Applied for a coordinator role at a small events company. The listing had all the usual stuff - fast paced, detail oriented, team player, blah blah. I’ve learned to mentally translate all of that into nothing at this point.\

Got to the interview and it was just the owner of the company. No HR, no team, just him in what I’m pretty sure was his living room on Zoom. He spent about 10 minutes explaining that they were “scaling rapidly” and needed someone who could “wear a lot of hats.” The hats in question turned out to be: updating one spreadsheet, replying to vendor emails, and occasionally picking up supplies if the other person (singular) was busy. The spreadsheet was last touched in 2019. I could see the filename in the screenshot he shared. He did not notice that I noticed.

The role was full time, in office three days a week, and the office was 45 minutes from my place. For a spreadsheet from 2019 and some vendor emails.

I asked about the team size. He said “we’re lean right now but growing.” I asked how many people. He said “well it’s me, and we’re bringing you on, and then we have a freelancer who helps out sometimes.”

That’s two people. That’s not a team, that’s a situation. Didn’t take the role obviously. But I do think about that spreadsheet sometimes.