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Author Topic: Is your boss a psychopath? Take this test and find out
Bacchus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4722

posted 19 August 2005 01:00 PM      Profile for Bacchus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Test to see if your boss is a psychopath
From: n/a | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
swirrlygrrl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2170

posted 19 August 2005 01:06 PM      Profile for swirrlygrrl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Is the person who wrote this test sexist? Read this test and find out!

Apparently, my boss can only be a man. Someone should tell my two immediate supervisors, and the ADG for my Centre.


From: the bushes outside your house | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Bacchus
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4722

posted 19 August 2005 01:09 PM      Profile for Bacchus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hmm I didnt pick that up, thanls swrrlygirl!

Oddly enough I didnt pick that up but you're right (prob because I was laughing that everyone in my office took it for the VP engineering and he scored all yesses)


From: n/a | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
Gir Draxon
leftist-rightie and rightist-leftie
Babbler # 3804

posted 19 August 2005 01:19 PM      Profile for Gir Draxon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by swirrlygrrl:
Is the person who wrote this test sexist? Read this test and find out!

Apparently, my boss can only be a man. Someone should tell my two immediate supervisors, and the ADG for my Centre.


You *could* just substitute pronouns. Besides, don't we live in a patriarchal society anyways? If so, then why not assume the boss is male?


From: Arkham Asylum | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
deBeauxOs
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10099

posted 19 August 2005 02:22 PM      Profile for deBeauxOs     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by swirrlygrrl:
Is the person who wrote this test sexist? Read this test and find out!
Whoever wrote this test has a point to make, perhaps, about perceptions. Until feminism started challenging the conventional style of leadership in business and institutions, the "typical" male would act that way and though his staff would grumble, nobody suggested that this approach matched the profile for sociopathic behaviour.

Last year I worked for a supposedly progressive organization and my director matched all the criteria in that test. She is a woman and she openly and proudly claimed that her management style was masculine. Well, one thing led to another and I became the 12th or perhaps 13th person to be fired/dismissed/terminated since her reign of terror started in 2003. Needless to say, it is not a union shop and this Margaret Thatcher wannabe-bully happily continues in her job because she has the Executive Director in her thrall - how exactly I do not know and do not wish to find out.

Okay, truthfully, it would be deliciously and maliciously satisfying to discover what that relationship is all about ...


From: missing in action | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged
swirrlygrrl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2170

posted 19 August 2005 02:30 PM      Profile for swirrlygrrl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
You *could* just substitute pronouns.

Yes I *could*. So *could* the person who wrote this test. Or they *could* alternate between she and he. Or they *could* "subversively" use only she. Or they *could* use s/he.

The author did not, and the fact that we one can do so without raising the eyebrows of the vast majority even now is a wonderful indidication of the patriarchial structures that continue to exist, and the way language continues to be used to subtely indicate where women and men belong (and where people of colour, queer people, etc. belong), and where they don't. This is a structural problem, as well as a personal complaint.


From: the bushes outside your house | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 19 August 2005 02:46 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't see that it's a very subtle set of questions anyway.

I mean, if one of the questions is "Is he a pathological liar," then it's a done deal if you answer yes, eh?

That a lot of people who get power in our world get there because they really love power in and for itself -- that is an interesting psychosocial/political phenomenon. And it is worth getting people to think about the problem.

It's not as though we don't already know quite a lot about it, though, just from reading a little history and biography. It's not even as though we don't recognize that most of our biggest bosses and political leaders are lying through their teeth every time they speak in public.

So the bigger question is: how do they keep getting away with it? We must, at least in part, be responsible for the fact that they do.


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 19 August 2005 03:45 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Dr. Robert Hare of UBC has done groundbreaking work on psychopathy, by pointing out a self-consistent set of behavior patterns that characterize this disorder.

Our increasingly competitive and hypercapitalistic society tends to reward this kind of behavior, so it is no surprise that social institutions breaking down tends to correlate well with an increase in amoral behavior among the top echelons of society.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
radiorahim
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2777

posted 20 August 2005 11:10 PM      Profile for radiorahim     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think some posters missed this disclaimer at the top of the questionaire...perhaps because it was in light grey print.

quote:
The standard clinical test for psychopathy, Robert Hare's PCL-R, evaluates 20 personality traits overall, but a subset of eight traits defines what he calls the "corporate psychopath" -- the nonviolent person prone to the "selfish, callous, and remorseless use of others." Does your boss fit the profile? Here's our do-it-yourself quiz drawing on the test manual and Hare's book Without Conscience. (Disclaimer: If you're not a psychologist or psychiatrist, this will be a strictly amateur exercise.) We've used the pronoun "he," but research suggests psychologists have underestimated the psychopathic propensity of women.

From: a Micro$oft-free computer | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
shitdisturber
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10232

posted 25 August 2005 05:32 PM      Profile for shitdisturber        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm sure alot of us have had a few people in managerial positions that were....oh lets say very argumentative or assertive in their efforts to run a shift. I know at National Grocers in Mississauga we've had several of these. Nothing a good work stoppage won't fix. All of you need to sit down and say you won't start work until the "psycho" is gone.

If the psycho is a coworker, someone from which works beside you on the floor, then this is a different story. I've found that just talking with the person actually brings them down to the more desireable level. Give it a try.


From: Mississauga | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged

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