Monday, June 11, 2007

Would I Find Myself in You? (Eurythmics)


Language: Greek

Part of the application process for the job I interviewed for on Thursday is a personality test. This makes me really nervous (in some respects, more so than the interview itself): among other things, I prefer it when my personality is a surprise to people.

A lot of the questions were about the sorts of things you'd expect: whether or not it's okay to steal from an employer (even if they're really, really mean to you), whether or not it's good to be nice to people, etc. The strangest part was a series of items sprinkled in among the other ones about accidents, whether they were preventable, whose fault they were, etc. It struck me as an odd thing to be asking questions about.

But then, the whole thing was kind of screwy, frankly. Any halfway intelligent person could easily figure out the answers that the test was angling for, especially if you know, going in, that there's a scale built in to catch people who are trying to give the most socially correct answer. I suspect I could get into some trouble if I posted one of the exact questions, word for word, but there were things in there like, "I've gone out of my way to be mean to people before." Well, duh. So clearly questions like that are checking to see if you're being honest.

I had initially been toying with the idea of e-mailing and asking to be removed from consideration, because of the personality test thing. It really bothered me, seemed like a weird kind of asymmetric invasion of privacy (and still kind of does). In the end, I decided not to, and went ahead and took the test, and told the truth, because 1) I figure actually getting the job is kind of a long shot anyway1, and 2) I can't imagine that they're getting any usable, real information out of these things, so to the extent that the test counts for anything, I'm thinking it's just an extra randomizing device, a wild card if you will. So there's no particular reason not to take it if you think, as I do, that I was not especially impressive in the interview: it could only help my chances of getting the job.

This song seemed like the only sensible song choice, given the aforementioned situation.

-Jessi

1The husband would actually prefer that I not get the job, for reasons which are specific to the job and which I don't want to address at the moment, but which are very possibly valid and which I have some concerns about myself.
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Would I find it in you?
Would I find it in you, honey?
Would I say something now that wasn't genuine?
I ask you that, sugar: would I find it in you?

My friends know what's in the shop.
I won't be here otherwise.
I've packed my bags,
I've cleaned the floor.
You're careful with me.
Walk outside the door.

(You consider me: I'll make him, I will make him)

You fall in a straight line - no intervention.
No deceit in your person.
You are the bigger imitation, but
A lot of him is genuine.
I had all of it I can take;
Now I leave it to you.

(You consider me: I will make him, I will make him)

(You are careful with me – you are careful! Ooh, yeah)

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