Photo by ReneS
Thank goodness for Laurie at Punk Rock HR, and her post on National Donut Day, because it reminded me of an incident I’d totally forgotten.
We had a candidate scheduled to come in first thing in the morning. The guys shows up, and he’s got a box of donuts. Nice touch, right? These weren’t cheap donuts either…they were the jelly-filled kind, from a fancy well-known bakery.
I was interviewing with two other managers, and they both devoured the donuts. I’m not crazy about donuts, so I didn’t touch them.
The interview went well. The candidate was a little strange, but very qualified. We all thanked the him for the treat. He went home.
A few hours later, the other two interviewers got sick. Very sick. Like, bathroom-every-20-minutes sick. No one else in the office was sick—just them.
They swore it had to be the donuts. They thought the guy poisoned them by injecting something in the jelly filling (they were both the conspiracy theory type to begin with). They called the bakery, and were told that no one else had gotten sick. Only them.
I still have my doubts as to whether the dude was really guilty of intentionally poisoning the people who interviewed him…but those guys were totally convinced, and he didn’t get the job. He’s the only candidate I’ve ever rejected because of donuts.
That’s why I stick to ice cream.
Tales of the Cluefree appear pretty much every Friday. Past stories are here.
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Fascinating! But what could his motivation have been if indeed he’d intentionally done something to them? Some sort of thinly veiled threat, like “hire me or I’ll do worse to you?” Or just plain craziness? I’m baffled.
Another possibility could be that he himself handled the donuts and wasn’t the most hygienic guy and so conveyed some sort of germ from his hands to the donuts. You know, like maybe he wanted to rearrange them in the box to look better.
I’m thinking about this way too much now.
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Oh come on! The Interviewers must have gotten sick from “gorging” on the donuts not because of any tampering.
I agree with Patti. Maybe it’s because two people ate an entire box of donuts.
It wasn’t a whole dozen–they were big, so I think there were maybe 3-4 in the box. Not being a donut-o-phile, I don’t know how many make up enough to make you sick all by themselves, though.
I love your blog. You are such a hoot!
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So if they hadn’t gotten sick and the guy hadn’t been otherwise weird, would the donuts have given him an edge? I am all about bribing with baked goods.
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Dude – a box of donuts prolly meant for 5 or 6 people devoured by 2. And I get the impression they may have shot them down quickly.
Stands to reason.
Also, the guy might have left them in a car or on the counter overnight or something. I don’t know, but I think the poison theory is just too implausible.
All IMHO,
Sid.
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