Monday, October 5, 2009

Do You Want The Position?

Setting: Twenty young people fresh out of highschool are applying for a job. They’re a typical class of students. Some are very academically minded. A couple are bullies who have been pushed along rather than passing on merit. The rest fall somewhere in between. An ability test is required of those applying. All are invited back three days later where they are informed that none of them passed the test. All have failed.

Employer: “As you know, not one of you passed the ability test. However I have decided to hire anyone who wants to be hired.”

Jordon: “What kind of nut-job is this?” Jordon muttered to Jaida who was beside him.

Employer: “None of you are qualified to work here. However, if you would like to work here raise your hands.”

While people looked quizzically at each other, four hands shot up; Bret, Baily, Marissa, and Amber’s.

Employer: “Thank you to the rest. You may go home now.”

Jaida: “Excuse me?”

Employer: “Yes.”

Jaida: “Could we find out what our marks were?”

Employer: “Sure. Let me make some copies.”

After handing around papers that displayed all of the marks, the employer hears,

Amber: “But this isn’t fair. I only got 43 and Jaida got 86. Yet you’re giving me a job instead of Jaida!”

Jaida: “Ya and Bret only got 13 and you hired him!”

Employer: “Can’t I pick who I want to pick? Bret raised his hand and I hired him. What’s wrong with that?”

Jaida: “But I scored higher than either Amber or Bret!”

Employer: “So?”

Jaida: “They failed!”

Employer: “The passing mark was 100. You also failed.”

Jaida: “They failed more than me. I did better than they did.”

Employer: “They raised their hands and asked to be hired. You just sat there.”

Jaida: But I need this job. We all do.

Employer: So why didn't raise your hands when the offer was on the table?

Jaida: I thought it was a joke. This is a joke. You’re a joke!

The employer shrugs and tells the ones he’s hired to follow him into a different room. The door locks.

17 comments:

Adam said...

Is this an analogy to the god you believe in? I should hope it's not quite so irrational and capricious as you make it out to be.

Whateverman said...

Yep, that is one just employer. Just and good and perfect and

Wait a minute...

Glen20 said...

"The employer shrugs and tells the ones he’s hired to follow him into a different room. The door locks."

The ones who didn't raise their hands look around the room. The employers voice booms over an intercom, "All those who did not raise their hands must BURN!"

With the doors locked, the employer sets the room on fire with the people in it.

In pain, Jaida offers to raise her hand now. The employer says "NO! I gave you a chance before you knew about the fire. I must burn you with FIRE!"

Jordon wonders it the employer could just shoot him instead. But the employer insists he must burn, burn, BURN!

Bret, Baily, Marissa, and Amber relax with a coffee while the other people burn.

SmartLX said...

Meanwhile, the people outside on the breadline are harrassed left and right by dozens of spruikers working for dozens of companies, each one telling them that his or her company is the only one on the street where they will be able to earn a living wage.

Not one of the buildings above them has a single window open, so not a single happy worker is visible behind any of the spruikers, merely the eager applicants waiting in line outside the doors.

By the time any one of them even gets a chance to make any money, it will be too late to try anywhere else. Furthermore, they are encouraged to bribe the spruiker to increase their chances, so in fact they're worse off than those out in the breadline.

At the end of the street is a construction site with a sign that says "Help Wanted" in place of a spruiker. The building isn't done yet, and it's so huge and ambitious that it might never be, but every worker is visible up on the bare scaffolding, and they're all being productive.

Given the tiny chance of picking the right private company to make a living, if there even is one, some people in the breadline opt to leave them all behind and work construction. They will make their own building as they see fit, with clear windows and open doors. It's an ongoing achievement nobody can deny, because it's right there at the end of the street.

When the construction workers retire, who's to say how financially secure they'll be, but at least they can point to the new building (whatever phase of construction it's reached) and say, "I helped make that."

World of Facts said...

Good job completing the story guys. Now, I'll go take a look at the construction site to see what they are up to these days!

feeno said...

Hello Mak and Atheists.

If I may take the liberty to say thank you from all of us construction workers.

This reminds me of another story. Some guy threw a big dinner party and invited many. But when it came time for dinner nobody showed up. All those invited had excuses why they couldn't attend. So he started to invite the "less desirables" and then finally even a bunch of derelicts, all so his house could be filled.

Btw, in this economy why wouldn't you just raise your hand and quit making excuses, take the job.

Dueces, feeno

World of Facts said...

"take the job"

I already have a ring on my right little finger.





- Any Canadian here?

Thesauros said...

Adam: If that was the employer's plan all along, how is she being capricious?

Whateverman: How is she being unjust?

Glen: If I were to include hell fire, then the analogy would have to includ atheists who know exactly what's coming yet choose the fire rather than the raise their hands to get the job and then, and THEN they complain that it isn't fair.

Whateverman said...

Makarios wrote Whateverman: How is she being unjust?

Have you considered what the shareholders might think about this employment practice? They invested their money, and this shmuck is willing to hire substandard workers to make a silly point...

Thesauros said...

God doesn't have shareholders. He owns it all. If you paid attention to Jesus, you'd know that God seems to prefer the substandard, the outcast, the ones who don't seem to fit especially in comparison to those who see themselves as better than others.

As well, isn't it just like an atheist to see the intellectually disabled as substandard.

Gorth Satana said...

"As well, isn't it just like an atheist to see the intellectually disabled as substandard."

Who said that?

Adam said...

I was thinking irrational and unpredictable. If you don't like the word caprice, you can put those other two in there instead. Either way.

Whateverman said...

As well, isn't it just like the substandard to fool themselves into thinking they're superior?

Whateverman said...

By the way, Makarios, you should really learn to ask questions before assuming. I'm not an atheist

Thesauros said...

I know what capricious means Adam. In the case of God / employer:
You know every one of the ground rules up front.

There is no ignorance on your part.

There will be no surprises.

You know exactly how it’s going to go down.

Yet you continue down the path to destruction unabated.

And, if you’re like Gorth, once the outcome is in place, you’ll blame God for what you chose to do.

Adam said...

Well, I hope after you wrote that comment you went back and accepted the self-righteous title I ascribed you in the other thread.

Thesauros said...

I haven't got a clue how you think the two things are connected.