The following starts as something I found amusing but actually it becomes more serious as it goes along. And I accept that I may be open to some criticism, but bear me out.
I am sitting in the bar of the hotel waiting for my lunch. I have a few hours to kill before my train. The hotel is interviewing for positions and I can overhear the conversation behind me. Or at least I can overhear the questioner, but the interviewee is too quiet.
The first question I hear is “What makes you want to get up in the morning and clean rooms?” And I am thinking is there anything that could make someone get up in the morning and clean rooms. I mean, “what makes you want to become a surgeon” yes, “what makes you want to defend those in court” yes, “what makes you want to travel” yes. But clean rooms? Seems an unfair question to me. I think about my house when I was a bachelor. To be honest, to a degree I can think about my house now. Cleaning never was high on the priority list. For a good few years after I was married I did take on the mantle of cleaning the bathroom, but somehow I have managed to let that slip, maybe “J” got fed up waiting for me to do it. Cleaning is important, of course it is, I would hate a dirty hotel room (in fact there was someone else’s toenail on the floor in my room and that just isn’t pleasant) but I can’t see it as an inspiring reason to get up in the morning.
Then the next question “Have you ever gone beyond the call of duty for a guest?” The girl must have asked, as quiet as a mouse, what that means. The interviewer replies “it means have you ever done anything that a guest wouldn’t expect. Have you ever surprised a guest?” In my mind I can think of many ways a maid may surprise a guest, none of them are the kind of thing that you would admit in an interview. It appears that this girl has done nothing that she is willing to divulge to surprise a guest.
But this is where I stop being amused. Because I start thinking. I can’t tell how old the girl is because her head is down, her hair hanging in front, hands either side of her face. She is so quiet. I am not sure if she is even answering. She is obviously scared. And the interviewer is barking at her. No attempt to make the girl comfortable, to put her at her ease. Each question makes it worse. I can feel the pit that she feels she is descending into.
I look into that pit, that abyss, that yawning chasm, I am reminded that in the here and the now we are still producing children who can’t write their name. Those who are abused, bullied, demeaned. Who are driven from their homes. Who don’t know the meaning of family. Who are grateful for any opportunity to climb one step above the gutter line. Who won’t be worried about the stock market crash because they are simply worried about where their next 50 pence will come from.
And the final question I hear, “Tell me about a time in your life when you felt proud?”
Silence
2 comments:
Makes you want to despair.
So frustrating when you know that the chances are there's an amazing person trapped inside that shy shell.
One of the most satisfying parts of my current role is getting involved in the development of some of our younger staff. Some come to us full of obvious potential and that's fantastic because all we have to do is make the most of that and gently guide it in the right direction. But in many ways the more rewarding stories are ones where you see young people with precious little confidence and self-belief, start to blossom.
Of course it doesn't always work out that way and we're lucky to be in a position with workload, profitability and engaged staff to even try, but heck barking at a shy wee thing isn't going to achieve anything, is it?
One wonders whether the interviewer would classify the interview as a time in their life that would make them feel proud...
But if what you do is get up and clean rooms every day, you need to look for the intrinsic satisfaction because, apart from the pay, there isn't much extrinsic satisfaction. And, to be honest, the pay isn't usually that satisfying.
It's a pretty nasty interview question though - how do you come up with anything that the interviewer wants to hear without sounding completely insincere?
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