Are You a ‘Savior’?

This is the second in a series of posts on jobs you should probably avoid. Having labored

through hundreds of job interviews, I aim to impart my knowledge to fellow job seekers in the hopes they don’t fall into these traps.

Last week, I discussed how to spot a jerk in a job interview. This week it’s the “savior” job interview.

The subject line of the email stated “job interview/confidential.” The word confidential was my first clue something was a bit off with this job interview, and I had a feeling what it might be.

Nevertheless, I replied and set up a time for the interview, which was to be held in the restaurant of a hotel in a quiet, old-money part of Manhattan. After I confirmed the day and time, I was told not to tell anyone about the interview. Like, whom would I tell?

On the day of the appointment, I walked past weathered brownstones that have seen better days but still house only the very, very rich and made my way to the hotel. There, I spoke to two nice gentlemen about the job, my background, etc. The interview went well, or so I thought. Then came the kicker: “Thank you for coming,” said one of men. “We’re exploring our options.”

Peeved, I left and thought to myself, “Hey, buddy, I just wasted three hours! I have to dry clean these clothes!”

Yep, I feel for it once again, the “savior” job interview. These guys wanted to make personnel changes and were looking for ready candidates to fill the jobs of employees they most likely wanted to dump. Not bad in theory, but horrible for those employees and their oblivious replacements, AKA, saviors.

So what is a “savior” job interview? It’s when a company or manager has a “difficult” employee they want to replace but doesn’t have the cojones to outright fire. Or, they don’t want to fire them until they have a replacement lined up. Makes sense, right?

But it’s more than that. Since I’ve been on several of these savior job interviews (which I’ll recount presently), I’ve come to recognize there is another dynamic lurking beneath the surface: The workplace is dysfunctional and the manager, unable or unwilling to deal with the situation, hopes to hire someone new who will somehow pacify the rancorous office environment and make everything wonderful. A savior, get it?

My first experience with this savior job interview came during my first unfortunate stint of long-term unemployment back in 2010. I was summoned, again, to a diner. (That is always your first clue something is amiss. Why not hold the interview in the actual office of the hiring company?)

The interviewer then proceeded to tell me, rather obliquely, but clear enough so I understood, that the person currently in the job wasn’t working out. While it’s difficult to gain insight into the mind of a complete stranger, from what I discerned the employee in question was rather passive-aggressively needling his boss to fire him. I actually checked out this guy’s LinkedIn profile. He had authored books, so my hunch is that he believed the job was beneath his talents, which it might have been.

He wanted out, but wanted to be fired (in the hopes of getting unemployment and severance?) instead of being more assertive and proactive and quitting a job he obviously hated. Obviously, a dysfunctional relationship between manager and employee. I can’t be sure, since I never met the guy in person, but that was my take.

Then, as a waitress who wanted us gone from the table so she could get a better tip was rushing us, I was forced to take an editing test. In a noisy diner. While the guy stared at me. Not an ideal setting for a test.

Eventually, I received an email informing me I was not chosen for the job. No surprise. But with nothing to lose, I asked the interviewer why I was rejected. He said there was someone within the company who better fit the profile of what he was looking for in the job. Fair enough. Oh, and I didn’t do very well on the test. Ya think! Sheesh. I resisted the temptation to remind him I had to take the damn test in a noisy Manhattan diner and let it go.

More recently, I went on yet another savior job interview, one of the oddest job interviews I have ever endured. For an hour — an hour! — I sat dumbfounded as an arrogant, condescending bully of a boss (throughout the interview he repeatedly and rather threateningly struck his shoe with a steel letter opener) regaled me with the intimate details of an employee’s home life that he believed was impacting his work performance. Why was I being told this? What impact did it have on the job I was being interviewed for?

Oh, but he didn’t want to fire the guy, he insisted. That would be too hard. He wanted to bring in another staff member to help him.

So, I politely asked, what were the duties of the job? His answer (this is a direct quote): “To make my life easier.” Ah, a savior.

He did tell me of one incident where he had to step in and take over this employee’s duties while he was on a faraway business trip and he become ill because of it. On this point, I agree with him. If this employee didn’t do his job, he had every right to be angry. But I’d also like to know why: Was the employee sick? Was there a family emergency? Did he deliberately shirk his responsibilities? I’d like to know the why before I simply fired the guy or hired another person to be the “savior.”

When I spoke to another employee at this company, he said quite sternly, possibly as a warning, that the boss had a bad temper. This job came with more red flags than an Indy car pileup.

From my reading, all these episodes have several factors in common: a dysfunctional workplace; an underperforming employee; a manager too timid to deal with the situation; and the vain hope a newcomer can make everybody sing Kumbaya. Not gonna happen.

What should happen, in my humble opinion, is the manager and employee first attempt to repair their broken relationship, if possible, with an honest dialogue. HR can be called in to mediate, but in my experience most HR people avoid interfering with bad manager/employee pairings and simply tell the two to work it out on their own. Good luck with that.

Now, let me say here, I don’t put all the blame on the manager. While I believe it’s a manager’s job is to provide fair and specific guidance to employees, it’s up to the employee to be conscientious and capable enough to carry out his or her duties.

If the employee still underperforms, well, then he or she must be fired, and the next in line promoted to replace that person. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

Except…most managers prefer to do nothing and let the situation fester. Or, they figure they can bring on a new person to be the savior. Stupid management 101.

Is that fair to the new person who is hired as this savior? How are they supposed to learn the job (especially one with unspecified duties), get along with their new co-workers, and correct the dysfunctional morass permeating the office? That would be difficult for any one person to do.

Even boards of major corporations a fall into the savior trap. A company is floundering so they bring in a new highly trumpeted CEO. Months pass, and the company is still sinking. Not even the new CEO could save the ship.

These situations burn me for another reason. Managers will hand-wring for weeks and months over whether to fire an obviously underachieving slacker. Or, they will put the employee under a “performance improvement plan” or PIP, so the employee can either shape up or be shipped out. Either way, the employee is given a chance to save their job or make a conscious decision to leave.

No such luck when it comes to laid-off employees. We are given no such opportunity to save our employment, or even given any insight into why we were selected for the trash heap. That always seems unfair to me.

Perhaps managers hem and haw over firings because it's a tacit admission they hired the wrong person or aren't very good managers. The fault falls on their weaselly shoulders. With a layoff, they can blame the economy and poor revenues.

So, back to the savior job interview. Should you take the interview now that you know the warning signs? Yes, for no other reason than for practice.

Should you take the job? Well, that’s up to you, of course. But I would want to know the exact duties of the job (other than “to make my life easier”) before I agreed to work for that company. Otherwise, you are being set up to fail. Most employment experts agree with me on that point.

You are there to do a job, hopefully one that aids in the profitability of the company. You are not, and will never be, the company’s or a manager's savior.

Next week, I’ll discuss the “unicorn” job ad.