Freaky job interview questions

It's hard to see it getting asked in many places but how's this for an interview question.
Crazy job interview questions: "UBS: If we were playing Russian roulette and had one bullet, I randomly spun the chamber and fired but nothing was fired. Would you rather fire the gun again or respin the chamber and then fire on your turn?"
It's hard to second guess what they'd look for: at face value exhibit your knowledge of statistics. But I think my answer might be, in the spirit of the response on the referenced site:
I think that I'd file the request as harassment and report it to HR. There's no way that such actions could pass health and safety and the macho culture that would generate such a scenario in the workplace is likely to be one which generates bullying. So I'd rather not do either of the alternatives: I'd rather reframe the situation altogether. And then, would I want to work for UBS if I'm likely to be shot?

The hell of aural leakage and imposition

A thought provoking piece from Kester, here: Kester Brewin � Tsskk Tsskk… Why Do Kids Play Music on Buses?
As a teacher Kester is rightly concerned in this article to understand the thing from the participant-actor's point of view. First of all on 'aural imposition' (my term): "Some students who were interviewed for the piece didn’t think that playing music was antisocial, just that the bus was too quiet and they wanted something to listen to. However, a sociologist sees it being more about marking out ownership of space. This can be done physically – by lolling out and taking up a number of seats. It could also be done graphically by ‘tagging’ around various places. But the most immediate and obvious way of stating that you have control over a space is aurally because it flows so widely."
Now this is relatively rare in my experience (mercifully). And I think that I disagree with the sociologist's interpretation. Drawing on my own youth when, I confess, I went through a phase of doing rather similar things (only the technology was different -remember cassettes?) what I was doing was not claiming space. In the exuberance of youth I wanted to share what I enjoyed musically. I just didn't really have any idea that -as I now realise- if others didn't really like Wishbone Ash or Pink Floyd that I'd be vexing them greatly. So that's what I've assumed is going on. However, it hasn't helped me devise an intervention that I could feel would work without getting awkward or nasty. Sometimes bus drivers intervene to enforce no-music, often not.

Aural leakage, on the other hand is when someone has the ear-buds in but they are in the process of going deaf (and there is a chicken-and-egg conundrum in that) because the thin, tinny, escaped sound is irritating fellow passengers. Sometimes I've seen this challenged, particularly in the quiet carriage on a train. It seems easier to challenge: after all the user by having ear-buds in signals that they are trying to be considerate of others, so there is a basis on which to approach them to ask for the volume to be turned down.

So maybe the leakage scenario helps us to understand the imposition scenario. In the latter there is clearly no attempt to use means to minimise intrusion on others: it is desired that we should hear. Well, perhaps not always; quite often what is happening is that a handful of teens (in my experience) are sharing snippets of stuff they like with one another; perhaps they aren't really considering the wider impact at all, or if they do they may consider that they are educating the rest of us in what real music is.
I'm considering carrying around a set of those cheap £1 earbud sets and offering them to the polluters so they can share in private.

A misuse of linguistics in theo-cultural comment

There are some good points made in this article and I think that the point -as I understand it- of transcending a blame-victim mentality, is a good one (after all I have recently made similar arguments):
TheOOZE beta | evolving spirituality. � The End of Blame (by Brittian Bullock).
But I would advise the reader to start at paragraph four to avoid an off-putting misapplication of linguistics. I'm really sorry to do a bit of a cutting things out job on this, but it really is hard to read some of these things with a linguistics background in place. I'd encourage Brittian to develop the basic insight (best put in the last couple of paragraphs) which I really think are helpful, but to ditch the linguistics, and the reason for that is what I'll note down below.

Here's the first faux pas: "The English language is structured very aggressively. It’s officially a S-V-O type. Which means that full and proper sentences contain a subject, a verb, and an object (and in that order)"

Yes, English is S-V-O. How is that 'aggressive'? That value judgement has no real genesis within the simple fact of syntactic system; it's hard to know where it's come from. Or why a VSO language such as Hebrew or Japanese isn't 'agressive'. It's the choice of verbs and nouns that achieves 'aggressive' language not the syntax per se. Because the syntax has to be used for both pacific and aggressive -and other- moods and descriptions, it is relatively 'neutral'.

Similarly, "In SVO language there is [sic] always three things present. First there is definitely an action–something’s happening. Second there is a clear object or person it is happening to. And thirdly there is absolutely a subject inacting what’s happening." Yes that's true enough (I'll not quibble for the moment, it's broadly okay). However, that is a description of the roles that are necessarily implied by a transitive verb. Case grammar, for example, is an attempt to construct an approach to grammar that starts with such basic semantic relationships rather than rules for relative ordering of elements (again simplifying). Those relationships are logical and universal and not inherent in SVO languages; VSO have the same things to try to express, they just do it slightly differently.

So, the next move: "thirdly there is absolutely a subject inacting what’s happening. There is always a victim. There is always someone to blame. “Johnny kicked the dog.” is an example of this. The poor dog is being victimized and little Johnny is at fault. ... our brain is constantly throwing around systems of blame." The 'victim' is only properly a victim in sentences where something violent or oppressive is being described or implied. Otherwise we are simply talking about the grammatical object who might in other circumstances be the recipient of a gift ("Johnny stroked the dog" or "Johnny fed the dog") or perhaps the something more neutral ("Johnny saw the dog" or "Johnny called the dog").

And so this is a valid point: "But what if there was an additional sentence I tagged on to the beginning of the earlier phrase about Johnny and his dog? “the dog bit Johnny. Johnny kicked the dog.” well it changes things doesn’t it? Suddenly Johnny doesn’t look so bad."
It just doesn't need the mistaken linguistic analysis that preceded it. The valid point about that is simply about what information is communicated and could be summed up with the old adage 'circumstances alter cases'.

"In fact the Garden/Fall narrative in genesis holds similarities"; yes, and it's told originally in a VSO language; blaming can be done through either syntactic system, clearly. I'm all for a good chunk of what is written about blaming in this article, I'm (as someone with linguistic training) not at all helped by the misleading language analogies.

Then we have another not uncommon but still unhelpful language strategy that a number of preachers and writers engage in. In this article we find it here: "Glory literally means fullness or wholeness". This is a form of the etymological fallacy; the idea that a word (typically, but not exclusively) means "properly" (or "literally" or "correctly" even) what its etymological origins did. This simply isn't so; we need to pay attention to how it is being used in its context (linguistic, social etc). It's etymology may even be misleading as a guide to what a writer or speaker may mean in the present context.

No Hell = No Jesus?

This is a good quick way into why many evangelicals are skeptical about universalism: "Without Hell, can Jesus have any value, any meaning, as our savior?". I think Christian Beyer is right in picking up this characterisation; it fits with the way that I have heard a lot of 'everyday evos' characterise their position. However, he doesn't then really wrestle with the force of the position in articulating his own universalism, which is a shame because there is a more christological way to respond which holds strongly to the idea that the Cross really did accomplish something.

You see, the force of the position he characterises in the quote above, I believe, is that there has to be some purpose to the cross, and if it isn't salvation (by implication from hell) then what is it? It is hard to see it as other than a martyrdom which achieves something by its witness and ability to evoke sympathy or commitment. This seems to me to be a fair, even strong, position which has roots in scripture and subsequent Christian thinking.

An evangelical universalism, if there is to be such a thing, must surely be based on something that the Cross (and by that I mean the whole salvific action of Incarnation, Passion, death and Resurrection, in actual fact) has indeed created a salvation. The salvific universalist in an Evangelical mold would surely be saying that the salvation that the Cross has achieved is ultimately one which ultimately destroys hell by emptying it of occupants: no-one could find release from hell were it not for what Christ did. The main difference between that position and the more usual Evangelical positions is in the numbers -and perhaps the estimation of how efficacious the salvific events may be in relation to the problem of sin.

TheOOZE beta | evolving spirituality. � No Hell = No Jesus (by Christian Beyer):

Finding explanations in charity

This is so important. I didn't realise that I'd internalised it and a held-principle until relatively recently when confronted with people not doing it. It's always humbling and salutary (in the sense of salvation- and health- bearing) to look back at oneself and realise that one may have been guilty of, in this case, immature and uncharitable judgementalism. "It is a sign of maturity not to be scandalized and to try to find explanations in charity.” Of course, the ironic reflex of this is noticing the temptation to fall again into judgmentalism -this time of the judgmental!

7 Tips for Minding My Own Business | Psychology Today:

We prayed, I started ...

Since we finished later on Thursday evening and I had to get up early to come to college in Nottingham, I didn't really get much chance until about now to note here that the service for the inauguration of my ministry at Northumbria University had taken place and, I think, went off well. The liturgy is below. I'd like to specially recognise the contribution of members of the university choir and of the girls' choir from the cathedral: it's a difficult occasion to plan for singing because of the variety of people present, so having a good musical lead (and they were) is really helpful.

There were several things that I wanted the liturgy to achieve humanly: to engage those of Christian faith in prayer for the chaplaincy; to recognise and engage some significant partners (the VC's office, the 'department' chaplaincy works out of, the students' union, local churches); to involve my colleagues in leading the liturgy; to begin my own ministry formally by leading us all in prayer for the university; to use embodied symbolism.

In leading the prayers I started with the university statement of values and wove those into prayers relating to the areas represented by those who gave official welcomes at the event. (I haven't got the copy of the prayers with me here; I'll blog them when I have the digital copy to hand). Having asked the welcomers to bring a symbolic object, these were laid on the table at the centre with each welcome. Then when I led the prayers I picked each symbol up and placed it, as I prayed, in the centre of the three candles we started the service by lighting -on top of my licence. I had made my statutory declarations and affirmations before a small party of witnesses earlier.

Set up: Rutherford Hall. Layout: table central surrounded on four sides by seats. Three candles in centre of table.

Gathering and opening

Candle lighting: (based on Iona ceremony) Three chaplains; a line each, as a candle is lit with each line.

• A Light in the name of God; author of all being, who lights the world with Life
• A light in the name of God the eternally begotten, who invests the world with grace
• A light in the name of God the Go-Between who energises all with God-ward-ness
• [together] Three lights in honour of God in whose three-fold friendship we now gather.

Greeting and Welcome: Bishop Frank White

§ O God beyond all praising (tune: Thaxted) [This was chosen because it is a well known and stirring tune by Elgar (?) -used for 'I vow to Thee my country' and suitable for starting. I also wanted to show that the tune could have other words!]

O God beyond all praising,
we worship you today ...

(Words: Michael Perry (1942-1996);
© by Jubilate Hymns, Ltd. )

Futher welcome and context setting: Chris Dalliston

Ministry of the word

Reading(s): (chaplains);

• Acts 11: 19-26
• John 15: 12-17

address: Bp Frank White [He made connections between Rutherford after whom the building we were meeting in was named, and the readings. Rutherford was the founder of what became Northumbria University]

Welcomes, declarations and prayers.

declarations:

... Therefore I now ask: Andii, do you believe that you have been called by God to work as Chaplain in this University?

Chaplain I do.

Bishop The charge of Chaplains is to work with staff and students of all faiths, beliefs and value-systems and to be available to offer pastoral and spiritual care. The Christian Chaplains work together with people in the University to discover God’s purpose for themselves and for the University as an institution. The co-ordinating chaplain is to be fully involved in the life of the University, and to seek the flourishing of life and diverse community in the University. Andii, mindful of this charge, will you commit yourself to serve the community of staff and students in this University of Northumbria?

Chaplain I will.

Bishop reads out the license and presents it

Bishop The University Chaplaincy is a Local Ecumenical Partnership, created by the University and the Churches of this Region as a sign and a symbol of our commitment to one another. Will you commit yourself to working ecumenically with all the Chaplains, and on behalf of the Chaplaincy, supporting and contributing to the activities of the Chaplaincy team, and working together also with representatives of other faiths for the peace and welfare of the University as a whole?

Chaplain I will.

Bishop As Co-ordinator of the Chaplaincy Team you have responsibilities to the University. Will you, on behalf of the University Chaplaincy, undertake to be involved appropriately in the structures and management of this University?

Chaplain I will

Bishop And I invite the other Chaplains of the University to support Andii: will you offer support to him in his ministry.

Chaplains We will.

Bishop Let’s reflect in a moment’s quiet. ... [and he did leave a good long, but not too long pause]

In light and in darkness, in joy and in pain, in clarity and in confusion, may the Lord sustain you. May you be humble and just, steadfast and true, serving Christ and all people in righteousness, in holiness and in peace; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you always.

Amen.

Welcomes: VC, SU, LAG, and others, each with a few words of welcome lay an object on the table

Reading from TS Eliot [originally the Buddhist chaplain had hoped to read this, but she was ill, and so the Anglican chaplain to Newcastle University, Catherine Lack, stepped in and read the excerpt from the Rock from her own copy of the volume]

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
[Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.]
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
[But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.]
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

Prayers: Andii

§ O Lord hear my prayer: -music led by choir,

O Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord hear my prayer,

When I call, answer me.

O Lord, hear my prayer, O Lord hear my prayer,

Come, and listen to me.

Andii to lead petitions based on welcomes and declarations, gathering objects or visiting objects on the table.

Closing.

§ Rutter -The Lord Bless you …. ; Choir.

Dismissal: Bp Frank White

Nouslife: Ora pro me; 9 June

Success Starts With Failure

Given that many humans have a preference to learn by doing, it is inevitable that in order to learn to do something successfully we will have to coach ourselves through many failures. Why we collectively find it so hard to apply this to public life, business and organisational development beats me given that this is clearly a big part of the human scene, I don't know.

So it is no surprise that the history shows (and see here for more info Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure by Tim Harford – review | Books | The Observer) that "Disruptive innovations bubble up in the marketplace by a process of trial and error. The more players there are, the higher the likelihood of something brilliant appearing. But, by extension, a reliable measure of how efficient a system is at generating success is the volume of failures it can safely expose".
I like that phrase 'safely expose': we need to be able to allow it to be okay to fail, to recognise that it is part of learning to succeed. That is one advantage of the old British thing about 'not the winning ...' and that it is important to try, and to celebrate good effort as well as success. I think that we would do well not to lose it in the light of this argument: perhaps it had more to do with the innovative drive in the 1800's that characterised Britain than we have given credit for. Of course this also links to my tag-thread on failure which I find I keep adding to.

One of the things I found myself also agreeing heartily with was this:
"an ego blow to swaggering executives who think their tremendous commercial acumen is what has saved them from ruin and earned them their fat bonuses. Luck and timing are just as important, if not more so."
Quite so; I would like this to be more widely recognised and is part of the argument for reining in the hubristic bonus culture which has helped to bring our economies to their knees recently.

Anyway, moving off my soap-box; the article introduces

a check-list of conditions that must be in place for good ideas to chase out bad ones. Big institutions, whether corporations or governments, should create safe havens where experts can try new techniques and fail without bringing the whole system crashing down. Prizes for achieving specific goals work better than grants for open-ended research, since the latter are prone to be captured by lazy establishments fiddling around the margins of orthodox thinking. Regulations dictated from on high by controlling managers are less effective at preventing disasters than corporate cultures that invite dissent from the lower ranks and heed whistle-blowers.

I'm putting the book on my get-list and have got the Kindle sample.

Kicking the Geordies when they're down

I was intrigued by this article because its account of the North East (my adopted region of work and residence) is not one I readily recognise. Here's the heart of what I 'incomprehend':
"political and economic developments have been paralleled by a resurgent culture of stereotyped nastiness directed at the region's inhabitants."
You see, I look at the media and see Geordies being used in advertising in a way that seems to presuppose that the accent connotes solid family values and fun-loving-ness. Or have I missed something? This is far from nastiness towards the NorthEast, rather a kind of role-modelling.
"As the British working class has increasingly become an object of ridicule for a technocratic London elite, public figures from the predominantly working-class north-east have become special targets for media humiliation. From Gazza, the archetypal proletarian drunk, to Cheryl Cole, who risks becoming a Jade Goody for the 2010s, Geordies are consistently portrayed as half-articulate buffoons – figures of fun at best, ritualised scapegoats at worst (witness the glee with which certain members of the media followed the 'manhunt' of gunman Raoul Moat in July 2010)."
Again, I'm not sure I'm seeing it. Admittedly Gazza was pitied and reviled, rightly so; but I'm not sure that it was particularly associated with his Geordie-ness -was it? (Maybe I missed it). I get the impression that Cheryl Cole is still widely liked and the recent USA thing brought something more like amazement over the USAmerican supposed inability to cope with the accent and some sympathy about that and some sense of identification with the plight of a Brit in the miscomprehending States. But again, I may be missing something.

And as for Raoul Moat, I don't think the Geordie-thing was part of the glee -after all the heroic police officers are also Geordies for the most part. Where I think that the article may be right is with the portrayal of the working class. Though I'm still not convinced that this is the right label for the phenomenon: I think that the term 'working class' is obsolete and that there are several cultures represented by what would once have earned the label including some that pretty much buy into "middle class" values. Where, then, I think that it gets it wrong is trying to make a full link between the term 'working class' and 'Geordie' or 'north east'. I won't wash. This is an article ostensibly about the North East but mainly about perceptions of certain kinds of economically disadvantaged groups in Britain.

So there is some truth in this:
"In a politically correct era, light condescension and Little Britain-style caricature stands in for outright bigotry, a process that mirrors the discreet economic bias visited against areas such as Tyneside and Teesside by shrewd Westminster policymakers."
There is some truth in the accusation of bias and it may be that the London chattering classes are disdainful of anything regional. Only a thorough-going decentralisation to the regions can combat that. I think that what has happened in Scotland over the last 10-20 years begins to tell us what can be achieved. If Scotland becomes independent, I'm wondering whether the ancient Northumbria should be re-united (it once stretched from the Forth to the Humber) this time looking to Edinburgh rather than London.

Kicking the Geordies when they're down | Alex Niven | Comment is free | The Guardian:

The Blame Game

I'm really enjoying the reflections on this blog by Patrick Goh. The usual theme is reflecting on organisational life in a Christian perspective. I really found myself resonating with this post
The Blame Game | gohbyname Go by nature. 'Resonating' because I have observed this in several workplaces or organisations I've been acquainted with:

In a blame culture, people behave in blaming ways. These behaviours are self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. It breeds a suspicion, politicking, backbiting, draconian organisational practice and non-risk taking. In these cultures, feedback such as “you should do better next time”, and even training and development events are seen as threats.

And, perhaps, what he goes on to say, therefore, is part of my mission in the job I began officially yesterday. Patrick says,

We can change our social world by changing our organising grammar to:

• Let’s discuss a helpful process for creating change.
• How can we inquire into and build on the best of what is?
• What can we help people to learn?
• How can we value everyone’s contribution?
• Who else, amongst us, do we need to involve?
• What processes do we need to put in place to help us improve continuously?
• How can we develop, coach and mentor people through a project

I love that 'organising grammar' phrase! He goes on to point out that it is an attitudinal shift, and he's right. I'd say the secret is to contrast a culture where a central tenet is blame (and it's even more unlovely concommitants, scapegoating and unjust assumptions) with a culture where the central tenet 'rightwising' -ie problem-solving; how to put it right and save the post-mortems for relaxed appraisal in an open and inclusive learning environment marked by positive regard for all.

You see, in my experience, workplace cultures where blame is to the fore are workplace cultures where people don't feel respected, feel victimised and scapegoated -often because the blame-drive doesn't really care about truth and justice, just sounding off and covering its own backside -it's easier to blame someone, move on and avoid facing ones own part in the systemic failure. A blame-reflex fails to encourage genuine collaboration and, ironically, creates the conditions for further 'blameworthy' in/actions by increasingly 'jobsworth' workers. All too often, in fact, when something goes wrong, the reasons are complex and both systemic and individualistic. Blame usually oversimplifies to the point of injustice and therefore foments discontent.

Patrick ends by asking a Christian question: "“How might we create a ’forgiveness’ rather than a ‘blame’ culture”?"
I think I'd like to suggest that we need to start a step back from 'forgiveness' since starting there seems to presuppose we know who is to blame for what right at the start. And we normally just don't. So what is needed is a fundamental orientation to fixing problems that arise and creating an atmosphere where honest, respectful and supportive communication can take place. That can support finding out what really happened and encourage people to take appropriate responsibility and offer support to each other.
This means unwinding our own 'blame reflexes' and remembering that we fallible too. A healthy dose of recalling that for every speck we can find in someone else's eye, there's probably a log in our own.

Ah, but the danger is that people don't take responsibility. Actually that's paradoxically not the case. By creating a constructive culture we enable adult responsibility taking. A blame culture encourages parent-child transactions, self-justification and hiding problems.