* Since a dropped debt doesn’t exactly put a developing country in the black, Bono presumably is counting his pennies to continue to benefit the world’s poorest countries. Or maybe that memorabilia was all that they couldn’t leave behind. (More wordplay abounds. Why is it that even a non-fan like me can think of several puns off the top of her head? Damn that catchy U2 pop.) [MSN]

* Speaking of debt, can you believe it’s almost Christmas/Hannukah/Festivus? Catch this new documentary at a film festival near you, before you break out the plastic. [Consumer Law & Policy Blog]

* Remember when just a good idea could make you a paper millionaire? It’s safe to say that these days, you need a bit more than just a few scrawls on a cocktail napkin. But you’re still going to need this guy to inflate that bubble once again. [Wall Street Journal via Blawg Review]

* This time it’s the passenger suing the airline. And it’s breastfeeding, not alleged sexual acts. Not that we would never equate the beautiful and natural act of a baby pressing its face against the boob area to the less beautiful but equally natural act of a grown man pressing his face against the vaginal area. [Associated Press via MSN]

This is the continuation of an interview horror story that we started earlier. You can read the prior installment here.

When we last left our hero, an applicant for a lateral position at a top Silicon Valley law firm, he had just said a bunch of completely boneheaded things at an interview lunch with two associates. Here's what happened next:

[C]omfortable with our friendliness, the interviewee asked us whether he should make follow-up contact with the four other Biglaw firms who had interviewed him last month.

Obviously, this question is wrong on so many levels:

1. He's asking us advice about getting a job with competitors;
2. He's just informed us that four other BigLaws have passed on him;
3. Those other firms passed on him probably because he acted like this with their interviewers as well, thus showing an inability to learn from his mistakes; and
4. He didn't have the judgment to realize points 1 through 3.

My friend, a far kinder person than I, attempted to formulate an answer. I told him firmly that he should not, and headed to the restroom.

Frighteningly enough, this isn't the end of the story. It gets even worse:

When I returned to the table, my friend was repeatedly telling the candidate, "I'm sorry about your situation. I'm really really sorry." After we drove back to the office and the candidate left, my friend pulled me aside and freaked out.

Apparently, while I was in the restroom, my friend was trying to console the candidate, telling him that it sounded like he got a raw deal. The candidate replied: "Well, YOU can make it right. Please give me a job. Please! Please!"

He literally begged for a position. My friend was trying to calm him down when I returned to the table.

Then Sally Struthers showed up and told the two associates: "All it takes to redeem this associate from a life of public-interest law poverty is $150,000 a year. For the cost of just two venti caramel frappuccinos, you could pay his dry cleaning bill for a day. Your decision about whether to give this applicant a good write-up could determine his tax bracket for the year. Please act now!"

Surprisingly enough, this story has a happy ending:

According to the state bar website, the candidate eventually did get a position at a decent MidLaw. Thus, if there is a silver lining to this, it's that even begging, pathetic schmos can get hired somewhere so long as they passed the Bar.

Earlier: Interview Horror Stories: Don't Make Him Beg (Part 1)

Another interview horror story from the West Coast (just like our last two). And this one is a real gem. Here you go:

Back when I was a junior associate at a BigLaw in Silicon Valley, a colleague of mine grabbed me to take a candidate to an interview lunch. My colleague had heard through the alumni grapevine that this candidate was, well, a character.

Now, this was during the Tech Bubble Burst, when certain BigLaws were laying off associates but calling it "thinning the herd." The candidate was from one of those firms, which usually would've been a death knell. But apparently he did well enough with my other colleagues that they gave him a lukewarm approval, and he had a pretty good resume.

Generally, I try to be friendly during interviews -- candidates tend to let down their guard that way. It's a good thing that I was.

After engaging in small talk, I mentioned that he had a lot of case management and motion experience for a junior associate according to his resume. Instead of hitting that soft pitch out of the park, he proceeded to tell my friend and me that his firm stuck him with a "dinosaur of a partner" that the firm didn't know what to do with. This partner let him run with the case because it was pro bono and he "didn't really care what happened."

Things went really downhill from there. My friend asked him if he knew one of her friends that worked at the candidate's current firm. He informed us that he didn't because he kept mostly to himself at lunch.

Over the next hour, he proceeded to tell us that a certain partner at his firm was "a bitch," that other associates stole his books, that he could take as long as he wanted for lunch because no one would miss him, and that he was leaving his current firm because he "didn't have a future there." My friend and I were stunned, feeling a mixture of pity and horror.

Pretty awful, eh? But it actually gets worse, and worse still.

Check back in later today, for the sequel to this sorry tale (wherein the meaning of the post title will be made clear).

Update: You can read the sequel by clicking here.

(Have an interview horror story of your own that you'd like to share? Please send it to us, by email. We will keep you anonymous, unless you request otherwise.)