Re: Rather Polite of Him, Wouldn't You Say?

Kelly Bert Manning wrote:
> "Pete Dashwood" (dashwood@removethis.enternet.co.nz) writes: 
>

When I first started out in DP I worked for a woman whom I still
consider to be one of the best IT people I have worked for/with. I also
employed a woman (with only 2 GCE "A" levels to her name) and she was
the best IT person who ever worked for me (and good looking too!). As
an aside; I have noticed that of all the IT people I have worked with,
the best had no higher qualification than an "A" level and the worst
had a joint honours degree in maths and computing. The academic
qualification is, it would seem, inversely proportional to the IT
abilities of the individual.

> That was also the book where he describes how some enterprise decided to
> use a get together of all it's top IT staff to subject them to a barrage
> of psych tests intended to develop a profile which could be used to
> predict programming success. The well researched questionaires asked peopl
e
> to answere questions such as "Do you often get headaches because you have
> to concentrate at work?" Wienberg noted that anyone who answered Yes would
> probably not make a good programmer.

A crap test then. I get headaches and consider myself a moderately good
programmer/analyst and a shite project leader. But people do like
working for me. The question is poorly phrased. A person may often get
headaches, or infrequently so, because they have to concentrate, but it
is more likely because the ink has run out on the print ribbon or
because some twat in human resources/facilities placed all terminals in
areas with lighting problems making it difficult to see the vdu
clearly.

Before the second round of tests the
> fellow administering them foolishly asked if there were any questions. One
> of the IT gs put up his hand and asked if they should use the same
> personality on the second round of tests they had on the first. The
> administrator got very upset and stated that all the profound questions we
re
> to be answered fully and honestly. The g's reponse was "what sort of fo
ols
> do you take us for", at which point the room erupted in laughter.
>

I did a job-centric personality test (it was supposed to help my
employers decide what qualities were required for an employee to be a
success in my role) in which the result was that I should never be put
in charge of others (I was managing a team of 5) and that I should
never have to make a decision. Six months later, I re-sat  the test and
answered it less naively. I can now happily announce that I make a
wonderful project leader and am cured of my former inability to make
decisions (I think).