Bad on the Phone

Yesterday I participated in an interview for an online community coordinator position. The position is with a BigBox retailer looking to add some "community" to its online commerce. The interview lasted a little over half an hour and the whole thing felt like a psychic test, with my task being to read the interviewer's mind.

He asked me about a time when I faced an ethical quandary and how I handled the situation. He explained that the position required "sound judgment" when it came to editing content posted by users on the site. He meant quashing any naysayers or fun-pokers that rustled the feathers of the golden commercial goose--disrupting buying patterns or exposing shoddy service or lead painted tot-toys.

Sure he didn't want my thoughts on freedom of expression and transparency, I gave him a story about plagiarism and my desire to use the incident as a teachable moment and create a "win-win" situation for a floundering student. His response was so disinterested I wanted to end the conversation immediately or blurt out "what the hell buddy? Knock off the interview-speak and say what you mean." Why make the question so supercilious?

If he would've asked me straight out whether I would censor material deemed too negative/obscene/antagonistic by the BigBox boys, I would have said yes. Not that I think it's the best way to build a community or that "sound judgment" means silencing dissenting or questioning voices. I prefer a more Millian approach: draw out dissenters, engage them in dialog and force them to substantiate their position, then work on establishing steps to resolve their issues. Such participatory patterns create community, whether online or off.

Maybe my interview didn't go so well. But, since mind-reader appears nowhere on my resume, I'm not taking the floundering exchange as a blight on my core competencies.