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Comment by CapmCrackaWaka | Hacker News Reader

I can't pretend to know what the original test writers had in mind. However, I actually think this question serves a different purpose than to determine if you had actually considered stealing from an employer. These types of questions are better suited to determine if someone can walk the corporate walk and talk the corporate talk. They don't want a low level employee to go off on a customer, or make rude remarks, or otherwise say "between you and me, fuck this company lmaoooo", because that opens them up to litigation. On that front, I would say they achieved their goal.

The _obvious_ answer to this question, if you want a job, is "no". Anyone that answers "yes" is a liability, regardless of their actual intention to steal.

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Yeah, seems like if you're hiring for a low-level retail employee, it's not necessarily a plus if they're the kind of person who deeply analyzes this sort of question instead of giving the superficially correct response. Particularly if this was in an employer-friendly time from a hiring perspective, and they had an endless supply of candidates.

> they're the kind of person who deeply analyzes this sort of question

Clearly they didn't deeply analyze the question in the relevant context. Answering "yes" to this is high school level "edginess".

One needn't condescend, as there are equivalent questions at all levels of hiring, all with equally obvious (in)correct answers. No, you shouldn't answer "what is your biggest challenge" with "not showing up to work drunk", even if it is indeed your biggest challenge, and one that you work hard to successfully overcome every day.

Another commenter refers to this as "walking the corporate walk" but I think it's more "having an understanding of context and appropriate levels of sharing" and it applies at all times in life.

Some cultures, and strongly correlated thus nationalities, are more brutally honest than others. So it may just be a test to see if you're an apple pie white American, which could be unlawful discrimination.

I think you have this backwards - Apparently, Americans are considered more brutally honest and direct in negotiations than other cultures:

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-negotiate-around-the-...

That doesn't mean that Americans are more brutally honest in social interactions. In my experience, Americans commonly (admittedly, not always) avoid topics and observations which they think a listening party would find uncomfortable.

This actually reminds me of something I've been thinking about lately. What we call honesty is actually two different things: truthfulness and openness. Americans are probably truthful and not open.

Like Canadians are polite but not friendly

That's right.

No s**t, my g*d these Americans are really *****

(who would have thought it is so difficult to beep out words in HN, I had to escape each *)

Reminds me of the time I said the fuck word kinda loudly in public in Provo, Utah. Had people looking at me like I'd just grown a second head.

That's kinda why I always say "the fuck word" instead of "the eff word". I've had too many interactions where somebody felt comfortable correcting my word choice for me to be polite about it. ("Fuckin' heck!" is pretty fun too; people just don't know how to respond.)

I am French and we are quite liberal with our swear words. This is interesting because the ones that are used in everyday conversation, due to the intonation, are not rude. Not poetry, but not vulgarity either.

For instance the word "merde" ("shit"). When you say "ET. MERDE." clearly breaking the words apart and emphasizing them - everyone will think "something definitely bad happened" but nobody would be offended. This is only one of the zillion examples.

Now, there is a very, very fine line between being "appropriately, cleverly vulgar" and "vulgar". You do not want to be the latter.

You can say a whole daisy chain and still be fine: "oh putain de merde, quel enfoiré de Word, ma thèse sur Paul Sartre a disparu" ("fucking shitty bastard of Word, my PhD thesis about Paul Sartre has just vanished").

When I go to the US, I always forget to switch on the puritanian-s**t-filter and people look at me really sternly. I even had one older lady coming to my table where I was seated with my teenager boys when she somehow head the word "merde" (as in "et. merde." when I broke something) to tell me that the children should not hear such words.

They literally ask “How are you doing?” and expect a meaningless answer as a matter of course.

To me this sounds like an invitation to unload my worries.

It's common in most roles for employers to check if you are flexible, teachable, and ready for cool-aid.

*kool-aid

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

*Flavor Aid

They didn't actually use Kool-aid in the Jonestown massacre, people just think they did.

Just because the saying is apocryphal doesn't mean the spelling "cool-aid" was correct. The saying is "drinking the Kool-Aid" regardless

Sounds like you're drinking their cool-aid.

"drinking the Flavor Aid" doesn't sound nearly as good. It sounds like a knockoff

I personally think Flavor Aid rolls right off the tongue and into the garbage.

Reminds me of the scene in Cryptonimicon, again:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866629

Many things remind me of scenes from the Cryptonomicon, especially things that rhyme with "torpedo."

So they are filtering for a ethic that accepts boldface lying to them is necessary to cover essentials.

I can not see how this paradigm could end well.

I mean - all ethical systems favor boldfaced lying in some situations? Even Kant's Categorical Imperative simply says that, if you lie, you should do so in a situation where anyone in that situation should lie (i.e. hiding Jews from the Nazis, etc). Even within a Kantian framework, you could argue that in this context (a formal job application) it is moral to lie because no one believes your answer represents your most deeply held beliefs - but rather represents your willingness (and ability) to perform a role (the role of the Good Employee). If you can't be a Good Employee you should reveal it by not lying - but if you can be you can reveal it by lying on the form (which reflects the lying you will be expected to do in the job).

Part of the problem is that normally you're also very explicitly instructed to not lie on such forms.

> ‘Isn’t learning fun? Oh, and here’s another one.’ > DO NOT FEED THE ELEPHANT. > ‘Now that,’ said Susan, ‘is good. You can’t obey it…’ > ‘… because there’s no elephant,’ said Lobsang. ‘I think I’m getting the hang of this…’ > ‘It’s an Auditor trap,’ said Susan, peering at a packing case.

Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

Part of life is learning when you'll be rewarded for following the rules v.s. breaking them. Employers will sometimes ask their employees to break the law. Will you break it for them? They want you "on their side" - meaning they want you to takes risks for them. So what you are describing as a problem with the form looks like a feature to me.

The expectation on this varies very widely across cultures, and sometimes even between classes or other social strata within a culture.

And then if someone is on the spectrum, and they already know that they have trouble reading those wink-wink-nudge-nudge clues properly, they might stick with the rules as written simply because that's something objective that they can be sure they're interpreting correctly.

For sure! I don't mean it's universal at all - I'm saying the question is setup to catch people who are nor primed with the right enculturation. It's not good! It just is a good filter that selects for the sorts of people the business wants to hire.

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