[schnebbau]

Yep. This is definitely an OP-is-autistic problem, or is perhaps inexperienced. Not an interviewer problem. Keep it professional. If an interviewer asks a personal question then you simply refuse to answer (politely), or steer it back towards a professional context. If they persist then you end the interview.

[lukeasrodgers]

"definitely an OP-is-autistic problem" is an absurd claim to make about an internet stranger, and violates comment guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

[schnebbau]

Well, as someone with autism myself it's relatively easy to spot others, and given the information provided in the post I'd say chances are high. Not sure what rule you're referring to, it looks fine to me - autism is a super power, not a slur.

[v0x]

I don't agree. While yes, it's definitely possible the interviewee handled it poorly, I have seen enough poorly conducted interviews to say it's just as likely the interviewer was the problem.

My best guess is that as a mental health startup geared toward expanding access to therapy services, they were fishing for candidates who had some kind of experience with the industry, or who could prove their fealty to the mission. For example: "After grieving the loss of my brother, I tried to obtain counseling services. But my private insurance didn't cover that, and when I looked for supplemental insurance, I was stuck in a byzantine maze of options. There was no centralized and easy way to see what might be covered, and for what cost; all of it was hidden behind sales reps you had to contact over the phone. That's when I came to understand the value of the kind of service ACMECORP is looking to introduce into the market."

[missinglugnut]

From the details I read in the post you are almost certainly wrong, not to mention being reallying condescending.

The interviewer has control over the room. They steer the conversation. They could have stopped this at any point. Instead they encouraged OP to go deeper for 90 minutes.

That wasn't OP misunderstanding a question, that was an interviewer enjoying the power trip.

[schnebbau]

Should OP take their mom next time to shut things down for them? You don't have to do what others ask of you, you know. I stand by my original assumption - they were too inexperienced with the world to know you can tell someone no, or lacked the ability to do so.

[eithed]

It might be cultural as well; I'm Polish and living in UK made me change my habits of answering "How are you?" questions. Same with Dutch from my experience - there are cultures where people say what's on their mind without the "I'm fine, how are you" bullshit.

To be fair though, drama-dumping goes beyond that

[arrowsmith]

How do Poles answer "how are you?" differently to Brits?

[eithed]

Brits will either say "Fine, thanks" or not respond at all. Poles will tell you that yesterday they went to visit their relatives, and now they're tired, or that their cat is sick, or that they having problems with something.

It's a difference between "asking when you don't care about response" vs "asking because you genuinely want to know how the other person is"

[TRiG_Ireland]

In the UK, a perfectly valid answer to "How are you?" is "How are you?"

[eithed]

Yes :D

In Poland you would just say Hej! = I acknowledge you being there but I don't want to chat. But again, back to the point I was trying to make - the intent behind these sort of questions (and answers) can be cultural