I WAS once made to walk from one side of the restaurant to the other while carrying a tray of drinks,” my girlfriend tells me. “That was the whole interview.”

We were having a conversation about our worst job interviews. “Another time,” she adds, “I was asked what kind of biscuit I’d be and why. When I said ‘Jammy Dodger’ he said the job was mine.”

A job interview is a surreal experience when you look at it: you sit opposite someone and try and impress them enough to let you exchange your skills, time and labour for money. Lying, to them and yourself, about how much you want to work there the whole time. You’re in a talent show but not for singing or dancing – it’s for promptness, teamwork and self-discipline.

I’ve had more than a few jobs over the years. I’ve worked as a sandwich artist in Subway, in a sports shop, as a crime scene cleaner, as a barber and in a call centre. The interviews for each of those were straight forward enough. “Many hours dae ye want, son?” was fired at me straight off the bat on more than one accasion. “Hunners,” I’d normally reply, trying to make them laugh while simultaneously showing that I was a grafter. I’m sure my old bosses would have a laugh at me describing myself as a grafter now as I sit at home on a weekday afternoon writing this while eating a packet of Monster Munch.

There was only one interview I went for where I never got the job and it was the oddest experience of my life. Probably the only time in my 28 years on this planet where I’ve thought I was the victim of a wind-up on some hidden camera TV programme or in the Truman Show.

It was to work in a somewhat shady hydroponics place on the outskirts of Glasgow. I found about it through a pal of a pal of a pal that this place was hiring and paid quite well for what was very basic work. I emailed the place with my CV and they got back to me after an hour or so asking me to go in “for a chat” a few days later.

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I was working on the day of the interview so had to make up an elaborate story involving my granny’s dug being sick so I could shoot away from the sports shop for an hour or so.

I didn’t want to tell my boss I had an interview somewhere else just in case I didn’t get the job and looked like a dafty. As it was busy though, I couldn’t get away when I’d planned and walked into the hydroponics place 15 minutes late.

“Timekeeping!” barked a tall skinny guy with white hair watching me from a mezzanine. “Awful!” My heart sank, I’d made a mess of this already.

“Sorry, I couldnae get away fae work oan time,” I tried to downplay my lateness but it was no good.

“Come up here,” he said, and I traipsed up the stair to his wee office.

He had set up a chair opposite where he was sitting. I sat down.

“Nervous?” he asked me.

“Aye, a wee bit, I suppose.”

“Do this,” he stood up, outstretched his arms and puffed up his chest. He informed me this was called “power posing”.

I declined.

He told me that this job would be simple, entry level stuff, admin, basic housekeeping etc. It all sounded fine to me. However, what he was really wanting was for me to be the face of a new business venture. He’d set it up and leave all the donkey-work to me. Alarm bells were ringing in my head here, this felt like I was going to be setting up some kind of money-laundering scheme.

“In order to test your aptitude for entrepreneurship,” he said. “I have some questions to ask you.”

I sat and tried to process all the information he had just hit me with.

“First question – what does the word ‘paradigm’ mean?”

I was, and still am to be honest, unsure. “Nae idea,” I said, already having decided I did not want to work for this weird man under any circumstances.

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He grabbed a clipboard and wrote something down, then looked up very disapprovingly at me. He asked me the meanings of a few more words which I am now fairly certain he made up.

He went on to show me some kind of medical device he claimed to have invented. I responded simply with “cool” when it was thrust into my face. “It’s not cool,” he said. “It’s clever, it’s innovative, it’s interesting. But it is NOT cool.”

Aye alright, big man. I felt like I was in a Franz Kafka short story.

It was when he insisted on walking me out to my car that I expected the camera crew to jump out. Maybe Ant and Dec or something. I got an email from him a few days later asking me to go back for ‘Phase 2’ of the interview. I politely declined.