I had an "interview" for a maintenance tech position back in the early 2000's.
As a 'test' the owner had me look at a down machine to determine the cause and see if my answer 'concurred' with what his guy found. Quickly figured out he didn't have a 'guy' and wanted a free diagnosis. I told him that when I was hired I would fix it, otherwise my consulting fee was $300 per hour.
can you tell us more? how did you figured out it wasn't a test but a real problem?