Interviews. As if the idea of them isn’t terrible enough. Getting all dressed up, going into a cold office with complete strangers and trying desperately to convince them that you are a commodity worth having. It’s terrifying, to say in the least. If something bad happens to you on top of that, it just makes it that much worse.

Here are some stories from real people about disasterous interviews, guaranteed to make you cringe.

"I had an interview once where I was literally just asked to come in to be hit on because they didn’t really get female applicants and they were gross.”

“When I was interviewing for a co-op job during a job fair, I was scheduled for three, half hour interviews throughout the day. For my first interview, every answer I gave was met with incredulity. "Really? Did you just say that?" It threw me off, so I tried being terse in the next interview and I think my hesitation kept the interviewer from warming up to me.

By the third interview, having bombed the first two, I wasn't in a good mood. The last interviewer couldn't give me any information about the company and didn't seem all that interested in listening to me, which made things worse. So, at the end, when she asked if I had any more questions, I asked why she got stuck interviewing college kids all day and whether she was "really" satisfied with a company that would do that to her. I got the job and she quit before I started.”

“Once they asked me if I could have lunch with anyone dead or alive who it'd be and I said Taylor Swift and they asked why and I said ‘Because she's awesome’ and I didn't get the job.”

“I had an interview one time where the guy asked me to sell him a bottle of water that was sitting on the desk.”

“I was interviewing for an administrative position at a high school. The principal asked if I remembered the old Borax commercials. I said yes. He asked me to relate that commercial to modern education. I went on a long anecdote about how the driver of the carriage was the principal and the teachers were the mules delivering the students who were the Borax. After all that, I got the job. Good thing I remembered the commercial.”

“I was auditioning for a part in a college play. While I was auditioning, there was a woman in the room with us who had a baby doll that she was treating like an actual baby. She was talking to him and cooing him as I was reading my lines. I was distracted and confused. I didn’t get the part.”

“I was doing an interview for a management position at a major retail store that was suppose to begin at 8:45, at 9:15 I asked the secretary what was going on and she said she was not sure and she would find out. The Kohl's manager did not show up until 10:00.

When she did show up I was unaware it was her she sat in the chair next to mine waiting for the secretary to assist her (the secretary had her sit down until she was off the phone) in a matter of 30 seconds the lady had managed to spill her coffee all over me, and not only was the coffee hot, but I was wearing a brand new white dress.

Finally at about 10:20 I got my interview, part way through the interview the lady’s phone started to ring. I thought ‘no problem it happens she probably will put it on silent.’

She answered it saying 'hello babe how are you?' I could hear the person on the other end say "not much, just bored, what are you doing?"

She replied with 'oh nothing just in an interview.'

I was waiting for someone to come out and tell me I was being punked. She stayed on the phone for 5 minutes before saying goodbye and then apologizing. I ignored her apology.

She then went on with the interview only to offer me the position.

I respectfully declined and told her I couldn’t work for this company and left."

"I was so nervous on the way to the interview that I passed gas very loudly in the elevator with a complete stranger and ran away on my floor, leaving him trapped inside."

"One time the interviewer asked 'If you could be any fruit, what would it be, and why?' It caught me off guard and I just said the first fruit that popped into my head. It was an apple."

"I have a tendency to slide my shoes off while I'm sitting down and twirl my feet around while I'm talking (because I'm so short my feet never touch the floor). One interview, I started to slide my feet out of my shoes and nearly knocked one of them over before I realized what I was doing. I quickly slid them back on and I don't even think the interviewers noticed."

“While interviewing for a professional internship, I learned my interviewer grew up down the street from me! Her parents still live there. Small world!”

"I had a phone interview with a practice in a small town in North Carolina. My interviewers were two middle-aged men. At one point, one proceeded to ask me, "Are you married? Are you single?" to which the other swiftly interjected, "You can't ask those questions!" Those are, of course, topics that can't be asked due to possible discrimination. I didn't answer and the first man went on to say he just wanted me to know the dating prospects were low in their town, as it was mostly marines. The whole thing was odd and I did NOT choose to move forward with the interview process."

“Last year I had an interview at a nice restaurant. One of the managers interviewed me and at first the interview was just the basic questions and I thought nothing of it.

Then he started to ask if I had a boyfriend and asked some personal questions. I was wondering why he wanted to know this but again brushed it off because I needed a job badly. I accepted the job. However, in the coming weeks he kept hitting on me and it was super uncomfortable. I left the company before I had to take the test...”

“I was at an interview and the first question they asked is if I minded swearing. Knowing that I may let a few slip here and there, I said no. He managed to say 37 swears, mainly starting with f, in the 38 minutes he met with me. The next guy walked in and used just as many. They offered me the job and because I needed a job and they got great reviews on glassdoor, I accepted. I was on a team with 2 other women and 16 guys. The language was so bad, I'd hear curse words 8 hrs a day. It was really hard to do inside sales when all the customers could hear were the ppl in background yelling nsfw language. I lasted there a month.”

“During my job interview at a financial institution, I was told I would be off on Saturdays/Sunday's except for two weekends a month, where I would have split days off. I was fine with that as I was forewarned and accepted the position. As soon as I was done with my training I came to learn that my days off were always split, except for maybe one weekend a month. And if they were together it was never a Saturday/Sunday. I left that company.”

“I had multiple interviews with a well known fashion company in NYC earlier this year. I did 3 interviews and they were spread out over a month and a half. I go in for my third interview to meet with members of the team. Walking to the interview room the lady tells me how she just came back from maternity leave, so I say congratulations and continue making small talk about her kid. You would have thought I said her kid was ugly. Her answers were so short. From there, the rest of the interview didn't go well. Everybody I met with seemed miserable and like they didn't want to be there. I left knowing I wasn't going to get the job, or at the off chance it was offered to me I wasn't going to accept.

I ended up never hearing back. Flash forward about a month later I am looking at job postings, and listed is the job I had wasted over a month and a half interviewing for. The posting for the job had just been posted again. A few weeks after that I had another recruiter reach out to me saying that they had the perfect opportunity that fit my background. So she sends over the job description and it's the same job that I had interviewed for (I could tell because the listing number was the same). Out of the four of us who were interviewed, nobody had been offered the job. As of last week, they reposted the job again."