BOFH: There are no wrong answers, just wrong questions. Mmm, really wrong ones "Look, all we want you to do is take this simple test which will tell us your personality type and the things you respond to," the Boss burbles. "Angry, and Free Beer!" the PFY chips, strolling into the conversation. "Oh good, I was hoping to catch you," the Boss says, turning to the PFY after a fruitless 10 minutes trying to …
I took a personality test as part of an interview process. Once done and analysed the assessors came back in to discuss it. To break the ice and keep things friendly they opened with a humorous, "good news; you're not an axe murderer".
Chuckles all round, discussion ensued, and I was offered the job.
But it set me thinking. I am so tempted to take a small axe to interviews in the future so I can plonk that on the desk and ask, "are you sure about that?", if it ever happens again.
Worse still is where they have "types".
I went on a "team building" event once where, before attending, we all filled out the questionnaires. On arrival, when it came to me, the bloke presenting was made up. He'd never seen one of me before and followed me around like a small dog for the entire week, taking notes[1] all the time.
Apparently the "mad bastard who just sees the right answer"[2] trait is supposed to come as secondary with something other trait as dominant. He'd never seen it as dominant, let alone in purity, until then.
[1] And here the small dog analogy dies like the, er, dog it is.
[2] Best translation of their categories I can come up with.
I went on a "team building" event once where, before attending, we all filled out the questionnaires. On arrival, when it came to me, the bloke presenting was made up. He'd never seen one of me before and followed me around like a small dog for the entire week, taking notes[1] all the time.
At least he didn't try to hump your leg. And anyway, you're doing it wrong if they're not backing away and looking for exits...
Three pages of replies, and nobody's even mentioned "Prisoner's Dilemma"/the "Red & Blue"/"Green & Blue" games - you know the ones, where everybody's supposed to work out that they get equally well rewarded if everyone votes like sheep for the most mediocre option - oh sorry, I meant everyone always votes for the option that appears to benefit all sides equally.
I was dragged into one game like that...
Instructor: Hmm, why have you voted like this in the later rounds ?
Me: Damage limitation. Our negotiator got the diplomatic equivalent of an atomic wedgie and lost us lots of points.
Instructor: You're not very trusting, are you ?
Me: Lady, I do IT security. I'm paid to think bad thoughts and try to make sure they never happen.
Instructor: Okaaaayyyy, I think I'll go and to talk to that team over there...
What did I learn from that day ?
(a) Certain colleagues have better "poker faces" than I ever imagined ;
(b) It's wrong to stereotype people, but it's perfectly acceptable to be put in one of sixteen MBTI "pigeonholes" by a consultant ;
(c) We should all be more like dolphins - of course, we did this around the time when several studies came out about dolphin behaviour... "So, should we go out and kill porpoises, and take bites out of human researchers when we're hungry ?" Don't even get me started on the sex life of dolphins, several journals suggest they're just as filthy as H. Sapiens when it comes to inserting tab "A" into slot "B".
After working for a company for a couple of years and being promoted to a manager, I took a personality test which had been recently implemented for new hires. I failed. Yet, at this and another company which had a personality test as part of the hire process, I watched as several employees who passed were fired or in one case arrested for stealing from the store, as well as other "minor" policy infractions like showing up for work drunk, showing up hours late or not at all, non-physical (unprofessional dialogue, to say the least) altercations with customers, and general don't-give-a-shit attitudes.
Yeah, great tests, these; great test of upper-management or HR gullibility.
I was trying to rent an apt/flat years ago and the landlord call a dear friend of mine who had agreed to be a reference. He caught her in the middle of an experiment she was doing(using a fair amount radioactive iodine) and said "Well, he's not a serial killer". I still got the apt/flat.
Back say 30 years ago, a friend got hold of one of the Scientology questionaires. He went through it & designed answers for it to give exactly the impression he wanted, then wandered around near their office until he was asked if he would care to come in for a free test...
He was carefully and politely shown out some time later, without them trying to get him to join up, having given responses that indicated, in his words, "the profile of an axe murderer having a bad day."
"I often blame technology for my own shortcomings. IT'S ONLY GOT STRONGLY AGREE!"
"I am frequently upset by questions I can't answer that might highlight my lack of competence Agree to Strongly agree - but STILL no disagree."
There was me thinking that working with one of these people was almost mandatory in any IT job.
This reminds me of the probably apocryphal story where someone was given a Rorschach test and responded with a sexual description for each inkblot.
At the end of the test the psychologist suggested he was obsessed by sex - to which the man replied:
"Me? You're the one with all the dirty pictures."
"Me? You're the one with all the dirty pictures."
That was done as comedy sketch.
Here's one version but I'm sure that someone more famous also did it.
One week, work asks me to fill an a "mini" MBTI test (which looked like it was ripped out of a magazine), the next they ask me if I'm storing hazardous chemicals in my office - the list included "organophosphate-based nerve agents (e.g. VX, Tabun, Sarin)".
Hmm, were they worried I was going to extract a terrible revenge for being made to sit through a "team-building" day or something ?
The appropriate response is: "Yes, but in quantities that fall into the exempt category for reporting."
Dave
P.S. I'll get my coat. It's the one with the bottle of Atropine in it.
P.P.S. And, lest any of you think I'm jesting, I really do have a bottle of Atropine in my coat pocket!
"- the list included "organophosphate-based nerve agents (e.g. VX, Tabun, Sarin)""
I didn't have those, but I did have the materials to make them...........along with Diisopropyl flurophosphate and Diethyl p-nitrophenylphosphate. Oh and a couple of kilos of LSD made by a student of Dr Hoffman. Snake venoms, ricin, aflatoxins, synthetic cannabinol..........the list goes on. Fun days, long since gone
"- the list included "organophosphate-based nerve agents (e.g. VX, Tabun, Sarin)""
Black-powder and pharmaceutical grade Benzine in my office together with a still and numerous books concerning the manufacture of various substances that I've always thought would be fun but have never had time to play with to date.
I remember going for one job and being given "the Test". I was delighted, it was the standard Myers-Briggs, which for some obscure reason I'd been researching. I just asked HR what personality they'd like me to be and got on with it. Note: These were intelligent HR people with a sense of humour. They knew it was bollocks, they knew I knew it was bollocks and I knew that, etc. Got the job.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/mar/19/myers-briggs-test-unscientific
Problem is, people start thinking those "Four Letters Of Doom" are gospel, and that they will never change.
Worse, you get people trying to communicate things in several different ways, to reach each one of the ST/NT/SF/NF types, and boring/annoying the hell out of the other three in the process.
When this happened, I noticed that people were also writing down their colleagues' MBTI types on their whiteboards, and I had a homicidal fantasy about "resetting" the department with nothing more than a super-soaker full of whiteboard cleaner.
Problem is, people start thinking those "Four Letters Of Doom" are gospel, and that they will never change.
I have changed - I am now more of an INTJ than I ever was - I just about peg out the 'TJ' bits, whereas in my late teens was only slightly TJ.
At the place where I first encountered this, they did the MB & Belbin tests. The incredibly close & productive team I was part of was regarded as having the 'perfect' makeup of roles and personality types by the facilitator. Of course we were broken up within a week of returning to work. sigh
Most employers won't pay for a proper Meyers-Briggs, so you end up with something even less accurate or useful. The "mini-test" I mentioned previously was of the sort where you have sixteen questions in four blocks - "If you answered YES for questions 1-4, your first letter is E, otherwise your first letter is I", and so on.
They would have got better results if they said they had a magical sorting hat... Don't let me be Slitherin !
Lucky you. My one-of-the-top-not-very-many-companies company still gets suckered into that kind of crap. Plus the towcurlingly awful in-house training and equally awful out-house training in things like making sure we insult all racial stereotypes equally (at last that's what I THINK the idea is), how to lift things properly (Admittedly useful if you have a suspiciously heavy and lumpy roll of carpet or a full sack of quicklime you need to move rapidly) and what our corporate ethos is (Without actually mentioning screwing as much as we can out of our customers.
Very, very anon
This post has been deleted by its author
"Are there any yellow flowered varieties?"
Don't think so, but the yanks do have a yellow flowered nightshade - Physalis crassifolia. Disconcertingly my local Asda was selling what looked like the fruits of these as food a few weeks ago. I scoffed a whole box of them but wasn't overly impressed
I had to do a cultural intelligence survey recently asking me to comment on my bosses cultural intelligence.It was cringe worthy.
Questions included "This person is suitable for an international role" (he already has one, how long do you think I would have one if I disagreed!) and "When addressing people from different cultures this person increases their use of hand gestures" (the mind really does boggle). All from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree.
I also note that without fail there will be a sentence of the form "this will take you about 4 minutes to complete" in the email. Also you will gasp when you click the link and it says "page 1/64"....
Back in the 1980s when these personality tests first started to emerge, I had already been interviewed for a developer position and the boss had said the job was as good as mine. Final hurdle, a verbal personality test by HR, something they had just begun to experiment with. I didn't get the job. Looking back I guess they just weren't geared to comprehending the responses from someone with Asperger's, so probably mistook me for an axe murderer.
The company starts trotting out this stuff when they're in trouble and frantically looking for an answer other than "management incompetence" as to why.
Typically they'll have paid a great deal of money for the survey company's services, despite telling everyone that there is no money for frivolous things like annual increments, staff benefits, modern IT equipment, training etc etc etc.
I (and my soon to be wife) took these before we were married. Compatibility and all that. Somehow the nice guy who married us (it was a few years ago) liked what he saw. Some of the questions are there for consistency so you need to remember everything so you don't answer up and down for the same question. Yes, they are all strange things, but mostly they seem as a place to "start talking" with a head shrinker (not that my head needs shrinking).
If you know how they are being used, you (given a suitable understanding of the test) can use them to your advantage. Hopefully we are all not psychopaths. Then again, we read BOFH, and that makes us.....
At BigCorp, we seem to get a questionnaire about some aspect of business life at least once a quarter. They tell us they're anonymous, but the password to the external website is our employee number. They tell us that they're not mandatory, but we get email reminders until we've filled them out.
Regardless, employee morale and trust has never been higher. The responses tell them so.
I had a professor in grad school that had us take a similar online personality test and print out the result to hand in. I took the test, printed the result...and saved the HTML source of the report page locally.
I went back through and corrected some obvious errors, and printed out a new copy. When I handed it in, I commented how amazingly accurate it was.
Your Personality Type: Asshole
I wrote an impressive missive on the Asshole personality, but I can only remember a couple of lines now.
"Assholes often play a critical role as the agents of change in society." and "Assholes think they're always right. That's because they usually are. This is why many others call them Assholes."
The professor chuckled, then asked if this is really what I wanted to turn in. I thought about it for a second, then gave him the actual result. The first few minutes of class were often interrupted by poorly muffled laughter as my Asshole result was circulated around the class.
For a well known plumbing hardware supplier which was all awkward 3d cartoon animated video style. It followed the "strongly agree/disagree" personality types. I am not sure which was worse, the strange questions with no option for the third way out (I'd prefer not agreeing or disagreeing when two wrong answers are offered. ;) ) or the strange video proceeded by asking me which of 3 equally wrong methods of shouting at the boss were "acceptable".
HA! Sounds like every place I've ever worked.
Even after being told, "Feel free to ask questions. We encourage it. No questions is too dumb."
To be met with, "What a stupid question. Did you take notes?"
Sorry no. I can't write that fast and why the hell do you not have a KB?
Employers use Personality Tests for reasons they don't mention. It's not anonymous, despite what they say. They can track you via several methods and know what answers you give. They want to personality profile staff in order to determine who is of the hive mind or who is an "individual". Hive mind answers are always best, whether they are your real personality or the personality you use to keep things running smoothly and do your job well.
When I've tried those online tests that predict what career my personality is best suited to, they always said "software developer". Which is indeed how I did spend my working life anyway. But I always wanted to be a lion tamer. :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8I5TtNfjBI
When I came back to NZ in 2000 and was desperately looking around for a job - and had a wife reminding me everyday that I didn't have one and needed to appear as though I was keen on one.
One of the places I interviewed at was a local city council (Manukau for anyone who cares). I aced the technical part of the testing and they wanted me to come back the next day for psychometric testing. Meanwhile I'd also aced the technical testing for a much more interesting (and better paying) role, but they weren't going to let me know whether I had the job until next week.
So I set out to sabotage the council job and answered the questions in as sociopathic way as possible.
When a question asked "I consider the impact of my actions on others before acting" I ticked NEVER.
"The feelings of others are important to me" got the same answer. And so forth.
Naturally this resulted in them loving my psychometric profile and offering me the job - thus thoroughly confirming my opinion of such tests as being as scientific as astrology and homeopathy.
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