Personality Test For Convenience Store Job Stinks and Is Bizarre

I was fascinated, in a horrified way, of a story in Gawker of the hoops people have to go through to get a job at a convenience store chain called Twice Daily. 

First of all, these aren't cushy, complicated jobs that could endanger a whole city if done incorrectly So why the extensive on line psychological examination?

The psychological exam involves statements and you have to say whether you agree or disagree with them. They're yes or no questions.  But when I checked the statements out, all my answers were "It depends."

Getting a job at this convenience store chain involves
surviving a too-complicated psychological test.

They all seem like trick questions. I guess I'll never get a job at Twice Daily. Oh well.

Let's unpack some of these psychological test questions, shall we?  If Gawker can put snarky comments next to the questions, I can go overboard doing the same.

"Too much planning on the job can get in the way of enjoying things."  What do you mean by "enjoying things?" You spend all your day planning so you don't get your work done so you have to work when you're supposed to be off for the day? I guess that would get in the way of enjoying things.

"I have never told a lie on purpose at work."  How else do you tell a lie, other than on purpose? If you say something that's not true, but you believe it to be true, you're not lying. Just wrong. And maybe stupid.

And isn't it OK to lie at work sometimes?  What if, for some odd reason, a woman came into the store and asked "Does this dress make me look fat?"  If it does make her look fat, are you supposed to say "Yeah, you look like a fricken' whale." I'd just say she looks fine. Would telling our insecure, sonewhat overweight woman she looks fine get me in trouble or fired if  I worked at Twice Daily?

"Trying new things at work is more important that following the rules." If trying a new thing means smashing all the beer bottles on the floor because you've never done it before, then yeah, it would be better to follow the rules instead. But if some guy comes in and drops from a heart attack, and you try to give him CPR even though you've never done it before, I think that's better than standing at the cash register like a dope, just following the rules.

"On the job, I am not a very creative person."  Well, shouldn't you be sometimes? And not creative at other times, depending upon the situation?  If somebody comes in to a Twice Daily and asks for help creating the ingredients for a dinner party just from the beer, potato chips, crackers and Diet Mountain Dew on sale there, and you come up with an ingenious plan worthy of a five star restaurant, then maybe creativity is a good thing.

But if you make up numbers when adding up the day's receipts, creativity pocketing some extra money, maybe creativity isn't such a good idea.

"Trusting others on the job can be dangerous."  If a masked man with a gun comes in and offers to staff the cash register while you go on break, maybe trusting isn't the best plan.   But refusing to stock the cans of Hormel Chili on the shelves because you don't trust the chili to stay in the cans, and you don't trust the manager because she might make you restock again is just plain weird.

"Variety is the spice of life."  Of course it is. There's a variety of junk food for sale at Twice Daily, no?

"I always complete a job, no matter what else is happening around me."  Yeah, I know the gas tanks just exploded outside, the roof is collapsing, the place is on fire, the nuclear plant next door just sprung a leak and I'm in the cross hairs of the most violent shootout since the Wild West, but I have to finish counting the change in the register before I leave. Rules are rules.

"Most modern art is not really art." Huh? So a miminum wage convenience store employee is supposed to have the expertise of an art critic on the MOMA beat?  Since when are convenience stores art galleries? How does an appreciation, or lack thereof, of art make a person better at making a Slurpee. Is a Slurpee modern art?

"I never run out of energy." Are you supposed to tell Twice Daily HR that you never run out of energy so you get the job? Then what happens if they schedule you to work 1,000 consecutive hours, and you do get tired by hour 900. Do you then get fired?

The bottom line is, the questions are too ambiguous, too hard for me.  Maybe I should feel bad that the questions Twice Daily asks are so complicated I don't even qualify for a job at a convenience store.

Or maybe I should thank my lucky stars I don't have a job in which a shrink had to psychoanalyze me before I set foot in the building.