If you want to see the true character of a person take him to a strip club and get him drunk. One company I worked at the sales group used this as a method to screen people that were being considered. The company had a very proactive method of hiring. Rather than post a want ads and wait, the HR department would maintain a list of folks they would go after and offer jobs to. This would cause problems from time to time, they were raiding their customers and vendors for talent, but the quality of employees they had were pretty high.
Most of the people never knew they were being screened. Either we’d take them out at a trade show or during a business trip. The first thing you’d discovered about them is if they’d even go into the club. The sales group had a relatively wild social life. I’ve never worked at a place where there was so much corporate sponsored debauchery. The desire to go out and party on the corporate dime is hardly an indicator as to good somebody is at their job. The recruit’s job skill usually wasn’t the issue at the time, we already new how got they were from past work experiences.
What we didn’t know is if they played well and got along with others. If they were willing to go hang out at a strip club they odds are they would be comfortable with the job atmosphere at our company. On Monday morning when people returned to work nursing the aftermath what ever excess they indulge in over the weekend, it’s better if to have everybody at least sympathetic. Some people become very uncomfortable around hearing about ‘partying’ or worse yet will become show open contempt for the revelers. Having workers openly judging other workers will rapidly destroy morale. At least if they will walk into a strip club they aren’t openly judgmental.
Seeing how they react to the strip club environment is also telling. A strip club pretty much stomps on the expected “morals’ of polite society. At least for me, it’s hard to not covet thy neighbor’s wife when she is dancing naked in front of me. The normal boundaries of social behavior are not required. Its OK to stare at her boobs, its OK to stare at her boobs while drinking, its OK to stare are boobs while drinking and drooling on yourself. More importantly it’s OK to talk about her boobs. Once the normal behavior boundaries are crossed it’s easier to talk about things that are also outside the lines. You can go into swapping bar stories of assorted strip club adventures. I’ve got a million of those, maybe I should write a blog? (Oops, too late).
You can get the recruit to talk about his experiences. You can learn a lot from those, especially how accountable they are. After they got hammered, fell over and smashed a bunch of the furniture, did they apologize and try to make amends. Or did they start bitching about how stupid to put a table in the middle of the floor and surround it with chairs. What an absolute death trap (True story).
Alcohol is also factor. It lowers inhibitions so people will talk more freely. After a couple drinks no subject is too taboo. What you can’t ask on a job interview is pretty amazing. You can’t ask how old they are (but you can ask when they graduated from High school) you can’t ask if they are married, you can’t ask if they have kids, you can’t ask what religion they are. These laws vary from state to stare and regularly get ignored. I’d really like to see some plaintiff explain to a judge that he was illegally asked about his marriage status while getting a lap dance. I’ve been asked all the questions and happily answered them, lap dance not required. I’m usually more interested in trying to get the job. All these rules go right out the window at a strip club. Catering to the guy by buying him drinks and dances also will begin to tell. We would make him the center of attention and cater to his whims. Is he grateful or dies he turn into a pompous ass? If the recruit drinks himself under the table in first thirty minutes, he has other problems.
Watching how they treat other people after a couple drinks is very telling. If the guy begins to put down all the crack ‘ho bitches working at the club, going off on a misogynist tirade about the evil’s of the women and their wicked ways you probably don’t want on your pay roll. He probably has some issues to sort out. You can also watch how he deals with the dancers. Does this guy have the basic humanity to treat people decently? Dancers will put up with a lot of bullshit if they get paid.
By removing the social norms, liberally adding alcohol you can get to somebody’s true nature at strip club. Curiously they never took me to a strip club when they recruited me (bastards). I suppose they didn’t have to. All they had to do was to go down to the club and check my references. I’m not sure what kind of impression I would have made when we walked into the club and they found out I was on a first name basis with half the dancers.
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