No rationality left, anywhere

As I said in facebook,

Applied for a job with a local employer. Went through the laborious application process and the 100 profiling questions (some of which have NO good answer). Got the response back -- "this is an internal posting" So WHY, then, employer, did you post it on the INTERNET JOB BOARDS? grr.

To elaborate on the unanswerable psychological profile question: It was question 99.

99) You witnessed a fellow employee breaking the rules. Your response is:

1) Get upset and say something to the employee.

2) Get upset, but don't say anything.

3) It doesn't bother me, as long as it doesn't affect me

4) I have never had a job before.

Hookay, what do we do with this? Probably they want (1), but all my career I have been dinged for being "too passionate." Last thing I want to do is cop to getting upset. (2) and (4) are obviously wrong answers. (3) does show emotional restraint, but perhaps the employer is trying to weed out people who are cheerfully amoral?

How about "Remain calm and say something to the employee." And, what kind of rule was it? Don't tip the vending machine? Don't pull the plug on random coma patients? What? It would certainly have an effect on my reaction.

My opinion on job loss articles

Lately there has been an annoying spate of articles like "10 Ways to Avoid a Layoff" . . . "5 Ways to Keep Your Job" . . . "The 17 Things You Can Do To Make Yourself Indispensable At Work."

The one in Sunday's paper says things like "Thrive in the workplace by branding yourself." "Leave a personal mark behind."

"If you're just another face at the water cooler, you run a far greater risk of ending up in the unemployment line. Branding yourself is one of the best preventive strategies . . . "

This is such garbage. Let's see. The world economy is still in meltdown phase with banks failing and companies going bankrupt and/or hacking at their workforces in a desperate attempt to cut costs in order to survive.

And somebody gets laid off, it's their fault because they didn't follow some self-improvement checklist they read in a newspaper or magazine or online financial page.

Especially with large corporations, the selection of who's going to be laid off is more like a dart game than a carefully thought-out retention of the most productive employees. It's based on things like head count in somebody's organizational turf, and making the demographics even so there's no justification for a discrimination lawsuit.

Preaching that any particular individual can buck the economic winds by shaping up their act is pathetic, if not cruel.

Required Reading

Matt Taibbi has written another article about Wall Street specifically Goldman Sachs. He wrote another article April in Rolling Stone which is also worth going back and reading if you haven't already.

Scary. I fear he is right on.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine