Arnold Palmer

This is a story about an interview that I wasn't a part of. About 5 years ago, I was interviewing with a law firm in LA. These interviews tend to be all day affairs. You have 4-5 interviews in the morning, then go out to lunch with a couple of associates, and then you might finish off with an interview or two after lunch. For the most part, the actual interviews are with the partners. While I was out to my associate lunch, one of them orders an Arnold Palmer. In efforts to make polite small talk, I mentioned that I used to work with someone who ordered those all the time.

The associate (let's call him "Steve") turned to his colleague (let's call him "Rob") wryly smiled. "Well, then apparently you're not going to fall for it."

"Fall for what?"

Steve answered, "About a year ago, Rob and I came to this same restaurant with another candidate, just like you. And just like I did today, I ordered an Arnold Palmer."

Rob interjected, "As did I."

Steve continued, "Thing is, this kid then orders a vodka cranberry. At first, I thought he was just some punk looking to get sloshed on the firm's dime."

Rob responded, "But I didn't peg him for someone like that. Too nerdy. Too much of a suckup. No, this guy thought that an Arnold Palmer was an alcoholic drink!"

(For the uninformed, an Arnold Palmer is one part iced tea, one part lemonade).

Steve added, "So what do we do? We kept our damn mouths shut, and we started pounding the Arnold Palmers!"

Rob exclaimed, "And this poor bastard feels the need to keep up! He must have taken down 5 vodka cranberries before they served the appetizer! And then we hung around after the meal, drinking more Arnold Palmers!"

Steve continued, "By the time we walked out of the restaurant, the kid could barely stand. And worse yet, he still had 2 more rounds of interviews that day."

At this point, I asked a question with a fairly obvious answer.

"Did he get an offer?"

"No. But I heard he was pretty far down on the list anyways."

Moral to the story - don't ever drink on an interview unless you're damn sure it's expected of you.