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Holy cow, people. You all have some horrible experiences!!!
I have been told "family atmosphere" and it did not mean you work there 24/7, it really meant, they were like that; they had picnics all together on weekends and lots of PAID work events where family members could attend on a voluntary basis (I did not)
Those events are usually unpaid. And, officially, they may be "optional", but your career will suffer if you don't attend all of them.
Usually, "family atmosphere" means 3 things:
You will be surrounded by people who put the needs of the company ahead of their own needs, and you will be seen as being lazy and not a team player if you don't buy into that.
You will often be expected to put your "work family" ahead of your real family.
A lot of events outside of work hours that are basically mandatory. That can be a good environment if you are single, but it's not so great if you are married and have children and are trying to balance work with family.
Quote:
My current job has a ping pong table and people play during breaks or if they show up early for their shift.
Sounds like they want you to show up early to your shift. Not good for those of us who are not morning people.
When I was an interviewer, I would spend most of the time telling the prospective employee about all the bad things about the job and not try to paint a rosy picture. I’d rather have employees that expected the worst and were relieved that it is not that bad than ones who had high expectations and get mad about every imperfection.
Good idea. It's a common tactic to see what they can get away with. I literally had one client state that he would deliberately mispronounce the last time to see how long it took for the interviewee to correct him. That was his barometer on how desperate that prospective hire was. I told him that was a crappy way to judge people. Needless to say, he wasn't my client very long after that.
Nearly all of my teachers would mispronounce my name, and I would correct them. It used to bug me when other students did not correct a wrong pronunciation of their names. Looking back on it, maybe my teachers hated me because my very first interaction with them would be me correcting their pronunciation of my name.
When I was an interviewer, I would spend most of the time telling the prospective employee about all the bad things about the job and not try to paint a rosy picture. I’d rather have employees that expected the worst and were relieved that it is not that bad than ones who had high expectations and get mad about every imperfection.
I think it is good to be honest with people that you are interviewing. If the job is going to require 80 hours per week, and 7 day workweeks, it's better to be honest than to mislead the interviewee into believing it's a 9 to 5 job. It's also dishonest to list paid holidays where the employee is expected to work on a regular basis, and to offer more vacation time on paper than the employee will ever be able to take.
Nearly all of my teachers would mispronounce my name, and I would correct them. It used to bug me when other students did not correct a wrong pronunciation of their names. Looking back on it, maybe my teachers hated me because my very first interaction with them would be me correcting their pronunciation of my name.
And that's probably why so many don't. People tend to mispronounce my name often, or try to call me by a nickname (shortening of my name) that I have never indicated I use, and sometimes I just let it go (especially if I'll only ever talk to them once), because it seems petty to interrupt a conversation with "actually, it's Susan Brown, not Suzie Brine," but also ridiculous to bring it up again later once the topic has completely changed.
Then again, there are also the people who insist on perpetuating a mispronunciation no matter how often they're corrected...
Years and years ago, I once had a very strange interview with two interviewers who really thought they were hot shots.
The first interviewer made "small talk" by insulting the town I was from almost immediately after meeting him. The second interviewer (the boss of the one who insulted my hometown) spent a good portion of the interview time ranting about people abusing sick leave.
The most ridiculous part of the interview, after all of this, was when the second interviewer proceeded to tell me that many people who worked there were friends with each other outside of the office. That is so funny now but at the time it was actually kind of confusing. These shenanigans took up more time than they spent actually talking with me about what was involved with the job.
I was very young (right out of college) and really eager for a job at the time, but I believe now that if I had some more experience and wasn't as timid as I was at the time (not the case now), I would have walked out of that one and maybe even call them out on their BS. But I did mentally tune them out once I saw how they were handling the interview. Needless to say, and thankfully, I didn't end up there.
And that's probably why so many don't. People tend to mispronounce my name often, or try to call me by a nickname (shortening of my name) that I have never indicated I use, and sometimes I just let it go (especially if I'll only ever talk to them once), because it seems petty to interrupt a conversation with "actually, it's Susan Brown, not Suzie Brine," but also ridiculous to bring it up again later once the topic has completely changed.
Then again, there are also the people who insist on perpetuating a mispronunciation no matter how often they're corrected...
I feel that people have the right to be addressed by their correct name, and I resented the fact that so many students were doormats who refused to correct their teachers' pronunciation.
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These shenanigans took up more time than they spent actually talking with me about what was involved with the job. 
