'I had to pay them [FOURTY] THOUSAND DOLLARS.' Job interview goes sideways when interviewer reveals terms of training

If an employer wants to charge you money for anything to do with starting your new role… it's a scam, not a job interview. You would do your best to get up and run—fast, and as far away as possible—metaphorically… but maybe also literally.

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Posted by Brad Dickson

Demanding payment for training, or as a penalty for missing training days, is one of the reddest, flag-iest, red flags that you could possibly come across in the job interview process. This, along with things like being incredibly vague about job duties and compensation and evidence of a bullying culture.

This job seeker reported having the "stupidest" job interview ever when they attended an interview for a medical assistant position. The job seeker writes that medical assistant programs usually will cost between $1-2K, but they came across a position that would offer to train you in exchange for a $13/hr rate of compensation. These conditions came with one HUGE catch: Missing even one day of the training period (for any reason) would put the employee at risk of a $40,000 penalty.

The job seeker, and the original poster of this thread, Redditor u/whippedcreamisbad, wisely got up and walked away, sharing their experience to Reddit's r/antiwork subreddit. Commenters had a lot to say about the interview and applauded the job seeker for walking away. See selected screenshots below; visit the attribution link to see the original post; for more, check out