'No one has a passion for spreadsheets at 9 a.m.': Reddit cheers the job seeker who finally said what everyone is thinking
A post on Reddit’s r/jobs has struck a nerve with anyone who has ever sat in a job interview for a filing or data entry role and been asked what motivates them to wake up every morning for the company's mission.
The original poster reached their breaking point during an interview for a basic data entry job. When the recruiter asked what motivates them to wake up every morning for this company, they looked her in the eye and said they just want the paycheck and the health insurance, “so I don’t die of a cold.”
The room went quiet. The recruiter talked about mission and culture. The original poster sat there thinking about rent. They did not get the job.
“It felt amazing to stop the lying,” they wrote. “We all know why we are there but we spend forty minutes acting like we are joining a cult instead of a workplace.”
The response
Reddit, unsurprisingly, had a lot of feelings about this.
“It is wild how companies expect total emotional devotion for a standard hourly wage,” one commenter wrote. “Good on you for breaking character.” Another put it more simply: “I genuinely don’t understand why many can’t comprehend my passion isn’t entering data on an Adobe form.”
One commenter referenced a comedy skit about a guy explaining he isn’t passionate about working at Jamba Juice and just wants a paycheck, noting that the joke lands because it describes something real. “It blows my mind that everyone has to pretend to be super passionate about wherever they work. Oh, I’m so passionate about stocking shelves at a grocery store, please hire me. God, working has become so dehumanising.”
Another noted what the passion question is actually selecting for: “They’re looking for people who will continue the lie and not poison the cult well. I also have reached the end of my willingness to participate in delusion.”
The thread’s most satisfying contribution came from someone who tried a version of radical honesty in their own interview, and somehow got the job.
“Answered a ‘why do you want to work here’ once with ‘honestly, the commute and the salary band’ and watched the interviewer’s pen stop moving. Got the job somehow, and my manager brought it up as the reason he pushed for me.”
It’s definitely an exception, but it's worth noting that the manager’s reason was essentially that the honesty stood out. In a sea of rehearsed passion performances, someone who said something true was memorable enough to hire.
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The original poster probably shouldn't have done it if they needed the job. But their instinct that the ritual is a waste of everyone’s time and selects for the ability to lie convincingly rather than the ability to do the work is not wrong. And the fact that this post resonated so widely suggests they are far from the only person who has sat in that chair, been asked that question, and had to work very hard not to say exactly what they said.
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