2014-08-17
Explanation
The Joke
A job interviewer asks a candidate standard interview questions, and the candidate answers each one with brutal, literal honesty. "What is your greatest strength?" -- "I am willing to perform services in exchange for currency." "What is your greatest weakness?" -- "I require shelter and calories to maintain existence, and thus I must perform services in exchange for currency." "Why are you interested in working at this company?" -- "This company pays currency in exchange for the performance of services." "Where do you see yourself in five years?" -- "Performing comparable services in exchange for more currency."
The interviewer, frustrated, says "Let's start over, okay?" and we flash back to an earlier scene where someone told the candidate: "Just be honest in this job interview," to which the candidate replied, "Oh, wow, really?"
The Humor
The comic exposes the absurd theater of job interviews by having a candidate take the advice to "just be honest" completely literally. Every standard interview question is designed to elicit a performative, flattering answer, but the honest truth behind all of them is the same: people work for money. The candidate's answers strip away all pretense and reduce the employment relationship to its bare transactional essence. The humor comes from the awkward tension between what everyone knows is true (we work for money) and the elaborate social ritual that pretends otherwise. The flashback punchline adds an extra layer by showing this disaster was caused by well-meaning but naive advice.