I doubt that your Father's job had anything to do with it, even back then. Whatever he did, at that time, to make a living doesn't alter the fact that his Son was invited to apply to be an armaments officer, obviously because he was "the right sort". You were probably in the usual situation where far more people were invited for interview than were needed....

Had I thought of it, so might I.

Maybe it would have been different if you'd said he was a "delivery vessel sanitizing executive"? :

Or a hygiene quality control manager.

I was asked if I wanted to smoke and was offered a cigarette. I took it as, funnily enough, I did. I was later offered the job but did not take it. This was at Fords in Liverpool back when I was 18.

Years back at an interview in Toronto, I was asked to estimate how many lightbulbs are sold annually on Canada. The interviewer was looking for the thought process more than the answer. I did some research when I got home. My estimate was actually very close.

A former colleague of mine was asked in an appraisal what he liked the least about his job. "The commute" was not an appropriate answer. He left before we fired him.

The trickiest question I ever got asked was: "what are your views on apartheid?". This was in the London HQ of a company that mined gold in South Africa and it was the mid-80s. I never did find out the correct answer to the question.

Eh? The person was being honest (who the hell likes the daily commute??)... why would he have been fired??

Yes, it seemed like a reasonable neutral response. It's never a good strategy to slag off a former employer, and it opens up a can of worms if you start complaining about aspects of a former job. I find the expression "a necessary evil" is good to defuse an interviewer's prying on less favourable aspects of a job.

The response demonstrated the guy's attitude to his job (ie lazy). We'd been wanting rid of him for a while but didn't have anything good enough for a summary dismissal (and his wife is a solicitor). He ended up flouncing one day. We didn't try to stop him.

Oops, didn't see that it was an appraisal rather than an interview. In that case, a glib answer is inappropriate, but it sounds like his fate was already pre-determined by the powers that be.

Inappropriate isn't the word.

My chairman, who conducted the appraisal, described it to me as "f*****g juvenile".

Mr K. Pot
Chairman
Souvy's Company Inc.

It sounds like there was a lot more context to that question - because to me that sounds like a smart answer: "I love the job, the only thing I don't like is the commute", and that would likely be the answer I'd give if my boss asked me about my job. I don't see how that having an unattractive commute has any bearing on how one does ones job.

Don't joke about that.

I call him Kim-il *****

Would that his answer were that complete. The bit about hating the commute was all he came up with. He couldn't be arsed to even prepare for his appraisal. He was our marketing manager for a couple of years. He never bothered to try to understand what our product is.