Ask Uncle Bill

At Least I'm Not A Potential Serial Killer

As noted in yesterdays post, I took the personality test.  Got the results in less than five minutes which indicates, of course, a canned program.  Don't think Freud got a look at my answers.

Not all bad either but not great analysis.  Not in my opinion anyway.  So let's take a look.

"Problem Solving--You (meaning me) are prudent as a rule, but will explore options."  Could drive a truck through that one.  "You may be even slow to act at time."  Let me think about that one.  "You are analytical, possibly to the point that you don't pay enough attention to emotional data."  I think I'm going to cry.

"Emotional Factors--You are not highly competitive."  Wanna bet? "Your outward behavior is typically mature but you may exhibit an intolerant streak when irritated or stressed."  Who doesn't?  "You have a high need for achievement."  Wait a minute, I thought I wasn't competitive. 

"Social Style--You are a relatively private person."  Aw, shucks.  "In formal settings you are likely to appropriately controlled."  No swinging from the chandeliers.

"Work Factors--You are more action oriented than planful, but show signs of having appropriate organizational skills."  Show signs?  "While you are generally patient with others, you have a keen sense of urgency."  Think my wife would argue the patient part. "You may resemble sales engineers in your career pursuit."  Me and engineer do not belong in the same sentence.

On to Developmental Suggestions.

"Low Persuasiveness--shows a low level of motivation to influence other people."  Do your own thing.  This is why people like being the boss.  You don't have to persuade people, you just tell them. 

"Social Reserve--You may be hard to read."  To quote Henry Ford, "Never complain, never explain."  "You may need to work on your ability to shift into a higher social gear and to communicate openly and directly."  Got it, work on becoming a party animal.

"Low Sociability--your profile is suggestive of a low key social style.  People with similar results are unlikely to be seen as socialble, talkative, actively friendly or gregarious."  Gregarious?  Probably right on this one.  I am not gregarious but I am friendly.  Maybe not actively friendly, whatever that means.

"Low Emotional Expressiveness--your profile suggests that you are not an attention seeker, excitable, impulsive, or status oriented individual."  I think that is good but calling somebody "Low Emotional Expressiveness" doesn't sound good. 

"Patience--your profile is one of patience, emotional control and low tension."  Total miss.

"High Discipline--this is good but may lead to rigidity."  So is rigidity good or bad or good sometimes and bad sometimes?  Or am I being too rigid?

"Non-Conformity--you are unconventional, non-conforming and unstructured."  I thought I was rigid.

Well, that's it.  Suddenly I feel pretty schizoprhenic. 

Take a step back.  What would I surmise from this if I was the hiring manager and forced to read this nonsense?  As a forecasting tool, it is pretty dismal.  But some consultants are making a lot of money off this junk.

Advice for somebody having to take some stupid test like this--if you have to choose between going to a party and reading a book, go to the party.  After that, you are on your own.

Stupid Tests

Came across an article in career.journal that brought back a lot of bad memories.  The link is http://www.careerjournal.com/jobhunting/interviewing/20060801-needleman.html?cjpos=home_whatsnew_major

Seems like Human Resources has run amuck again.  More firms, like in most firms, are making prospective employees take personality tests before they are hired.  I, readers, have mastered this little task, I think, as I had to take one once and passed with flying colors.  The key, at least to me, is to be positive and action oriented.  But not unthinking or critical.  Sympathetic but not a push over.  Decision maker but deliberative.  Strong but have feelings.  Get the picture?  How do you answer these stupid questions and not blow your chance at the job?  You don't want to come across as Hitler or a serial killer but you also don't want to be considered unable to make a decision. 

Guess we have to go by experience and recount how I successfully completed the task and one of my employees did not.  A few years ago I interviewed for the job of vp and treasurer of LSG Sky Chefs, the world's largest airline catering company and a truly screwed up place.  But looked like fun even though my future boss was later described by an investment banker as a "SS tank commander" type.  I figured if he could pass the test so could I.   Interviewed with the CFO, the CEO, VP of Marketing and knew I was hitting home runs.  Got the offer and got the package.  Not great but it was a VP job that I thought I could leverage, and did, to better things in the long run.

But first the test.  My future boss was a little embarrassed by the whole thing but seems the CEO was a total believer and nobody got hired without passing the TEST.  Ok with me.  Arranged it for 5:30 on a week night when I would get the Call.  Went in my office, closed the door and waited for the Call.  Which came from a housewife with a screaming kid in the background, living somewhere around Chicago.  We talked about Chicago for awhile and then came the questions.  Took about an hour which is average because they don't want you to remember how you answered the earlier questions.  They want to see how consistent you are.  A lot of "If you were a tree, what kind of..." type questions.  The only one I remember exactly was "Would you rather read a book or go to a party?'  Hit that one out of the park.  YOU always want to go to the party, you can read a book anytime.  So passed the test and went to work for the SS tank commander.

Needed a credit manager.  One of my guys at my old job was having a bad time and figured I could hire him away.  We will call him Jay because that is his name.  I hired Jay straight out of MBA school and he is the most caring, considerate, easy going, helpful guys on the planet.  If you need help moving, don't call me, call Jay. 

So brought him in, interviewed him around, everybody liked him.  Got the go ahead except for the TEST.  No problem.  Jay took the TEST.  My boss walked in, closed the door and said don't hire Jay--he had flunked.  He was political, selfish, not a team player and hated his mother.  Jay?  Couldn't be.  I pleaded.  They must have called Charles Manson by mistake.  No go.  No Jay.

The best I could do was another chance.  Take the TEST again.  And he flunked it again.  Worse.  He was everything short of a pedophile. 

And this is where I got nasty.  Sky Chefs was always short of money and people and Jay was cheap.  Well, not cheap, but cheap for all the work he was going to be doing.  So I appealed to the baser side of my boss.  Anybody else would be $15 grand more than Jay.  Not sure how I came up with that but it worked.  My boss wiggled out of the TEST by noting that Jay would not supervise anyone so he couldn't be selfish, exploitive, or political to his non-existent employees.  Nor could he molest any of them.  Jay got hired.

Guess that isn't much help with passing any tests out there but it does show, to me anyway, how stupid and wrong such tests really are and how dangerous they can be. 

Did see one thing in the article--a link to a pre-test test.  So I took it.  Can't wait for the results which I should have tomorrow.  Stay tuned. 

DIY

I can't stand those home fix up shows where Bob Vila renovates a kitchen in a half hour or Norm builds a $2,000 cabinet out of leftovers.  But you can save a lot of money by doing things yourself.  It has always amazed me that highly educated, successful individuals with multiple degrees and years of work experience are absolutely scared to death of trying to fix something.  Hey, the guy you call to fix it has a high school degree at best--how hard can it be?  Well, in some cases, pretty hard but often not impossible. 

Case in point.  We are starting the process of building a new house which means fixing up the old one to sell.  Nothing chaffs me more than fixing up something and then moving but it will help the resale so I go along with it.  But I will grab an opportunity when I see one. 

And one opportunity was our beat up old ceiling fans and light fixtures hanging down over the island in the kitchen.  Everything works fine but twenty years of being there has left the fans without much brass and the lights look a bit tarnished. 

So off to Loews and Home Depot and start looking at fans and lights.  In round numbers here is what we figured out. 

Six new fans at, say, $100 a piece.  (There are cheaper ones but they look it.)  Total $600

Accesory Parts                                                                                                                                                  50

Two Hanging lights at $50 a piece                                                                                                      $100

Tax at 8.5%                                                                                                                                                         64

Total                                                                                                                                                                  $814

Not a lot of money but, again, I'm not too happy about spending money on a place I'm going to move out of.  I'm not saying I'm cheap but as Mike Ditka once said about Chicago Bears owner, George Halas, "He tosses around nickels like they were manhole covers."  That's me.

So pretty happy when Sue couldn't find a replacement fan she liked or lights.  Leave it to the next guy.  Then her rhetorical question, "Can you paint brass?"  Beats me so on to the internet and you can.  Clean with mineral spirits, prime, and paint.

So I got the job and I took it because the cost broke down like this--

4 Cans of Primer at $4.39 a can                                                $17.56

4 Cans of Spray Paint at $4.39                                                   $17.56

Masking Tape                                                                                        $1.99

Mineral Spirits                                                                                      $3.99

Total with Tax                                                                                   $44.59

$814 vs. $44.59.  Looking pretty good.

But then I always do some non-monetary analysis before deciding to go forward with any project.  The first question is always--Can I get killed doing this?

Let's see, there is the possibility of electrocution.  Then a fan could land on my head and kill me.  Or I could fall off the ladder.  Electrocution is probably out, not enough juice.  Fan on my head?  Probably not, I still move pretty fast.  Falling off a ladder?  Broken arm at the worst.

So I decide to proceed.  Take the bottom cover plate off the fan.  Mess of wires looking pretty confusing.  Sue notes the electrical connection is probably at the top, near the ceiling, not at the bottom.  After all these years I have no ego so take her suggestion.  She is right.  Remove two screws holding the cover plate on and one screw promptly gets dropped and lost.  Trip to the hardware store.  Made sure the fan was turned off, took off the wire nuts connecting the wires and avoided getting shocked.  Fans are kind of neat because they have a rubber half ball that is screwed to the rod that is attached to the fan.  The rubber ball sits in a little cradle that is attached to the electrical box in the ceiling.  Disconnect the wires, lift up the fan and slide it out of the little cradle.  And drop it.  Well, came close anyway. 

Got the fan down, took it outside, unscrewed the blades, washed everything down with mineral spirits, placed the fan on some sawhorses, primed it and then painted it.  Let it dry and reversed the procedure.  Sprayed some paint in the plastic top of the paint can, got a model brush and touched up the scratches I made putting the stupid back on the ceiling.   

Repeat with the other five fans and the lights over the island.  Everything back in except one light over the island but so far, so good.  Biggest problem was lining up the screws holding the cover plates, dropped three, lost two.

But saved $769.44.  As Benjamin Franklin said, "A penny saved is a penny earned."  Ben knew what he was talking about.  And Home Depot charges $50 to put in a ceiling fan.  If things get tough I can always become a professional installer.

Sue once asked how much we saved doing things ourselves.  Doing a quick analysis, I came up with $300,000 over the years.  I think I may have low balled the number.