Of course I have. I'm thinking of a couple of them right now, and I admire the hell out of them: it took courage to get up there and do what they did. I wasn't going to cast them in that show, right then, but within the limits of the time available I did my best to help them improve. I hoped they did, and I wished them nothing but the best.

I'm glad you brought that up, because it might be the exception that proves the rule. Those auditions did feel more personal, but it was entirely benign: I was rooting for them to succeed, and really felt for them when it became obvious (especially to them) that they had not.

Maybe it's not like that with other fields, or other companies, or other people - but if not, then that's not somewhere anyone should have to work. There's no incompatibility between high standards and human decency.

A colleague rejected a candidate this week after said candidate posted ten lines of code into a clipboard all at once and then claimed to have written it one line at a time. When challenged, he further claimed my colleague's zoom session lagged which is why he missed it.

Of course. But I've screened far more out because I was in a rush and got 40 resumes in that day and they just didn't pique my interest as much as the next one over.