Past Opinion Articles

Article for the week of 8/29/05

Sleaze Test Sweeping Society
By, Grey News

A recent 300-question survey judging the level of sleaze in a person has become quite popular, with many companies and government departments quietly applying them to their employees.
Initially this test was one of many floating around the Internet, popping up on somewhat random computers and providing many hours of entertainment as those who thought themselves suitably dodgy in nature, dreaming of “Being Gene Simmons on stage,” find that they are nothing more than sweet lambs compared to those who may have ever “Tried to be Gene Simmons with the groupies”.
Truly this was the first genuinely interesting Internet Survey since the one about Britany Spears’ breasts.
It was believed that if this sort of thing ever turned up on any boss’ computer it would be the end of it and some other computer fad would take its place.
And for the most part that did happen. Those few managers and supervisors with senses of humours managed to see the funny side, let their employees and underlings have a chuckle, and then quietly removed it from all the computers a week or two later.
Generally they just grumpily wiped the survey and waited for the next unwanted piece of flotsam to come along.
Then some manager did something utterly unexpected, they had an idea.
Instead of letting the employees have their fun or complaining or picking their noses someone decided to use this bit of Internet humour seriously.
Now, albeit on a small scale, this test is being used to judge entire groups of people. So far there have been no actions that could be considered discriminatory, the majority of supervisors and team leaders have simply used it to group together, or even separate, depending on the strategy, people of similar dispositions.
Most companies and departments have cited this as nothing out of the ordinary, simply another test, however unorthodox, to determine the most appropriate groupings of people for efficiency.
All the same watchdog groups remain vigilant, ever ready to swoop in should employees be discriminated against, as there seems an almost certain chance for abuse of this test.
For now there is an increased sense of paranoia in the workplace, the sense that everyone will soon know everyone else’s darkest personal secrets, however it is only a slight rise in existing tensions and not worthy of concern as yet.
Since this innovation was theoretically rewarded (sorry but the world of management is murky at best) several other low level managerial wannabes are trying to use other Internet tests to boost their own careers.
So far no one has managed to duplicate the previous success, the use of Internet surveys to determine perfect pets, plants, Reality TV series for viewing, Reality TV series for participating and Hobbit name have yet to have the same impact on the working environment.