A Way To Make Sure We Don't Want You To Work Here

Note: You've probably noticed a lot of posts lately about recruiting. That would be because by the end of the month we plan to have increased the staff at our facility by 15% in about 2 months. This is our biggest ramp up since the company started in 1992.

Yesterday a candidate came in and had not completed her application beforehand like she was supposed to. She said she just had  little left; her furnace had went out the night before, so she was kind of flustered. I told her no problem, and I took her to a room so she could complete it. While she did that, I went on doing other things.

I came back to my desk some time later, and she was standing at the front window. I asked if she had the application done. She said "I gave it to that BLACK LADY over there". The candidate was white, I'm white, and the applicant was referring to my teammate who is obviously African American. Of course, I'm already cringing, mortified, and hoping no else heard this remark, especially my teammate. Well of course, during lunch another coworker (who is African American) said she heard it, and that at least two more coworkers (one of whom is also African American) did too. As the person I was having lunch with said "She was LOUD". Did I also mention that we work in an open office, so all the office workers at our location (about 20 people) are all in one large room?

Thankfully, the person who told me this yesterday laughed and wasn't offended. She, the other two coworkers whom I know heard it, and I discussed the issue today while I was at lunch. One of the two told me she had looked at the other two and said "Did she just say what I think she said?" when she heard what the candidate said, and this particular coworker is white. We all laughed quite a bit about it today, and thankfully we don't think my teammate could hear the applicant because my teammate was at the copier at the time, and the noise probably overshadowed the applicant.

I was simply incredulous that someone would say something like that in a job interview setting. YIKES. As we discussed today, we don't know exactly what she meant by her comment, but it didn't make her look favorable. The candidate was judged a TGG by the interviews, which I told one of them I could have told them before the interview started.