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Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

bbc.co.uk

11–20 of 32 posts

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#11
I just learned which vendor I'll be avoiding.

Key cutting is exactly the job I least want ex-convicts to do. It is low-skill, so anyone can do it, but high-risk (you are literally giving your keys to the person, asking them to convert them to a numeric code, easily retained, and produce copies...)

(Obviously, I'd prefer an in-house locksmith or resettable locking system, but instead, I use a vendor I've known for 20+ years who uses PGP to authenticate orders.)

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#12
post #4

I found it a bit of an odd article. I alternate between Mr Happy, Mr Grumpy, Mr Angry, Mr Sad. (Fortunately, I'm never Mr Tickle.) While it was interesting, I'd hate for people reading this article to think it was genuinely a good idea as a hiring practice. People are complicated, and cannot and should not be pigeonholed into such simple categories.

I think it's an extremely good idea. Work generally requires people to suppress most of their personality, often tot he point of treating people as completely interchangeable labor units, which is dehumanising. Acknowledging that there are different kinds of people with different personal drives is an excellent approach. Also, most people who grew up in the UK are familiar with the Mr Men & Little Miss books, most of which treat of the titular character encountering some problem in which their regular personality puts them at a disadvantage.

Frankly I'd rather deal with someone who displays extensive familiarity with the Mr Men than some buzzword-regurgitating follower of the latest management guru or MBA fad who has mistaken novelty for innovation.

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#13
post #11

I just learned which vendor I'll be avoiding. Key cutting is exactly the job I least want ex-convicts to do. It is low-skill, so anyone can do it, but high-risk (you are literally giving your keys to the person, asking them to convert them to a numeric code, easily retained, and produce copies...) (Obviously, I'd prefer an in-house locksmith or resettable locking system, but instead, I use a vendor I've known for 20+…

You're either assuming the person cutting your keys also knows your address, or that burglars are in the habit of walking round with a bunch of keys and systematically trying them all in the front door looks of every house that looks like it might be worth stealing from.

I'm not sure what is the point of mentioning that your physical security vendor uses PGP other than signaling how awesome your security practices are, but I guess since you're a vendor of security services you have a good reason to advertise that.

No doubt you have your reasons for feeling prejudiced about ex-convicts, and as a security professional you can leverage rational paranoia into cash. However, it would be interesting to hear what sort of jobs you do want ex-convicts to do. It's easy to think of security reasons to disqualify people from any given job, not so easy to furnish people with legit alternative opportunities.

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#14
post #11

I just learned which vendor I'll be avoiding. Key cutting is exactly the job I least want ex-convicts to do. It is low-skill, so anyone can do it, but high-risk (you are literally giving your keys to the person, asking them to convert them to a numeric code, easily retained, and produce copies...) (Obviously, I'd prefer an in-house locksmith or resettable locking system, but instead, I use a vendor I've known for 20+…

What's the weakest link in your case? How resistant are your locks to picking? Can someone just smash a window or drill the lock?

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#15
post #11

I just learned which vendor I'll be avoiding. Key cutting is exactly the job I least want ex-convicts to do. It is low-skill, so anyone can do it, but high-risk (you are literally giving your keys to the person, asking them to convert them to a numeric code, easily retained, and produce copies...) (Obviously, I'd prefer an in-house locksmith or resettable locking system, but instead, I use a vendor I've known for 20+…

> asking them to convert them to a numeric code, easily retained, and produce copies...

This must be different from any key-cutting system I've ever seen. Any time I've ever gotten keys cut, the machine is setup with a jig, so they put the original on one side, and the blank on the other, and you trace the original against the guide, while the blank gets ground to match. I suppose they could cut an extra, but it'd be hard to do when I'm standing right there watching them.

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#16
post #4

I found it a bit of an odd article. I alternate between Mr Happy, Mr Grumpy, Mr Angry, Mr Sad. (Fortunately, I'm never Mr Tickle.) While it was interesting, I'd hate for people reading this article to think it was genuinely a good idea as a hiring practice. People are complicated, and cannot and should not be pigeonholed into such simple categories.

> it was genuinely a good idea as a hiring practice

There's been enough discussion about how fundamentally broken the current recruitment process is (in tech) that this doesn't seem much worse.

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#18
post #4

I found it a bit of an odd article. I alternate between Mr Happy, Mr Grumpy, Mr Angry, Mr Sad. (Fortunately, I'm never Mr Tickle.) While it was interesting, I'd hate for people reading this article to think it was genuinely a good idea as a hiring practice. People are complicated, and cannot and should not be pigeonholed into such simple categories.

I've been at a workplace where I was sorted by the Dept head into a 'colour' category according to my personality, based on some bullshit test. There were 4(!) colours. I stayed for three months.

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#19

If you're not aware of Timpsons they do key cutting, dry cleaning etc and these days mostly operate out of kiosks in supermarket car parks. It's a pretty trainable job to anybody, and the ideal job for somebody who can't get another one. I'm not sure about the Mr Happy thing though, because i've met plenty of grumpy staff there.

Mr Grumpy is also a Mr Men character. As is Mr Muddle. And Mr Tall.

Re: Happy hiring: The firm that recruits Mr Men characters

#20

If you're not aware of Timpsons they do key cutting, dry cleaning etc and these days mostly operate out of kiosks in supermarket car parks. It's a pretty trainable job to anybody, and the ideal job for somebody who can't get another one. I'm not sure about the Mr Happy thing though, because i've met plenty of grumpy staff there.

Mr Grumpy is also a Mr Men character. As is Mr Muddle. And Mr Tall.

Good point. Didn't see Mr Surly Bastard Who Hates People By Default though :D
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