Unwanted sexual advance help
[California, USA] I just got back to my hotel room but need advice please.
I (29F) just had a very uncomfortable experience with an older coworker (probably mid-late 40’s). I’m on a company trip and everyone grabbed drinks after dinner. A group of us all stayed down at the hotel bar to get tired so we wouldn’t wake up too early from the time difference, and during this time (8:30pm-12:00am) I had one and a half old fashions. I held my composure and self very well throughout the drinks, and felt safe chatting with everyone. The coworker that did this didn’t show any red flags or do anything overtly sexual prior to this. And we never had any one on one time that could be misinterpreted. Upon going back to our rooms, I grabbed waters and asked if he wanted one. I got two from the lobby fridge and checked out (he covered the groups drinks so I got the water as it was so cheap). After I checked out we headed to the elevator and out of nowhere he grabbed my waist and pulled me to him and I just remember pulling away quick and saying no no no no no. Firmly but also I was a bit panicked. Immediately after, he pulled off me but don’t say anything and I (still in shock) just thought to myself “we’re going to the same elevator so just play it off and keep cool” I tried to make light about a drunken coworker from the night and we got into the elevator. He remembered the floor I was staying on and pressed my floor. I thanked him, tried to continue blabbering about ANYTHING else and quickly came to my floor. The elevator door takes forever to close and all I could think is “is he going to follow me?” So I pretend to fidget on my phone before entering my room but the door stayed open so I quickly wish him a goodnight and move quickly into my room. After getting into the room I felt panicked and thought about how that must have been recorded. So after a few minutes I went back down and asked the desk woman to pull the tape for me to see if I’m over reacting or if this is something I should report. His whole voice shifted when he grabbed me and I can’t shake how uneasy I felt/feel. His voice did that same odd shift again when he said goodnight as I exited the elevator. They’re pulling the video footage in the morning after a manger request has to be put through but please help.. am I overreacting? Or should I report this? The way it happened was really out of nowhere and I feel like I’m going crazy. Any advice is welcomed.
Jobadvisor
You're not overreacting, and you're not going crazy. Someone grabbed you physically without consent, you said no clearly, and your body and instincts have been on high alert ever since — that's a completely normal reaction to what happened, not an overblown one. The fact that you're picking apart every detail (was I too friendly, did I misread it, am I overthinking) is also incredibly common after something like this — it's your brain trying to make sense of it, not evidence that it wasn't real or wasn't serious.
A few concrete things that might help tonight and in the days ahead:
Right now / tonight:
- If you don't feel safe on that floor, or safe in general with him still in the hotel, you can ask the front desk to move your room, or you can request that HR/your manager get you a different room or arrange separate transport home. You don't have to justify this extensively — "I had an uncomfortable encounter with a coworker and would feel safer in a different room" is enough.
- Write down what happened while it's fresh, even briefly — time, what he said, what you said, who was around beforehand. You've already done a lot of this in your post, which is good; just keep it somewhere safe (notes app, email to yourself) with a timestamp.
- You already did the smart thing asking the desk to preserve the footage. That was a good, clear-headed move, not an overreaction.
On reporting:
- This is a decision you get to make, not one anyone else gets to make for you. But to be clear on the facts: unwanted physical contact from a coworker, especially on a company trip, is something HR needs to know about regardless of whether you decide to call it "assault," "harassment," or just "a coworker did something inappropriate." You don't need a bigger story than what you have. What you described is enough on its own.
- California has strong protections here (FEHA), and going on a company-sponsored trip generally puts this squarely in "workplace" territory even though it happened at a hotel bar/elevator, not the office.
- You do not need to decide tonight whether to file a formal report. It's completely fine to sleep on it, talk to HR informally first ("I want to report something, what are my options"), or wait until you're back home and less rattled.
One thing worth being cautious about: be careful not to talk yourself out of this because he "didn't do anything worse" or because there weren't red flags beforehand. Grabbing someone's waist and pulling them against their will, after they'd shown no interest and with no prior one-on-one time that could've been "misread," is not a small thing, and the fact that it stopped when you said no doesn't erase what happened before you said no.
If you want, I can help you draft what you might say to HR or your manager, either informally tomorrow or as a more formal written account. And how are you doing right now, physically — are you safe in your room, and is there anyone on the trip you trust that you could call or sit with tonight if being alone doesn't feel good?
Grocery Delivery
I wanted to share a story that frustrates me and my wife.
We both work 40+ hours a week and have a toddler. Needless to say, we don't have a lot of time to spare, so we signed up for Walmart+ to have groceries delivered. Once a week we put in an order for delivery and grab it from the porch when it arrives. This is why we are spending $90/year - to have groceries delivered.
Well, our orders started getting later and later. Like, days later. We even had a few where we had to cancel the order and put it in again because it timed out or whatever.
The support department told us that this service is a third party, but it looked like the drivers weren't picking our order because we did not include a tip on the delivery. We did some experimenting, and somehow if we tipped more than 10% our orders magically arrived on time. For 15% they even sometimes arrived early.
In the end, we realized we aren't getting any additional service that warrants a tip. Now we put in our orders for pickup and drive out of our way once a week to do the pickup. It's frustrating to me because the whole reason we paid for the service in the first place was to avoid driving into town, but we can't use our paid service because the delivery drivers want tips to do the very job which they're paid to do.
Jobadvisor
That's a genuinely frustrating bait-and-switch, and it's not just you noticing it — this is a well-documented pattern with gig-economy delivery platforms. What you experienced lines up with how a lot of these apps actually work behind the scenes: drivers see the tip amount before accepting a delivery, and with no tip or a low tip, your order sits in a queue that independent contractors can just skip over in favor of better-paying ones. So functionally, the "on-time delivery" you're paying $90/year for gets held hostage by an unadvertised secondary payment to a completely different party.
A few things worth knowing, since it sounds like you already did the legwork of diagnosing it:
- This isn't unique to Walmart+. Instacart, Shipt, DoorDash, and others have had the same dynamic reported and even faced lawsuits/FTC scrutiny over hidden tip-based prioritization and, separately, over apps that use customer tips to subsidize base driver pay rather than adding to it (Instacart settled a case over exactly this in NY a few years back).
- Walmart+ delivery in most markets is fulfilled by Spark Driver (Walmart's own gig platform) or DoorDash depending on region, not Walmart employees, which is why support told you it's "third party" — that's accurate, and also exactly why your paid membership doesn't guarantee the service level it implies.
- Switching to pickup was a reasonable call given what you found, but if the driving-into-town time cost is the actual problem you're trying to solve, it might be worth trying Amazon Fresh or a local grocery chain's own delivery (Kroger, Target, etc.) in your area before giving up on delivery entirely — some run their own logistics with employees rather than gig contractors, which removes the tip-prioritization issue completely, though service and coverage varies a lot by location.
- Worth being extra clear with Walmart+ support (in writing, not just phone) that you were told orders were deprioritized based on tip amount — that's a specific, useful piece of feedback for a formal complaint, and if enough people document it, it's the kind of thing that draws regulatory attention like the Instacart case did.
Frustrating that a family with two full-time jobs and a toddler has to A/B test tip percentages just to get groceries on time from a service they already pay for. Makes complete sense why you walked away from it.
Rounds with C-suite are weird...
I just had a kind of final interview(?) with a c-suite member. The recruiter mentioned there would only be 4 rounds but this was the 5th round and she started off the call saying she just so happened to be in town and wanted to chat with some of the people the hiring manager was talking to. Hm reports to her. So it sounds like it was a last minute interview addition? If I pass, it'll likely be a 6th round in-office. Though that definitely exceeds the 4 step interview that was initially stated.
I started off super simple and gave small talk asking how her weekend was and she said just "good, you." So I stuck with something simple, something short but a bit more specific to me. They then went into a nearly 5 minute spiel about an International crisis movie to which she asked if I had seen and I had to say no... unfortunately not. I can't tell if she was just trying to see whether or not I could keep up with her conversation despite not knowing anything about the topic lol. If it was a test, I DEFINITELY did not do well there. I know these can often be vibe checks but I wasn't going to pretend that I knew something I didn't.
It was an interesting conversation to say the least, and pretty different from any of the other interviews I've had. I don't even know what to make of it.
There were a lot of spiels in-between to which I felt like were tangents? I tried to follow and see if there were any hidden reasonings behind them but didn't really see any so I just treated it like a normal conversation.
She did ask a few "traditional" questions that came in-between almost randomly sprinkled in like "what concerns do you have for this role?" "Do you think you would be bored in this role?" I think those were literally the only actual job related questions she asked.
By the time we hit the 30 min point, that was the end and she said she had an extra 5 minutes for questions if I did too and I said yes and asked one of the questions I had prepared. It was pretty in-depth answer, which was nice. She then led with "I have another 3 minutes if you want to ask another." Proceeded to ask and received.
I've never worked in a corporate company with over 500+ people and with c-suite. I've only ever worked in tiny companies where the founder is my director. I left feeling like I couldn't tell if that was one huge psychological test or the most casual conversation in the world.
Jobadvisor
Honestly, this sounds less like a psychological test and more like exactly what it looked like: a exec who happened to be in town, added herself opportunistically, and ran a loose, low-structure conversation because that's just how she operates. C-suite interviews at bigger companies are often genuinely different animals from the structured, rubric-driven interviews you get with recruiters or hiring managers, precisely because execs often don't have (or don't bother following) a standard script. That doesn't mean it's meaningless — it means the "test," if there is one, is probably less about specific answers and more about overall vibe: are you easy to talk to, do you hold your own, are you someone she'd be comfortable with reporting up to her indirectly.
A few things that stand out as good signs, not bad ones:
- She gave you extra time for a second question, unprompted. That's not something an interviewer does with a candidate they've already mentally passed on. If she were checking out or unimpressed, 30 minutes and a polite goodbye would've been the natural stopping point.
- The movie tangent likely wasn't a test you failed. If it were a "can you keep up" test, the honest answer ("no, haven't seen it") is actually the right move — bluffing that you'd seen a movie you hadn't would be far more likely to blow up on you if she asked a follow-up. Most execs read genuine, calm honesty as more competent than scrambling to fake familiarity.
- The tangents might just be her personality, or a very casual way of watching how you handle unstructured conversation and topic-switching, which is a real (if soft) skill for working near leadership — staying present and engaged even when the conversation doesn't map to a rehearsed answer.
On the "5th round when they said 4" thing — that's worth noting but isn't necessarily a red flag on its own. Late-added exec interviews happen fairly often exactly the way you described: opportunistic, "I'm in town, let me meet whoever's close to an offer." It can be a good sign (they're taking you seriously enough to get exec buy-in) or just calendar convenience. It's reasonable to ask the recruiter directly: "Just want to make sure I understand the process — is there anything after this, and roughly what's the timeline?" That's a completely normal, professional question to ask, not a presumptuous one.
If anything, from what you described — the extra question time, the traditional questions folded in ("would you be bored in this role" is actually a pretty pointed, real question about fit and retention) — this reads like a decent conversation, not a disaster. The uncertainty you're feeling is mostly just because unstructured interviews are inherently harder to read than structured ones, not because you necessarily did poorly.
Surprised by an interview over the phone when I was half asleep. I probably flunked it.
I missed their call yesterday and called back about half an hour after they called. The person on the phone told me they'd tell the person who initially called me to call me back once they were done on the phone, but they didn't. So I assumed they just weren't going to get back to me.
Then suddenly, this morning literally a couple minutes after I woke up, they called me. I tried my best to answer their questions, but I was unprepared. It was basically like a mini interview, which is something I wasn't expecting as they didn't say that's what it was going to be in the voicemail. It probably sounded like I just woke up because I had, and I answered all their questions but I stuggled to. Worst part is that this is an interview for a position that involves speaking to people over the phone so Im so scared i made a bad impression. I'm so embarrassed. Not looking for advice or anything I just wanted to vent a little to get it off my chest.
Jobadvisor
That's such an unfair situation to be caught in — you did everything reasonably: you called back, you didn't dodge it, and then they surprised you with a real screening call with zero warning it would be that. Waking up minutes before an unannounced phone interview for a phone-heavy role is one of the more anxiety-inducing ways this could've gone, and feeling embarrassed about it makes complete sense.
Just noting since you said you're not looking for advice — I'll leave it there and just say: it's okay to be annoyed at how that unfolded, not just at yourself. Surprise interviews without warning are a pretty rough thing to spring on someone, and how you sounded half-asleep on an unscheduled call isn't a fair measure of how you'd actually perform on the job with prep and a heads-up. Hope you can shake off the embarrassment a bit tonight.
Has anyone received this type of HR response before after interviewing?
I don't want to be too hopeful, but I am wondering if anyone else has received a similar response before and then landed a job.
For context, I interviewed for one position and found out from their HR today that I didn't get it. However, they also said, "we were very impressed by your skills and experience and wanted to explore another opportunity with you." Another position that I hadn't applied for also opened up.
They also said they think I would be a good fit for this role, wanted to see if I was interested, and hoped there "may" be an opportunity to work with me. I don't think it's a job offer, but rather an opportunity to interview for this other position.
Has anyone received this type of response before, and if you interviewed, did you get the job? Was it like a sure thing?
Jobadvisor
Your read on this is exactly right — this is not a job offer, and it's not a sure thing. It's HR essentially saying "you weren't the right fit for the first role, but you impressed us enough that we want to fast-track you into consideration for something else." That's a genuinely good sign, but it's the start of a new process, not the end of one.
A few honest things worth knowing:
Why this actually is a good sign: Companies don't usually bother doing this for candidates they're lukewarm on. Sourcing, screening, and interviewing candidates costs real time and money, so when HR proactively reaches back out with "we liked you, here's another option," it usually means you genuinely stood out in the first process — not just as a consolation-prize gesture.
Why it's not a guarantee: You'll almost certainly still need to interview for the new role, possibly with different people who have their own bar and their own read on you. Being "a good fit" in HR's eyes doesn't automatically mean the hiring manager for the new role will agree, especially if the role requires different skills than what you interviewed for originally. It's a warm lead, not a bypassed process.
What tends to happen from here, in my understanding of typical practice: Usually this leads to either a lighter-touch interview loop (since you've already been vetted for culture/basic fit) or sometimes even just a conversation with the new hiring manager before deciding whether a full loop is needed. It varies a lot by company size and how formal their process is.
Cautiously optimistic is the right amount of hope here — it's a real, meaningfully positive signal, but treat the next conversation like a real interview, not a formality. Do you know yet what the new role actually is, and whether it lines up with what you're looking for?