Their company culture sucks, but there isn't anything wrong with their interview process. They communicated exactly what it was like to work there, and you decided that as a person who expects respect and civility, you didn't want the job. Wasn't that the best possible outcome?
I have to agree that they where very up front about the fact that they are jerks and that the turn over was high for the position. The culture probably revolves around the owner or partners in a relatively flat hierarchy like a law firm. Which makes fixing the culture nearly impossible.
There are people that just flat out love being authoritarian jerks, I have seen it in law more than other professions so there may be some draw to law by that personality type.
I am still floored by the syringe part though, do they not have a janitor? who would make their assistant go into the parking lot and pick up medical waste, I mean for god sakes this is a person that will be bringing you coffee, a person that you have already admitted that you are going to yell at and you are going to have them pick up contaminated waste, at some point one of those turn over statistics is going to get a bright idea to combine tasks.
That is what always astonishes me about this personality type. Do they know how much spit they consume when they are a jerk to someone that handles their food. While the lowly don't have power to confront them directly, they will find a way to get back at them. People with this attitude believe they walk around with impunity, as if they are smarter than the rest, mean while the dumb asses are having everything they touch tampered with by saboteurs. I know because my first career was in food and I still clearly remember the revelry by some of the staff at sabotaging the food of people with this personality defect. Contrary to popular belief by people like this, people generally don't roll over and take it, they just even the score when they know they have the upper hand. All actions have consequences, that was a valuable lesson I learned early on.
Well the best possible outcome would be they call me back and pay me 200,000 a year to fix the company culture.
I have to give them credit for being honest. I should probably title the post "how to discourage people from working for you." Plus, they gave me good fodder for a blog post.
