What made you pick a quarter inch as your number, or did you just eyeball it and it stuck? Curious if you tested tighter gaps and had them blow out on you.

Read a thing on a forum once where someone counted it out and said Bleach is almost half filler if you add up all the standalone arcs, like the Bount saga alone is over 40 episodes. That number stuck with me because I loved that show as a teen and totally fell off during that stretch. Now I keep a filler list pulled up on my phone for every long show and just skip past the side stuff. Some of it is fun but most of it kills the momentum. Pacing matters way more than I used to give it credit for lol.

Is it really that big a deal though? I mean yeah the 4 rounds thing sucks but that guy could've just asked in round one or two and saved himself the trouble. HR people get weird about pay questions at any point in my experience, not just the first 5 minutes, so rushing it early doesn't magically fix that. Maybe it's just me but showing up and asking about money before you even talk about the job can come off like you don't care about the work at all. Idk, I've always just asked when they bring it up or when I get a vibe it's going well, and that's worked fine. Plenty of people make it through the whole process without getting burned, so it feels like this is more about that one guy's bad luck than some rule everyone needs to follow.