"So what might have caused this strange new syndrome in our trading platform?" "Perhaps one of the market participants was doing something different?" "Nope."

"So what might have caused this strange new syndrome in our trading platform?" "Perhaps one of the market participants was doing something different?" "Nope." Then literally two hours of me stumbling through possible technical issues to do with the internals of a system I had never seen. Even though I had thought I was being considered for my maths rather than my computer skills. "Well just so you know, it turned out that one of the guys trading on the platform was doing something different." Laughing politely, "but you told me...". "Oh well no that's not what I would consider a market participant." I call my laughter polite but I suspect it had an edge to it. Anyway he immediately walked me out saying, "we'll send you feedback." The feedback was that I had asked for too much money. (I hadn't asked for anything.)