Sinead O’Connor complained about the Catholic Church. Was boycotted by almost everyone. Ten years later the scandals she highlighted were headlines. Was still treated as a troublesome personality.

I’m not sure if this counts, but Tina Turner’s issues being used as a joke to the point where she moved to Europe always broke my heart.

The hysteria of the arrest of George Michael from the bathroom incident in which he was arrested for a lewd act in '98 was awful. At a time when homosexuality was still illegal in the US, George Michael's career and personal life saw a significant decline and led to a bunch of arrests.

As someone also queer, it pained me to see him forced to come out publicly. He later described how deeply painful this was for him (because of course it was).

The media was just vicious, particularly in the UK. And there was a feeling with some fans of a sort of betrayal since their heartthrob was not straight.

(He turned it around, maybe not entirely, but he is a queer icon forever but it was clearly just so much hell for him.)

He told me straight up that he only wanted this job as a way to get into the studio so that he could have my job. I did not hire him as my assistant. Not because I was threatened, but because there's no point in hiring an assistant whose only goal is to leave that role as soon as possible. At least pretend you want to do the actual job I'm hiring you for.

Guy in Adidas trousers, sweatshirt and gold chain spread legged told us that he won't follow orders that are given by woman - to me(male), my boss (female) and her assistant (female).

Yeah... sure.

I had someone tell me that he looked up my Facebook, tell me he knows my father, and then ask me about mutual friends. The Facebook look up isn't abnormal, but making it a series of questions in the interview absolutely is. It felt so invasive and icky. I locked my Facebook down after that and did not hire the guy. I couldn't even tell you if he was qualified for the job. Every time I asked him about his experience, he tried to steer the conversation back to people we knew in common.

Showed up in pajamas. Showed up with their parent. I did interviews for years, and I’ve seen some pretty unbelievable stuff.

I had someone whose answer to every question was more or less: I’d come to you everyday and ask what to do.

Ummm, no. I’m not a baby sitter. I need someone who can do a job.

I got to his personal email to reply with job offers, and it was something like “BluntMaster69” at hotmail

Oh. Um, hard pass.

Showed up at 11:40 when the scheduled time was 10:30, confirmed via phone call and text, was wearing jeans and an untucked button down tee. when i told him he was late he said "i thought it was at 11:30" to which i replied "so you'd still be late?" and asked him to leave, then he threw a fit for me not giving him a chance.

the guy who showed up on time and was well dressed became a personal friend of mine, and replaced me when i left my position there. and is still running that place 8 years later to great success.

I work HR for a construction company. Guy shows up with beer breath for the interview.

"Did you drink beer before getting here?"
"Yeah, I was a bit nervous. But it was just 3 cans."
"You do know you're here for a dump truck driver position, right?"
"So?".

Someone was watching their nephew due to a family thing, and her house wasn't equipped for kids, so 'please be patient'. Toddler was all over the place and she was doing her best to manage the situation, she knocked it out of the park, keeping on task and speaking nicely to him. She wasn't the most qualified, but the most human, and I hired her, and don't regret it. She has paid back that choice many times, proving her demeanor was exactly as she demonstrated.

Sorry, not a negative story, but a positive story. We talk about her interview from hell all the time and laugh.

Nothing wild but the position was advertised as 100% travel. As in they would be all over the country Mon-Friday. First question I asked was, so you are ok with that amount of travel? Guy says, yeah, as long as I’m home by 5:00 every night to give his dad medication.

Quickest interview ever.

Candidate looks at watch, asks: “How long is this going to take?” I say, “I have GREAT news! You can leave NOW!” Fastest interview ever!! It really did happen.

This wasn’t a great applicant to begin with. Nail in the coffin was at the end she asked me to not contact her current manager for a reference with the reason that the manager was new to her role and wouldn’t be able to properly speak to this applicant’s practice/performance. Thing is that her current manager was a friend of mine who I knew had been in that role for several years so it was clear she knew she’d get a terrible reference and just made up a weird lie about it.

Got asked a pretty standard question. Responded aggressively telling us it was the wrong question. We tried to give him some grace and he doubled down on the aggression just short of calling us idiots. Yeah dude, that's gonna be a no for me. If you dont take the lifeline youre telling me this isn't a one off and im just gonna have to deal with you as you are every day. Instead I could just...not do that.

"I can't really do the test unless I have chatGPT open".

It's scary that it happened several times, too.