declaring that you've eliminated status differences, when, in reality, you haven't, is a relatively common mistake that tends to cause problems.
Aha, much more understandable. Thank you.
In that case: what would you surmise from a hiring manager that said "there's office politics everywhere, of course, but we try to take an active role in minimizing their impact, and part of you being a good fit here will depend on your ability to help us with that goal."?
(I regretfully confess that my own reaction to that statement would depend on that hiring manager's gender, and (if male) how tall he was and how deep his voice was).
Thus spake Eliezer:
It seems that many here might have outlandish ideas for ways of improving our lives. For instance, a recent post advocated installing really bright lights as a way to boost alertness and productivity. We should not adopt such hacks into our dogma until we're pretty sure they work; however, one way of knowing whether a crazy idea works is to try implementing it, and you may have more ideas than you're planning to implement.
So: please post all such lifehack ideas! Even if you haven't tried them, even if they seem unlikely to work. Post them separately, unless some other way would be more appropriate. If you've tried some idea and it hasn't worked, it would be useful to post that too.