Work Advice: The actions of one jerk rattles a proven leader
Q: My wife has a highly successful career as a plant manager. At the end of her last contract, the phone rang nonstop with calls from recruiters. She soon received an offer, but another company in the same field begged her to hold off taking it until they could talk to her.
They flew her in for an interview and picked her up in a limo. At headquarters, she was put in an office, a man looked in, and she was left to sit for over an hour before the same man - one of the company's top officers - came back.
Not one minute into the interview, he said, "You are not what I expected" and gave her maybe three more minutes, including taking a call during that time.
She was then pushed off to some low-level person and sent back to the airport to sit for hours. She never heard from them again.
She accepted the original job offer with a major company and in six months took a low-ranked plant to number 3. But this has shaken her up.
She has always been a bigger woman (beautiful - she still takes my breath away after 30 years), but she now talks about having weight-loss surgery.
Were his actions legal? What could have changed since the time they asked her to fly in for an interview? What did he expect?
A: I wish I could tell you what the interviewer expected, but figuring out where his head was would probably require a miner's lamp and spelunking gear.
They say interviewers decide whether they're interested within the first 10 minutes of meeting a candidate, but I'm getting the impression this guy had mostly made up his mind before he even spoke with your wife.
The legality of that depends on whether his decision was based on a legally protected trait - sex, race, age or (in some jurisdictions) weight - or something equally shallow but not necessarily discriminatory, such as her hair color or how she dressed.
Or maybe he's just rudely dismissive to everyone the company flies in for an interview.
Unfortunately, there's no law against wasting a candidate's time. And even if there were, her energy would be better spent cleaning his clock in the marketplace, not in court.
Your wife seems to have the Midas touch for business development. If she doesn't realize that, a career coach or therapist could help her see the talented professional she is.
If she's concerned that her external image is not helping her showcase her talent, a style coach or marketing consultant could help her add polish without a drastic physical overhaul.
Of course, if your wife still wants to consider weight-loss surgery, it's always an option. But it's not a decision she should make because she thinks she failed to meet the expectations of one myopic jerk.
• Miller has written for and edited tax publications for 16 years, most recently for the accounting firm KPMG's Washington National Tax office. You can find her on Twitter, @KarlaAtWork.