I am the master of cringe-filled anecdotes. There’s the snus in the arse, for example. Or the one where I set fire to a newspaper while trying to impress a cute waitress at a café. But this one, my friends. This one is solid nuclear gold.
So I was applying for a new job. I got talking to some very nice people at company X, who wanted me to send in a work sample. That meant a simple game made in Unity, a nifty game motor. On this they would judge my game-making ability, and also me.
I had a game already half done, which I’d made to teach myself Unity. It was a novelty game in which you had to find swear words in a grid. I had an algorithm for combining swear words to make new swear words (arsenibbler, cumgurgler, fuckwaggler, and so on) to get points. The longer the swearword, the better. An odd idea, perhaps, but it amused me at the time, and nobody was ever supposed to see it.
But the game I had to make for the new job had nothing to do with swear words, obviously. So I cleared out the files in my game, saved the code that was useful, and built my new game. Which I liked, and a few days of work later, I sent it in.
All was well. For four hours. Until I got a short mail, written in a shaky and hesitant hand. Basically, it said:
“Um … that ideas file. Um. What the hell?”
I swallowed. I went pale. And I checked. Ah. I hadn’t cleaned out all the files from my filthy words game. I’d left one – just the one – which was a list of filthy words and game modes I’d thought to use. Pussygrabber. Cockgobbler. Fuckwangler. Turdlicker. The filthiest words I could think of. They were all there, in a neat long list.
When you send a list of extremely filthy words to the female recruiters judging you for a new job, you know it’s not going to end well. With all credit to them, they did their very best to handle the situation, and after a discussion, they believed me that it was a dumb accident. But let’s be honest – there’s no coming back from that. None. So the next morning, I withdrew my application for company X. Because even if I got the job, I’d always be THAT GUY. Pussygrabber Paddy, in the flesh.
In the end, it turned out to not matter, as I failed the coding part of the test. God never opens a window without slamming a trapdoor on your knuckles. Or something.
So hopefully I’ll never make an anecdote any better than that one. But, you know, given my track record, I kind of doubt it.
(All respect again to the recruiters, who did a great job in dealing with that dumpster fire of a situation. And if they want to make it into an anecdote of their own, they have my blessing.)
/ paddy
But the social media itch remains. So you know what I did instead? I started, to my eternal shame, to use Linkedin as a social media site. I know. Yes, I know. I scroll through that sleazy little feed, nodding at people’s new jobs and titles and what motivational videos they recommend. And I feel so dirty. Plus, people even there are going on about fucking Trump. There is no escape.
