One of the main things that social conservatives are reacting against, that drives their counter-revolution, is the fear of what will happen now that society has lost one of its main tools of social control. Consider the following true/false question:
I bumped my nose against this one years ago, during one of my various periods of unemployment.
sevenstars7 was trying to help me figure out why I couldn't get through the job application and interview process, basically ever, and this question came up. At the time, she was working for a company that developed and scored employee-screening multiple-choice and true/false tests, the kind of tests that include questions like this. And according to her, the test is programmed to score a huge negative, as in automatically unqualified for employment, if you answer the question "true." So the preferred answer for society is for you to answer false, false, false, and false. True, false, false, and false is just barely acceptable, but suggests an attitude problem that will probably cause you problems in your job.
Now, this boggled my mind, and it took me years to wrap my head around this. Eventually, I came to understand what she said. I don't know if I can explain it to all of you, though, because even I don't have much to add to her explanation, which is that all employers depend on peer pressure to keep the level of employee theft, sabotage, and so on to acceptable levels. In other words, they think that if you think anything other than, "I'm the only one who wants to do this, who's ever done this, and it must be because I'm a bad person," then you'll steal less than if you thought anything else.
Did I ever mention that I've been fired from two separate jobs where it was, in part, because I wouldn't steal from my employer? In both cases, it involved padding expense reports for business travel. In both places, a certain amount of it was standard practice. In both places, I didn't do it. For one thing, I'm too proud to steal. For another, I've always figured that I'd have less trouble getting my travel requests approved, and there'd be more money in the budget for travel, if I didn't waste any. And on some level, I think it's because I learned all the way back at the age of 6 that I just plain can not perceive the cues that the neurologically typical use to tell, somehow, when it's OK to break a rule and when it's not. But in both the McDonnell Douglas job and the MasterCard job, I eventually had both my own management chain and the auditors in accounting take me to task for not claiming the full daily allowance for meals and taxi fare. It was explained to me that the policy allowed claiming up to that many dollars per day in each category without receipts, and therefore it was expected that I would claim that much, and if I chose to spend less than that, I was entitled to keep that money. When I put the accounting department people who told me this on the spot and asked them if they were specifically instructing me to report false information on my expense report, they treated it as if I had completely changed the subject, and they huffily informed me that reporting false information on an expense report was an immediate-termination offense. So I asked them if I was supposed to claim the whole permitted amount for meals if I didn't spend that much, and they again treated it as if I had changed the subject, and said yes, that was exactly what I was supposed to do. With neither accountant was I able to get them to admit, or maybe even to see themselves, that the two questions had anything to do with each other.
One boss in the management chain above me at each corporation took me aside not long before I was fired, and told me that I was in huge trouble with the company. Other people felt that the fact that I wasn't padding my expense accounts meant that I thought that doing so was dishonest, and that therefore I was going to turn them in to the auditors. In both cases, I explained that it wasn't my job to enforce the social and financial norms of the company; if management was OK with the practice, and auditing was OK with the practice, then it was of no interest to me whether anybody did or didn't do it. I explained that I had my own reasons, which had nothing to do with anybody else's honesty or dishonesty, for filling out my expense reports the way I did. I might as well have been speaking Martian.
But in a world where gossip travels at the literal speed of light (with at most a 60 word-per-minute delay at the beginning of the transmission), in a world where the 24 hour news cycle constantly churns up new scandal, and in an emerging world where people will be able to see that scandal with their own eyes, whether there were cameras there or not, how will they maintain the illusion, the illusion that they seem to feel is so important to keeping the behavior of the neurologically typical within the boundaries of accepted social norms, the illusion that nobody else has ever done, or even wanted to do, what they are doing or feel driven to do?
Answer the question truthfully, to the best of your knowledge:
True
37(42.0%)
False
51(58.0%)
Answer the question the way you would answer it on a job application for a job other than the ones listed below.
True
61(69.3%)
False
27(30.7%)
Answer the question the way you would answer it if you were applying for a corporate security job.
True
76(86.4%)
False
12(13.6%)
Answer the question the way you would answer it if you were applying for a management position.
True
69(78.4%)
False
19(21.6%)
I bumped my nose against this one years ago, during one of my various periods of unemployment.
sevenstars7 was trying to help me figure out why I couldn't get through the job application and interview process, basically ever, and this question came up. At the time, she was working for a company that developed and scored employee-screening multiple-choice and true/false tests, the kind of tests that include questions like this. And according to her, the test is programmed to score a huge negative, as in automatically unqualified for employment, if you answer the question "true." So the preferred answer for society is for you to answer false, false, false, and false. True, false, false, and false is just barely acceptable, but suggests an attitude problem that will probably cause you problems in your job.Now, this boggled my mind, and it took me years to wrap my head around this. Eventually, I came to understand what she said. I don't know if I can explain it to all of you, though, because even I don't have much to add to her explanation, which is that all employers depend on peer pressure to keep the level of employee theft, sabotage, and so on to acceptable levels. In other words, they think that if you think anything other than, "I'm the only one who wants to do this, who's ever done this, and it must be because I'm a bad person," then you'll steal less than if you thought anything else.
Did I ever mention that I've been fired from two separate jobs where it was, in part, because I wouldn't steal from my employer? In both cases, it involved padding expense reports for business travel. In both places, a certain amount of it was standard practice. In both places, I didn't do it. For one thing, I'm too proud to steal. For another, I've always figured that I'd have less trouble getting my travel requests approved, and there'd be more money in the budget for travel, if I didn't waste any. And on some level, I think it's because I learned all the way back at the age of 6 that I just plain can not perceive the cues that the neurologically typical use to tell, somehow, when it's OK to break a rule and when it's not. But in both the McDonnell Douglas job and the MasterCard job, I eventually had both my own management chain and the auditors in accounting take me to task for not claiming the full daily allowance for meals and taxi fare. It was explained to me that the policy allowed claiming up to that many dollars per day in each category without receipts, and therefore it was expected that I would claim that much, and if I chose to spend less than that, I was entitled to keep that money. When I put the accounting department people who told me this on the spot and asked them if they were specifically instructing me to report false information on my expense report, they treated it as if I had completely changed the subject, and they huffily informed me that reporting false information on an expense report was an immediate-termination offense. So I asked them if I was supposed to claim the whole permitted amount for meals if I didn't spend that much, and they again treated it as if I had changed the subject, and said yes, that was exactly what I was supposed to do. With neither accountant was I able to get them to admit, or maybe even to see themselves, that the two questions had anything to do with each other.
One boss in the management chain above me at each corporation took me aside not long before I was fired, and told me that I was in huge trouble with the company. Other people felt that the fact that I wasn't padding my expense accounts meant that I thought that doing so was dishonest, and that therefore I was going to turn them in to the auditors. In both cases, I explained that it wasn't my job to enforce the social and financial norms of the company; if management was OK with the practice, and auditing was OK with the practice, then it was of no interest to me whether anybody did or didn't do it. I explained that I had my own reasons, which had nothing to do with anybody else's honesty or dishonesty, for filling out my expense reports the way I did. I might as well have been speaking Martian.
But in a world where gossip travels at the literal speed of light (with at most a 60 word-per-minute delay at the beginning of the transmission), in a world where the 24 hour news cycle constantly churns up new scandal, and in an emerging world where people will be able to see that scandal with their own eyes, whether there were cameras there or not, how will they maintain the illusion, the illusion that they seem to feel is so important to keeping the behavior of the neurologically typical within the boundaries of accepted social norms, the illusion that nobody else has ever done, or even wanted to do, what they are doing or feel driven to do?
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I read the question "Theft by employees is a significant problem for businesses" to be asking me whether I think it's okay for me to steal ... if it's not a significant problem, then it doesn't matter whether I do or not, so why shouldn't I?
I can't even wrap my mind around the idea that it's a bad thing to be worried about people stealing from your company. I mean, the True answer there is what a managment snitch would say, isn't it?
I kept getting booted by companies that did personality testing, and this may be the reason why.
I think they would rather hire someone who thinks that this never happens, and gently break it to them that yes, it does. I think they think that the person to whom this comes as news and as a total shock will feel more outrage when they catch it, and be less likely to steal anything major themselves.
I suppose it's akin to how companies insist on total loyalty, and won't hire you if they think you have any chance of leaving -- but then only want to hire people away from other companies, since if you're unemployed there must be something wrong with you. In other words, they want faultlessly loyal employees with a history of disloyalty.
Of course that may be assuming a bit too much intelligence, not to mention malice.
Take, for instance, delivery services like FedEx or UPS. A delivery route is supposed to take a certain amount of time. There are mandatory procedures one must follow while finishing the route. It is often not possible to follow all the rules and get the route done in time.
One is SUPPOSED to break just enough of those rules to do the job within the set time limit (in part so that management can be certain that there will be a violation to cite if they feel the need/desire to fire you). No one will ever say it's okay to break those rules, but if you don't... so, no way to win.
Strangely enough I don't think of CEO's and VP's stealing as employee stealing. Running off with millions of ill gotten gains deserves a bigger word than "steal" - embezzlement is a good start. On top of that, they are employers not sad little employees. Can Kings steal from themselves? Is it stealing if we let them define the rules?
Eggbeater murders are not, to my knowledge, a significant problem.
Put another way, it's not a significant problem because at the moment the majority of people, including you or not, decide not to do it.
I read the question "Theft by employees is a significant problem for businesses" to be asking me whether I think it's okay for me to steal
I just read it as a factual question. If you want to know if I think theft is a significant problem for businesses, I need to see statistics and information on inventory leakage and firing records. If you want to know if I'm going to steal, fucking ask me. The answer is no.
Actually, that happened to me in an interview for the campus police job. They asked "If you found that there were soda cans left over from an event in the lobby, what would you do?" And I said "Uh . . . I guess I'd pick them up and put them behind the desk. I don't know, I'd see if there was anyone coming to pick them up. I'm not sure I have to do anything about it besides wait to see -- OH, you're asking me if I'd bend the rules a little to steal a drink. No, I wouldn't." And they were quite pleased with that answer.
You know, I think if I apply for another job like that, and I get questions like that, I'm going to refuse to answer them and just ask to speak to someone. I'll say I cannot complete the test until they explain what they are asking. "I will not steal, if that's what you're asking, but the test also asked me to put the correct answer. If this is a psychological evaluation, which it appears to be, I cannot properly complete it. If you have any questions about me, please just ask." Or something along those lines.
Our cultural tradition is one that is based in the wickedness of the human heart. I'm not saying this is true or false - I'm saying that I don't find it believable that Americans rely on people not thinking other people are plotting stuff in their twisty little hearts as a form of social control. Sinners in the hand on an angry God, man.
As for the conservative/current administration mindset, I'm looking a _Psychetypes_ by Malone--the chapter on Sensory types, and a good bit of it is sounding familiar. Sensories only find the present to be real, and are revolted or unnerved by concern with the past or the future. I'm not sure that this is coherent, but as part of their belief in the primacy of present sensation, they're compulsive about collecting physical evidence of their own past. I don't know if they look at it much.
The book is from 1977, so the Nixon tapes show up as an example of collecting the past.
Here's the bit I wanted (page 181 of the paperback):
I recommend the book--there's a lot in that chapter which is sounding eeirly familiar. Sensation types are good at taking control--they're paying attention to current situation, and they live for high points and taking action.
As for the quiz, I'd never really thought about employee theft (though I have heard that it's a much more serious problem for retail than shoplifting is)--my actual answer is "True, probably, but I don't really know". I'm shocked that businesses want security people who don't think security breaches are a pervasive problem, but that would explain a lot.
And granted, I've stolen stuff from employers before, but I don't think that makes me any more or less likely to know that this is a major issue.
Hell, life itself would be unlivable were it not for the ability to forget unpleasant truths. The place you are most likely to die is in your own bathroom. If you are murdered, the people most statistically likely to kill you are (in descending order, if I remember right) your spouse or significant other, your parents, your children, your closest friends, or your next-door-neighbor. And you will never do anything else in your life as dangerous as yesterday's drive or ride to and from work.
And if you spend too much time thinking about any of those things, you can only descend into morbidness, depression, and/or paranoia. So you will do what the rest of the world does. You will lie to yourself on an emotional level and tell yourself that (or live as if) you are safest when you're at home, the people you can trust the most are your loved ones and your family, that only strangers who are unlike you are dangerous and only in "dangerous places" that you count on avoiding because TV told you they're dangerous. You will further delude yourself that while thousands of people die every year in automobile accidents, it won't happen to you because you're an above-average driver.
And having told yourself all those lies, how hard can it be to add one more, and tell yourself that everybody else is as honest as the work day is long, and therefore if they were to find out that you'd stolen as much as a spare disposable ballpoint pen that they'd think you were some kind of sicko, because only a truly depraved person would do that?
Perhaps they are looking for people like me: people who are honest, believe in the honesty of others, and have never experienced rampant dishonesty. If you populate your workplace with these types, you would certainly have few problems with theft.
My gut says "false false false false." I think the problem of employee theft, while it certain does exist, is overstated by the corporate bigwigs. Bigger problems, IMO, include legal theft by the company of things belonging to the employees -- time, benefits, ideas, and so on.
But my desire to kiss up says "false true true true," because that seems like the "right answer." I show that I have the company's interests in mind by taking their needs seriously.
Of course, I'd never steal; I'm almost frighteningly scrupulous when it comes to stuff. (I make a terrible salesperson for this reason, too -- won't lie to the customers.)
But because I lied, and second-guessed their reason for asking the question, I'm identified as a potential thief and therefore unhirable. Sweet.
I hate big business.
--Kynn
But my desire to kiss up says "false true true true," because that seems like the "right answer." I show that I have the company's interests in mind by taking their needs seriously.
Exactly my thinking...
Businesses often don't know how much they're losing to insiders vs outsiders, but they certainly build into their budgets the idea that some portion of their property will be "lost" (usually, stolen. But occassionally "lost" inventory is the result of other problems).
I was taught this as part of TRAINING for one of my random jobs.
But that's the world of Retail for you. Obviously, you ought to work there. :)
There is a solution for the above problem, you know.
The accountants and everyone else were telling you to take the full amount allotted for meals and travel.
You countered with "but I'm not using all that money."
Dude.
The obvious answer to ME is that you should have spent the money. Used up the allowance on your food and travel expenses.
Seriously. If the meal allowance was $15 per meal, and you were eating frugally at McDonalds... you should have gone ahead and eaten somewhere that you could enjoy a meal and leave an extravagant tip.
Travel expenses are harder to figure out. So... if you aren't hitting the magic number... rent a car? Take a taxi?
Or, spend some of the travel budget on the food.
I actually figured out what the fuss was about:
The Company figured out a magic number ("X") for the amount it expected to pay for expenses. The Company was comfortable paying people X for their travel expenses.
If you consistently spent less than X and told the Company that you spent less than X, they might feel obliged to lower that number, which means the following:
The Company has to pay someone for the time it takes them to re-evaluate the new number.
The Company has to tell everyone that their new budget is "Y".
Some of the people who had to travel are going to be pissed off, because they actually needed that higher number. Perhaps their expenses included buying someone else a drink, or tipping the wait staff extravagantly in order to get preferential service and seem important to clients.
Consider that your use of those funds and other coworkers' use of those funds are entirely different equations, but your frugality is ending up costing the company money and causing resentment.
Take. The. Damn. Money.
Use the difference to tip the overworked, underpaid, working-poor waitstaff at some random restaurant where you eat your meal.
I get it that you have principals, and that brutal honesty is one of them.
However, by failing to think outside the box on this, you got yourself fired from two different jobs.
Whoops.
I am neurotypical.
But I don't know which rules are allowed to be broken and when.
So from my experience, I submit that your similar problem is not, in fact, caused by your Aspberger's.
It's probably because you were raised by people who never taught you how to do this.
I know I was.
At the company where my fiance teaches (and where I worked for almost 10 years), the idea is that you EITHER submit detailed reports for every expense, *or* use the per diem rates. They very much prefer people to use the per diem rates, because it is much, much easier to process.
Instead of considering it cheating, it should be considered that you get $X living expenses daily, to use as you see fit. You can blow it all in one meal at Nobu, then cover the rest of your expenses personally, or eat frugally every day and keep the balance. It's NOT cheating, because the rate determined by the government is a *reasonable* rate for the location where you are working, and therefore totally fair and reasonable.
It makes expense reports considerably easier all around to use the pre diem method.
BTW, I am also aspie, and I *do* understand how frustrating things like this can be. I have my own lengthy list of similar frustrations, so please don't think I am trying to minimize the impact of AS on one's daily functional living. I know better. I am just trying to share my insight from where I have worked - strictly on the expense report issue. Because I had to learn to understand why it worked that way, too. :-)
I gather they can't do that because the tax and accounting rules surrounding the issue of petty cash get pretty insanely complicated.
So for it to be deductible to them as a business expense, I had to report what the actual expenses were. And that's what they told me, verbally and in writing, I needed to do. But they also chewed me out for not claiming that I used the whole daily amount, whether I did or not. I couldn't handle them trying to have it both ways, so I made the decision that was right for me: save the company money, report exactly what I spent.
So, that is nutty, because submitting EXACT receipts for days that one charges a per diem for is counterproductive. You are supposed to one or the other. Maybe the COMPANIES were just totally wacky! No wonder they confused you! :-)
Not only does this simplify the practice of repaying your expenses, but it also keeps the company from giving out the wrong incentives. They have no special desire to see you spend more money on restuarants or hotels, so they don't want to incentivize you to do so.
Bad incentives are, by the way, a major force behind government budget problems. Government budgets are determined by how much you spend from year to year: if your gov't agency doesn't spend all of it's budget, Congress will say "Hey, you don't need that much money -- we'll take it away from you next year." Conversely, if you overspend, the government will reward you with more money, since you've 'proved' that you need it. Thus, there's no incentive to conserve money, and every incentive to be profligate.
ttyl
Would you have been more comfortable if they'd said that you were given a bonus stipend for those expenses, but you needed to report how you used it, even if you kept some of it in your pocket because you didn't need to use it?
I'd answer that question 'true' because I parsed it EXACTLY opposite of the way they wanted me to.
See, I'd make the answer 'false' because I read it as 'People steal (paperclips, office supplies) and that's a horribly huge problem all things considered.' and my thought would be 'Meh, not huge, I don't think. You can probably afford that loss.' But I'd figure they wanted me to say 'STEALING IS BAD! BAD!' (which, er, it is, but...) so I'd answer 'true' so as to mean 'When people steal, that's a big problem.'
I wouldn't even think to read it as 'a lot of people steal from the office/whatever'.
I know darn well that employee theft is a major problem because I've worked at two places where employees were stealing the company blind. In one, it was high- end electronics, purchased under a "three card monte" system that let the stuff disappear. The other was office supplies -- in case lots.
In both cases, it was *one* employee, who never did get caught. (Knowing who it was and being able to prove it in court are two very different things.)
It's not the average employee who's stealing -- it's somebody doing it as a major sideline. And if you hire employees who are too honest/naive to think about stealing, the thieves will steal you blind and nobody will notice.
I've heard that breaking up retail theft rings is one of the main sources of income for private investigators. The cops aren't interested until you give them a case that's already tied up with a neat little bow.
The correct answers are true, true, true and true.
A menial customer service business wants answers of false, false, false false because:
Fortunately, my bosses have realized that I call a spade a spade, and keep me far away from heaped piles of earth where company secrets are buried.
...And I know them because every corporation I've worked for has hit me over the head with them every time I've gotten a job where I had even a glance at security.
Whoever programmed their test was dumb, because people who steal don't answer true to any of the questions - they think that companies can afford it, that no one but they steal (or that everyone does) but either way, none of them think of their theft as particularly important.
Bah.
if you think everyone steals, you are more likely to steal yourself
Well, that's a nice pair of options. How charming. Does your attitude apply to all employees equally or only those unfortunate enough to work at companies where management starts with the blanket assumption that all employees are either idiots or thieves?
Companies that use stupid tests of this type don't trust their managers to pick out honest people, because the managers themselves are assumed to be dishonest.
Management is about getting work out of people. Good managers realize that the most efficient way to do this is to make work fun, rewarding and have a higher meaning. There aren't all that many good ones out there.
If you think that people don't steal, the kind of management at these sorts of places considers you a sucker that they can easily steal from. Also, they realize that you'll be no good at protecting inventory, etc., because you trust (incorrectly) that other people are honest.
My point here is that the management teams who use this kind of thinking are typically thieves themselves. The only way to keep the thieving controlled is to embrace a double standard.
If you want to know MY atittude:
"In a room with a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot."
Again, sorry I was all snippy. Guess you caught me on an off day.
I answered False, false, true, true. I answered the first two truthfully, and the second two untruthfully, since either of those two jobs had to be concerned with theft, and was thus answering self-interestedly.
The first two, I saw no reason to be inconsistent. I erred on the side of caution, even. Because while I know that theft on the scale of multi-million dollar embezzlement is certainly a significant problem when it occurs, I didn't genuinely think it happened all the time despite the high media publicity of a few notable cases like Enron.
And while every employee stealing a few small trifles across and entire organization adds up to a considerable amount (and certainly looks that way compared with smaller businesses), that amount seems to become relatively small against the entirety of the budget (not that that's an excuse for doing it). Likewise, smaller businesses books -- at least those books of successful smaller businesses -- are more tightly kept and the money is easier to track. And the employees and employers sink or swim much more immediately with profit and loss than some sprawling behemoth corporation like WalMart.
Sorry to hear about the mixed signals you were getting about your expenses. I was a consultant once, and had to submit them weekly. Some clients gave us per diem stipends, other asked that we submit receipts, which was always more of a pain, but when you're contracting in the public sector, every dime is watched, believe it or not. Because the word "audit" holds a certain kind of terror for IT managers.