Reason for leaving?

I hate it when job applications ask your reason for leaving a particular position. Most of my past jobs have been easily explained: "seasonal position," "started classes full-time," and the one to beat them all, "company went out of business." Ironically, I enjoyed all of those jobs and was sorry to leave them, while the ones I left voluntarily (because they sucked) are the ones I struggle to explain during interviews...and that's if my application gets me that far.

I need to learn to whittle these stories down to something the interviewer can appreciate and empathize with. In the meantime, here are the honest answers I wish I could give them. And their likely responses.


"You say that you left _________ because of an 'uncomfortable working environment.' Can you explain what you mean by uncomfortable?"

I most certainly can.

Imagine a small family owned business where all three of the administrative staff are female. I was one of these three females. Both the office manager and I were married, while the other exec assistant had a steady boyfriend. All was well in the land of _________ until one day the president of the company decided to hire one of his golfing buddies to manage the field staff.

Mr. Manager made all nicey-nice at first in an attempt to gain everybody's trust. He was the only employee at the company ever to compliment me on my hard work and to notice the many improvements I made within the office. But I soon found out that his praise was nothing but an attempt to manipulate me into...God only knows. Manager Man wasn't very good at hiding his true nature, and nobody with half a brain (except his old friend, the president of the company) would have trusted him as far as they could throw his flabby old ass.

Anyway, in accordance with his position as head sleazeball, MM was also a bona-fide lecher. He could not keep his eyes (or eventually his hands) off the office manager, especially after she had some cosmetic enhancements done. He proposed that they get "a little thing" going that neither of their spouses/partners would have to know about. The office manager was aghast and threatened MM with everything including a formal report, which would go nowhere, and an ass-kicking from her husband, who was in no physical condition to kick ass. Because she had no leverage against him, MM refused to let up. He backed off for the time being, but the propositions continued.

Soon after MM started working there, the other secretary broke up with her longtime boyfriend. Assuming she was now a fair tagret, MM pulled out his big guns. (No, he never actually pulled anything out, thank God, and I doubt it would be very big if he did. Ahem.) This included cornering her at her desk and in the copy room and every creepy come-on you can imagine short of pouncing on her the way he did the office manager. When she stood up to him and told him she wouldn't tolerate his behavior, he turned to verbal intimidation. I remember the first time it happened and she turned to me, in tears, with an expression of obvious fear and hopelessness.

She wrote a detailed report of the harrassment and got everybody she could to sign their names as witnesses. She delivered the report to the boss. Slimeball "just happened to wander in and notice" the report on the president's desk and took it upon himself to read it. And who did he confront first? Me.

Now, compared to the others, he had left me (relatively) alone up to this point. By relatively, I mean that he preferred to address me while staring down my blouse and found various excuses to touch me in a "friendly" way. But the friendliness stopped when he saw my name on the report. He came to my desk and told me that he'd read what I'd written, that he didn't agree with it, and that he was "going to remember" what I'd done.

Yes, that was a threat.

I was very fortunate. For one thing, Captain Creep was acquainted with my husband. There is a certain respect that exists between former Navy men that Sleazo seemed reluctant to betray. It probably helped that my husband was obviously quite capable of beating the living snot out of anyone who bothered me. That was probably why MM limited his harrassment to cleavage gazing and subtle threats instead of the crap he levelled on the other two women. Who--and I can't say I entirely blame them--came to resent me for it. I was also fortunate to be in a financial position where I could afford to leave my job. The other secretary and the office manager could not.

Uncomfortable. Working. Environment. That's what it means.


"I see. That is quite an unfortunate situation. Now, what about this one here: 'offered more hours with previous employer.' Tell me more about that position."

That's pretty self-explanatory. Well, sort of.

One upon a time there was a store where the senior manager encouraged all of the junior managers and associates to think of themselves as a sort of family. Which was a pretty good analogy, if by "family" you mean a dysfunctional clan where several of the sisters are sneaky backstabbing bitches who cheat their more honest sisters out of sales by stealing clients and passing these transactions off as their own, resulting in lavish praise and employee awards bestowed by their unspsecting mother. More sales equaled more hours--all at the expense of the hard working but less criminally-talented sisters. Thus, I saw my hours slowly shrink from over twenty a week to less than ten.

This was when I decided to contact my former employer and go back to work for a company where, ironically, I made $1.50 less an hour but still almost doubled my weekly wages because they gave me the time I deserved and refused to allow associates to fuck each other over. At last, I had a kind and honest workplace family and a job I enjoyed instead of loathed.

Then the evil corporation decided to put our division out of business completely. The end.


[Interviewer makes ambiguous noises and rushes through the rest of the interview. He/she then promises to "call me." That's the last I hear from the company.]


Complete honesty clearly has no place in the job market.