[potamic]

> they threw an obnoxious senior manager that kept interrupting me as I calmly answered the questions

This is a red flag. To me this signals that a company not only has a toxic culture, but embraces it. Such places attract personalities who love conflict and once there are enough people, they set the culture.

What doesn't get said often is that conflict is a failure of leadership. Often all it takes to resolve conflict is for one very senior leader to snap their fingers and say, "Guys, I want you two to make this happen". But what happens is that leadership is either far too disconnected from the ground to align their teams, or they constitutionally advocate conflict within their teams in the name of competitiveness. Either way, such places can be hell to work in.

[talldrinkofwhat]

The way I read it:they inserted the manager as a litmus test AGAINST aggression / toxic culture. Kind of like when a psychology test is given, the __thing__ they're trying to measure is always one level removed / abstracted to avoid subjects gaming the system. I suppose deceptive practices in interviews don't bode well, but I could see the argument given the interviewee could be deceptive (something that this site complains about a lot with upper management / ChiefBullshittingOperatives etc.)

[93po]

I think the point is that deliberately trying to piss someone off and annoy them is a super childish and ridiculous thing to do and is indicative of a place I wouldn't want to work. Interviewing is already stressful and terrible enough without deliberately being antagonized. Most people are not going to go off on someone doing this, they're just going to be turned off by the entire process and decline to go forward to the interview or hiring process.

I think a good comparison would be your romantic partner "testing" you by asking their friend to try to sleep with you and see if you try to go through with it. This is toxic, manipulative, sociopath level behavior.

[Aeglaecia]

those adjectives describe the minimum of what id expect a worker to be able to handle if hes being paid the big bucks

[cjblomqvist]

Personally, I don't like this kind of thinking that it's a failure of leadership first and foremost. Yes, of course leadership can both work proactively to prevent conflict, as well as try to minimize/react to situations. But, what about the conflicting people? Shouldn't they (in most situations), bear the most responsibility to not end up/turn a situation into a conflict? Sometimes I get afraid of comments that (in my interpretation) imply that basically everything bad that happens is the fault of leadership (management). To me that breeds a culture where ICs are taught to not own their situation, which I believe is very very dangerous (to everyone involved).

Maybe I'm just interpreting your comment wrong :)

[mulmen]

As an IC leadership picks my coworkers and my projects for me. Why should I be made responsible for the consequences of their decisions? What do you think leadership does do if not build successful teams? If I am expected to get along with everyone on my team then I expect to be allowed to make hiring, firing, and prioritization decisions. At which point I’m now leadership and we don’t need dedicated leaders.