Depending on what hole I was looking to fill on a team I wouldn't find a lack of joke a problem. I'm usually the jokester so its nice to have a straight man around. Gotta balance the team.
I'm usually the one that breaks the curve on the oddball questions. Did I ever tell you guys about the time I took the Meyers-Briggs personality survey? We did it with work. Apparently we took the "super intensive" or something, I forget exactly but there were something like 2,000 questions, it took several days to complete (meanwhile getting no real work done). Many of the questions were of the type "do you believe A or B?" and it got to the point where sometimes I thought "well, both" or "Neither" so after awhile I started filling in two bubbles per question. Then I started filling in many bubbles so it spelled out words like: "This test sucks", sometimes I'd fill in all As for awhile, then all B, then all C and so on. So after wasting all this time they take the whole group of us to a ski resort for a day of skiing and a couple days of team building and going over the test. This is when I start to get nervous. They announce "Somebody thought they'd be a smart alec and fill in multiple bubbles" and the project on the screen some of my answers. At this point I'm absolutely sure I'm going to be fired. Then they announce "the joke is on the jokester, the test is designed to take his personality type into account." All eyes on me at this point, I'm the OBVIOUS culprit. The test breaks you into personality types and I forget how it all works out but I'm a creative, turns out 2 people in my group are creatives, one is an introvert, the other an extrovert. They tell us that this is great because one should be the manager of the other and in fact those two people are in a manager/employee relationship. Turns out its me and my boss, but I'm the extrovert. I thought his head was going to explode he turned so red. A month later the company is bought, we all lose our jobs. -Curt Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2012 11:09:08 -0500 From: Randy Bennell <rbenn...@bennell.ca> To: Mercedes Discussion List <mercedes@okiebenz.com> Subject: Re: [MBZ] My Keck Interview Message-ID: <504627a4.6050...@bennell.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Two comments. I wonder what the acceptable or preferred answer is to the question about different solutions to a problem by different team members? I had a very similar question put to me at an interview I had for a job in the provincial land titles office a number of years back. Obviously it is a standard type question and although there is no obvious "right" answer, they are obviously looking for how you respond and I wonder what they would like to hear. Second thing is in regard to the question about a joke. It is too bad that you did not come up with something quick and good but it is very good that you did not tell some off color, sexist, or racist joke etc. Obviously, that would likely be the end of any hope you might have and it is amazing how many people who are very intelligent might fall for that. I do wish you had managed to come up with something however as it shows an ability to think on your feet when you get an out of the blue oddball question. It also shows something of your personality if you are able to tell a nice clean joke. It shows other interests in life and that you are not a total dweeb. It does not matter how smart and dedicated you are if you have no personality or sense of humour. Please don't take what I have said too personally. I'm just running off a the mouth and probably would not have done any better at it than you did. It is a difficult thing to answer when you are primed for business and trying to be careful. I know I have been trying to think of some good joke while typing this and the best I have come up with so far is the old George Carlin monologue where he talks about things like "hot water heaters" and "flammable vs inflammable". Randy _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
