or toss it out after you get a chance to chat outside of the interview.

Tactics like this save you a lot of trouble: it's easier to find out if a place sucks with a little light banter than it is to hear how family-oriented a place is, and not know until the first time your child is sick that they don't want you leaving to take them to the doctor. Unless you take your laptop and promise you can check your e-mail. And will make up the hours when you come back in--working from home never counts. Most companies that I have had experience with consider this arrangement to be very generous, because it gives your family permission to need you, so long as you do your best to never stop working.

Try this trick when you interview, and you can easily arrange it to your circumstances. If it's a late-morning meeting, make a comment about going to lunch. If it's a lunchtime meeting, thank them for being willing to work through just to interview you. And any time in the afternoon, as you go, visibly count the hours to 5:00 and make a comment like I did above. Pay close attention to what they say, and respond to it sympathetically to see if they say more. A decent place might tell you that today they won't be going home on time, but this is unusual because of X. Or that they stayed late every night this week, but they're happy because they're going home early on Friday.

Even then, trust your instincts. Go with your gut. My biggest mistake at my last job was being willing to ignore the feeling and believe I could make the company better.