Having Fun With Those Absurd Agree and Disagree Applications

In this economy, employers should be asking the right questions. If you're one of those people applying for work, I can help you, if you ask, nicely.

While helping out a friend fill out a resume and some job applications the other day, I was starting to understand why she was getting so frustrated.  Those applications, online or offline, that ask you if you strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree or disagree, agree and so on can be confusing and, to be brief, just plain stupid .

There were a lot of applications like that, that she was filling out.  Quite a few of them didn't ask much information regarding what skills she had or where she worked all her life.  Most of the time, the way the questions were asked, were more of the confusing psychological type that wanted to play a game of absurd therapy with you instead of being direct and asking pertinent questions.

I liked it better, in the old days, which wasn't that long ago, really, where the employer would ask you for recommendations from other people.  Some cared if those came recommendations from family or friends or people you had worked with and worked for. Then they would ask for your work history.  All of this, to me, is acceptable.  You know.  Where have you worked?  How long, did you work, at each place? You would make a list of your skills, too and check a page or two full of those questions, pertaining to your skills.   Those questions, I can truly accept and understand.  I can get behind logic like that.

And a lot of these "Strongly Agree and Strongly Disagree situation and feelings questions" leave out important details and/or a lot to be interpreted wrongly, too.

You can try to convince me, if you want to waste your time, that the employers, these days, have you fill out the stupid agree and disagree questions for reasons that would make them believe you're not a thief or a sociopath or any other type of undesirable person.  I'm just not buying into it.  Be straight or be gone, moronic employer!  That's what I'd say to those employers looking to play psychological games with an application and the applicant.  I don't play games with people, no matter who they are.

This friend wanted my help in trying to figure out the confounding questions, sometimes, and I helped before I got to the point where I wanted to bang my head on the wall, in frustration.  I think we ended up looking at four of them in one day and while she filled them out.  Now, that my friends, was really work.

People are going to lie, most of the time, anyway, with these silly multiple choice questionnaires.  There are no guarantees in this society that someone isn't going to go from behaving normally to going, suddenly, batshit crazy and kill everyone in a office cubicle or in a warehouse. People know what their potential employer wants to hear or see when they check off on the options on the forms, electronic or not, given to them.  If they don't, I neither strongly agree or strongly disagree that the applicant will be living in their parent's basements all of their unnatural lives until their bones turn to dust mites.  Depends on the person's work habits and what place they want to get hired on as an employee.  Depends on a lot of things that would take a lifetime to explain, in truth.

This is where ordinary human robots can be found.  The typical office.  The supervisor is your overlord.  He demands obedience or else.

Still, all in all, I'm looking to hire some people for my next project.  But first, you will have to pass a test involving cage fights with genetically enhanced pythons with 7 inch fangs, lovable, smart-mouthed teenagers that scream and foam at the mouth, if they don't have the latest smart phone on the market, along with a team of circus midgets, riding ferocious polar bears.

You'll all be put in a cage to prove your mettle and that you're qualified for the job.  If you survive, you will be asked to fill out (this is just a sample) the following questionnaire.  There are a lot of similarities between this one and the ones my friend encountered and had to fill out.  Believe me!

_________________________________________________

I'm a team player most of the time.
_Strongly Agree
_Strongly Disagree
_Neither Agree or Disagree
_Agree
_Disagree

You will listen to a co-workers complaints, about a task given to them, then try to assist them.

_Strongly Agree
_Agree
_Neither Agree or Disagree
_Disagree
_Strongly Disagree

You wish to sell a product that a customer thinks may be over priced.  They're wearing a Batman mask and a pair of ruby red slippers (a la Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz).  You try to convince he or she to buy the coffee maker.

_Strongly Disagree
_Disagree
_Neither Disagree or Agree
_Agree
_Strongly Agree

A supervisor gives you lengthy criticism over the way you spoke to a customer on a Thursday afternoon, around 9:24, when the workplace had been suddenly overran by deadly spiders and wicked prostitutes.  You say, "Thank you, sir.  I enjoy pasta," in response.

_Strongly Disagree and Strongly Agree
_I'm not sure if I stopped my car, completely, at that one stop sign this morning
_Zena: The Warrior Princess, could probably answer this question.  Something just tells me this to be true.
_Agree
_Cantaloupe

Your day's work has been destroyed by a fire but your employer wants you to start back from scratch and will not be pleased until you finish the work.  Seeing that you're about to pass out from the fumes, she offers you a carrot.  A coworker later walks past you, pinches their hardened, fully erect left nipple and continues walking, while singing a show tune.

_Strongly Agree
_Strongly Disagree
_Strongly Have a Boner
_Strongly Eat the Carrot
_Strongly Shake Your Head and Wonder How You Got Here

Your co-workers and employer throw you a surprise birthday party on company time.  You open the gift that everyone but that one tight ass chipped in to buy you.  It turns out to be a worn out, heavily dented, wooden, sticky pencil.  You show an excited exuberance, toward the gift, that would put Las Vegas showgirls to shame, by comparison.

_Strongly Agree but do it with a side of Small Disagreement mixed with obvious apathy
_Agree
_ I want to make up my mind, but I'm missing the instruction booklet
_Disagree
_I will or I won't go on quest to find rainbow colored unicorns that enjoy consuming carrots or placing them deep in their anuses

This must be you, on any given work day.

One of your handicapped co-workers asks you for a favor, giving you the correct amount of money for the task, that involves you getting them a soft drink from the vending machine.

_Strongly Disagree to scream at them like a horrid banshee from the depths of hell
_Strongly Disagree to drool at the corner of your mouth but Strongly Agree that they should rise from their wheelchair.  Why? Because you have given them the power to become healed and heal the sick and impaired, themselves.  Your magic is just that strong.  Wow.
_Tickle their belly, instead.
_Strongly Agree to cut a fart.
_Strongly Agree that, sometimes, crazy people and their erratic behaviors just aren't worth putting up with, no matter how bad you want the money, the job or to get along with "your team" or your fellow species.

This is just a small sampling of my application questionnaire.  I wish you luck. You will be contacted, if you are to have an actual person to person meeting with me, with even more insipid questions asked, when I feel like responding to you.  Good day!