This one ticked me off because of the sheer rudeness of a demand they made of me. I had been building a personal freelance brand around myself and my skills for many years. I had in the prior 3 years developed it from a freelance to a lean agency model. That was running in parallel with full time work and the FT employer was happy to allow it. Eventually that employer downsized me and almost everyone else on staff. But they liked me and gave me mini-projects to do on a contract basis. I began interviewing for FT work with other companies.

One agency I applied at gave me a phone screen interview. The main hiring person was also an investor in the agency. He noted my lean agency and said that a second interview would be contingent on my dropping my clients that I was working for on my own time, disposing completely of my personal brand, and even giving up my domain name.

I told him I’d think about it. But the more I thought about it the more angry I got about such a stupid request. Why does this new company I don’t even know I will like working for get to tell me to abandon my “Plan B” option for if I quit or they decide to lay me off?

They never called back but I wished they had so I could have had the satisfaction of telling them no.