[DRAFT] Personality, Schmersonality

[Superbunny]

Was inspired to do this after hearing some companies use personality tests to determine who they should hire.

Description: @@RANDOMNAMEFEMALE@@, known around her office for mostly keeping to herself and working alone, has been fired from her job. Why? She got an introverted personality result on a company-issued personality tests while all other employees got results deemed more "favorable."

Validity: Not valid for nations who have anti-discrimination laws.

THE DEBATE:

1. "It's no different than firing an employee for encouraging negative behavior." Says Tony Ward, CEO of the company @@SHE@@ was fired from. "We simply used the personality test to gauge who we should keep on. It's a teamwork-based workspace, after all, so she shouldn't even be here in the first place! Allow companies to filter out employees based on these tests so that our company can continue providing for the economy without worrying about these introverted bringing everyone else down."
Effect: Workers who don't go to company parties are fired for lack of teamwork skills.

2. "It's discrimination, pure and simple." Says @@SHE@@, trying to hide behind a potted plant in the corner of your office. "I'd never gotten a complaint or even so much as a reprimand, and I always did my work." @@SHE@@ continues, "Enact anti-discrimination laws so that fat-cats like Ward can't step all over people like me to power trip."

[USS Monitor]

The way this is written does not make it clear how it became a national issue. Why is this @@LEADER@@'s problem rather than HR, a labor union, or a local court?

Also, there's no reason to assign a gender to this character, and there is no macro @@SHE@@. @@HE@@ will return either "he" or "she" at random. If you want "she," just write "she."

And I'm having a hard time buying that companies firing employees over this would be a real issue. Refusing to hire, maybe. But firing someone based on a personality test, rather than evaluating them based on their job performance? I can't see this being a widespread problem across the national workforce. If you refuse to hire certain personality types, that's based on assumptions about what sort of job performance you'll get. If you're talking about a current employee, you don't need to assume. I think it would be more believable to have people complaining they can't get hired in the first place because companies are giving the jobs to underqualified candidates with the "right" personality type.

And "bringing everyone else down" doesn't seem like the most realistic complaint about introverted people. They're quiet people that prefer to work by themselves, not negative people that complain all the time.

[Superbunny]

The way this is written does not make it clear how it became a national issue. Why is this @@LEADER@@'s problem rather than HR, a labor union, or a local court?

Also, there's no reason to assign a gender to this character, and there is no macro @@SHE@@. @@HE@@ will return either "he" or "she" at random. If you want "she," just write "she."

And I'm having a hard time buying that companies firing employees over this would be a real issue. Refusing to hire, maybe. But firing someone based on a personality test, rather than evaluating them based on their job performance? I can't see this being a widespread problem across the national workforce. If you refuse to hire certain personality types, that's based on assumptions about what sort of job performance you'll get. If you're talking about a current employee, you don't need to assume. I think it would be more believable to have people complaining they can't get hired in the first place because companies are giving the jobs to underqualified candidates with the "right" personality type.

And "bringing everyone else down" doesn't seem like the most realistic complaint about introverted people. They're quiet people that prefer to work by themselves, not negative people that complain all the time.

My intention was that the employee feared it set a precedent for other companies to do the same thing. Will be rewriting based on your suggestions, though, thank you.

[Australian rePublic]

Why in the fudge would you fire an introvert? Where's the reasoning there?

[Jutsa]

Why in the fudge would you fire an introvert? Where's the reasoning there?

Cause being an extrovert's a full-time job.
*Gets hit in the head by a drum stick* I'll see myself out.

[Makdon]

Why in the fudge would you fire an introvert? Where's the reasoning there?

iirc, in many jobs involving heavily focused on interaction, particularly sales, studies have shown that employers favor workers they perceive to be extroverted.

[Trotterdam]

iirc, in many jobs involving heavily focused on interaction, particularly sales, studies have shown that employers favor workers they perceive to be extroverted.

Duh?

But that's different from firing someone for not socializing enough with co-workers despite the job not being overtly people-oriented.

[Makdon]

iirc, in many jobs involving heavily focused on interaction, particularly sales, studies have shown that employers favor workers they perceive to be extroverted.

Duh?

But that's different from firing someone for not socializing enough with co-workers despite the job not being overtly people-oriented.

The interesting part of the study was that it also suggested neither introverts nor extroverts were the best at sales job, rather that ambiverts performed the best