1) I just graduated from medical school and would like to spend a few years in public service before I start private practice. When –
2) Thanks, but I haven’t even got to the problem, yet. Are you clairvoyant?
3) Umm…okay. You do you. I applied for a job at the Department of Health and Human Disservices. I was given a questionnaire to fill out. Is it usual for a government agency to ask if I agree with the statement: “I cannot walk past a mirror without looking at myself?”
4) Or this statement: “I can usually talk my way out of anything?”
5) Does that happen often?
6) When I got to the statement, “I don’t have that much interest in having a sexual experience with another person,” I started to wonder if the government was allowed to ask such questions of job applicants. Is it?
7) Do I want to know who Jordan Petermeterson is?
8) *SIGH* Who is Jordan Petermeterson?
9) How did you know there were more serious questions?
10) In one section, I was asked to choose five traits that apply most to myself. They included: “Believe that too much tax money goes to support artists,” “Do not like poetry,” and “Try to avoid complex people.” I don’t know how much money goes to support artists, I like music – and it often has poetry in it – and I’m not sure what a “complex” person is. How am I supposed to respond to statements like this?
11) Then, there was this statement: “I believe in things many others don’t – like having a ‘sixth sense,’ clairvoyance, and telepathy – and as an adolescent, I had bizarre fantasies or preoccupations.” I had a fantasy about my grade 11 French teacher – is that bizarre? And, anyway, there isn’t an idea that 100% of human beings believe in, so isn’t every belief something many others oppose?
12) Umm…sorry. What I really want to know is: what is the point of this kind of questionnaire?
13) Why would Health and Human Disservices ask applicants to fill out a questionnaire that could identify them as inelegant narcoleptics?
1) I just graduated from medical school and would like to spend a few years in public service before I start private practice. When –
You have my sympathies.
2) Thanks, but I haven’t even got to the problem, yet. Are you clairvoyant?
Naah – Claire made it clear that she didn’t think of me that way.
3) Umm…okay. You do you. I applied for a job at the Department of Health and Human Disservices. I was given a questionnaire to fill out. Is it usual for a government agency to ask if I agree with the statement: “I cannot walk past a mirror without looking at myself?”
Only if they’re in the middle of redecorating the office. Mirrors are a great way to make a cubicle farm look spacious. Ask me why a cubicle farm is better the more spacious it looks.
4) Or this statement: “I can usually talk my way out of anything?”
Coward. This question is used to determine if you’re the type of person who will eat other people’s food out of the staff fridge and then try to blame it being gone on solar flares.
Workplace astrophysics is a strange, mystical science.
6) When I got to the statement, “I don’t have that much interest in having a sexual experience with another person,” I started to wonder if the government was allowed to ask such questions of job applicants. Is it?
That depends upon who you ask. If you ask the kindly old woman in human resources, she’d probably clutch her chest and stagger around (not an easy thing to do when you’re sitting behind a desk), declaiming, “This is the big one, Marvin! I’m coming to join you!” If you ask Jordan Petermeterson, he’ll probably tell you that the government should have been doing it for decades.
7) Do I want to know who Jordan Petermeterson is?
You won’t know unless you ask.
8) *SIGH* Who is Jordan Petermeterson?
Jordan Petermeterson is a far right crank. Not the crank of a Model T, either – that may be obsolete, but at least it once had a use. He is believed to have supplied incoming HHD Secretary Robert F. Kennebunkedy, Jr. with the questions used in the survey. Apparently, the dead worms in both of their brains are old college drinking buddies. You seem to be avoiding the most serious questions you were asked on the form.
9) How did you know there were more serious questions?
*SIGH* There always are.
10) In one section, I was asked to choose five traits that apply most to myself. They included: “Believe that too much tax money goes to support artists,” “Do not like poetry,” and “Try to avoid complex people.” I don’t know how much money goes to support artists, I like music – and it often has poetry in it – and I’m not sure what a “complex” person is. How am I supposed to respond to statements like this?
I would recommend a #2 pencil. But a #4 would do in a pinch. In fact, any pencil will do, as long as it has an eraser at the end.
11) Then, there was this statement: “I believe in things many others don’t – like having a ‘sixth sense,’ clairvoyance, and telepathy – and as an adolescent, I had bizarre fantasies or preoccupations.” I had a fantasy about my grade 11 French teacher – is that bizarre? And, anyway, there isn’t an idea that 100% of human beings believe in, so isn’t every belief something many others oppose?
Now, you’re asking me a…question about philosophy? And we were getting along so well, too!
12) Umm…sorry. What I really want to know is: what is the point of this kind of questionnaire?
It is to determine whether or not a job applicant is a malignant narcissist. A narcissist is somebody who loves themselves more than they love chocolate, whisky or fast cars. In other words, a bit too much (especially when they love themselves more than sipping whisky in a fast car made out of chocolate). In fact, they are so their own soulmates that they can spare no positive regard for any other human being. A malignant person will go out of their way to get revenge on people they believe have wronged them (as far as another universe – for them, extremism in the pursuit of revenge is no vice); a narcissist thinks that’s everybody. Malignant narcissists can be charming when they want something, but if you don’t give it to them in exactly the way they want, they will start to break things.
Malignant narcissists are, in short, cats in human form.
13) Why would Health and Human Disservices ask applicants to fill out a questionnaire that could identify them as inelegant narcoleptics?
You mean malignant narcissists? I’d like to think it’s to keep destructive people out of government. But you know what they say: “Malignant narcissists of a feather…”