If you’re ever been on an interview, you’ve most likely heard any of these useless questions:

1. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
2. What are your greatest strengths?
3. What are your biggest weaknesses?
4. Why do you want this job?
5. Why should we hire you?
6. What type of animal/tree/food/mineral/planet are you?

Now I’ve seen many interviewers that say these are very important because they say something about the candidate! Yes, they say just how much time you’ve wasted online looking for answers to these very questions. Overall, they say nothing, and really have nothing to do with any job.

After all…

#1 Where do you see yourself in 5 years — what are you psychic? Now the interviewers say they want to know what goals you have for yourself to see if their inline with the company… but in all honesty, chances are in 5 years you’ll be looking for another job because either they’ve let you go, the company’s shut down, or just the job totally sucks and you’re needing something better, or they aren’t paying you enough. At the same time, there’s not really that many companies that have advancement no matter what job you’ve got. You a programmer? Great! Start at an entry-level position, work your way up to senior programmer (maybe 10 years if that), but after that you’ve got to either leave the company or enter a position unrelated to programming. If they’re looking for a programmer, and you say in 5 years you’ll be doing something other than programming (because, well, you might just be if you advance like planned) – do you really think they’ll hire you for a programming position?

As a similar thing, how do you even know that during the interview some plane, semi, train, car, etc isn’t going to come crashing through the building and take you out – or just cause the business to close shop? How do you know you won’t die unexpectedly while sitting there? You have no clue what will actually happen 5 seconds from now, let alone 5 years. A similar thing exists for what you’d be expecting: you can’t give specifics, only some vague standard “doing a job related to {the job I’m interviewing for now} with a company I love” which is pretty much the happy little lie that the interviewer likes to hear even though they know you’re lying. You’d really like to see yourself owning your own island with tons of parties, money, and not having to work.

#1.5 What guarantee can you make that you’ll still be here in 5 years? — This is a question sometimes asked, but is really similar to #1, so we call it 1.5. A person can’t guarantee that they’ll be alive in 24 hours — there’s no way they can guarantee you’ll still be working for them in 5 years. The business can’t even guarantee that they’ll be around in 5 years. They can’t even guarantee that they’d still be keeping you around that long. This question is the dumbest one around as you can’t even give a standard response – as it requires knowledge of the future, and a guarantee that knowledge of future events won’t cause the future events to be changed (so everything’s set in stone, if you know you’re going to be killed in a car accident at 8am, even if you have yourself committed into a padded room, the act of you getting committed will cause you to die in the accident). Yet there are some really dumb people demanding a guarantee from people before they’ll hire them.

#2 & #3 What are your greatest strengths/What are your biggest weaknesses? — Yeah, and who’s going to say their biggest strength is the ability to drink anyone under the table, and the biggest weakness is missing too much work from being in jail for drug offenses? Once again, the interviewer expects you to lie and give a canned response. But if you think about it, do they really want your strength/weakness in reality, or as related to the job you’re applying? If it’s in life, it doesn’t apply and shouldn’t be asked for it has nothing to do with the job at hand; if it’s the job, what if you’re just now entering the field? Do they want you to answer given your jobs overall? What if you got injured at your prior job in a way that you couldn’t/shouldn’t do it anymore, and are going into a different field? The greatest strength of a human resource manager wouldn’t really matter if you’re going to work in a non-HR capacity. If your job was as a programmer, your greatest strength/weakness wouldn’t apply to a non-programming job — overall of course, as some things (ability to solve problems, etc) could overlap in a general sense.

#4 & #5 Why do you want this job / Why should we hire you? — For virtually everyone in the world, the “why” would be “I need a job/I need more money” or a variant thereof, and the answer of why they should hire you, if answered honestly, would be the same answer. There’s not much else to say about this, every so often a person wants a job because they actually just want the job (and don’t need a new one, they’re moving on because of desire), every so often a person has a unique set of skills that matches a job position perfectly. In the end, why the company should hire you over someone else is entirely up to the company. A person either has the requirements for a job, or they don’t. They’ve got no idea what skill set anyone else applying for the job has. It’s just one of those questions that is pretty much useless. The person needs a job – that’s it. If they applied, they aren’t overqualified for the job. They aren’t going to leave you in a few weeks for another job (generally). They applied and showed up because they need a job.

#6 What type of animal/tree/food/mineral/planet are you? — Or any other question along these lines where they try to figure out what makes you tick by saying you’re a “yellow fox orbiting Jupiter”. The interviewer might have some psychology-based research paper that says “someone who identifies as a ____ is ____” and might be going by that to find the “perfect match”. Yet the person applying for the job might say they’re a cat because they like cats, not because they’re a predator that stalks and kills their prey.

In the end it all comes down to a few things about job openings, a business will always end up getting more applications than they have open positions. Some people will have to be cut. But questions like these and others that are just dumb to even ask could all be eliminated with one very simple way: have the employee wait 5-10 minutes in the waiting room, and ask the receptionist their opinion of them, and what they did (or use security footage). That’s it. If they practically bite the head off the receptionist, you’ve got a better idea of what type of person they are than what type of animal they are. If they’re polite, look around, check out any awards, pictures, etc you’ve got up about your business – you know they’re interested in your company. If they sit like a dead log and don’t even check out the rules of the business that might be on the wall, you can figure out other things.

What would you do if your workplace had an undress code — you know, a dress code but it said you had (or could) go naked?

If you’re like many people you’re picturing your co-workers naked right now, and probably thinking how to get that image out of your head — if not, you are now.  But I’ll add the important distinction between “naked” and this type:  you can wear an apron, provided by the company (yet it’s yours alone – you get to keep it), that will cover up everything but your shoulders and your butt.  Bending over is at your own risk (think hospital gown, with less upper back coverage).

And let’s say that’s your retail uniform (those in offices may be allowed to go completely naked if they so desire).

But your workplace gives you a few conditions and just general information about the policy (assuming it’ll be legal and without repercussions):

1. No commenting about size, poking, touching, or anything else that you wouldn’t do if the people were dressed (sexual harassment policy still stands).  And a security officer will be on hand during work to take care of any problem customers (yep, they touch — they get charged).
2. You won’t be seen by people outside if you don’t want to be (dark front windows or something to block on-lookers if the town requires, otherwise you’ll be put in the back and “hidden”).
3. A check-in person (fully clothed) will notify all people that employees are “naked”, and let them decide whether to enter (if required by the town)
4. All employees will be 21 or older (or 18 — but they will be adults)
5. You will be paid a living wage (not min. wage), benefits, and everything else of a normal job, you just have an “undress code” instead of a “dress code”
6. Shoes (“flip-flop”, “thongs” or even regular shoes) will be allowed and recommended to prevent injury — and all employees will be told to use their own town when sitting on furniture.
7. A safe place will be provided for your clothes (since you won’t be driving to work that way), and any personal effects
8. All security tapes will only be reviewed by naked people, who are so around the other employees, and only seen by police with a warrant (so it’s “fair” — no clothed people will get to stare at the “naked” ones).
9. All employees are given 5 days where they can be partially dressed, or otherwise “hidden” from the main area, no questions asked, for any “personal” reasons.
10. You’ll have the option of wearing a company-logo apron that covers everything but your shoulders and butt.

Sound really weird?  Perhaps, of course if you search for “Lush’s Green Days” you’ll find just this, if even just for a day (and they’re in the USA too!)  But think of it this way, it’s just the dress code – only instead of saying “business casual” or “khakis and red shirt” they’re saying “naked with an apron optional”.  There would be positions within the company that you had to wear clothing for safety if nothing else (like shipping/receiving, cooking, etc).

But here’s the question — if you knew this in advance, answer these questions:

Would you:

• Shop there, or do business with the company? (keep in mind, there’d be men and women working there — of course given business practices, probably more women on the floor than men overall)
• Apply for a position there, and if so, in the “naked” part, or clothed part?

Apparently in the State of Washington there’s a pizza joint whose employees accidently left the heat turned on 55ºF one night — only to be told the next day that “no one can turn the heat on now”.

It was said by employees that the temperatures inside the store drop to below freezing when it’s cold outside, because the exhaust fan is really good at sending the oven heat out of the store.

The reporters sent to the store said it was 55ºF inside when they arrived, but noticed something interesting: the real boss had a space heater in her room to keep warm.

If true, that the place gets really cold in the winter and such, it’s a very sad thing to think that a business would even consider making workers do their jobs in freezing and cold temperatures (especially since they weren’t hired to work in a freezer or other extreme temperature place [which do have requirements for working in them]). While some may find 55ºF comfortable, there’s probably more that consider that to be “chilly” or even “cold” let alone below freezing temps. It should be unthinkable to force employees to work in such temps when there’s no reason for it. And there, sadly, needs to be laws passed now to specify temps for working conditions — at least in ranges to give businesses some room for flexibility.

But even from a general business standpoint: how is having your workplace potentially being freezing good for bringing in customers from the “cold”? And better yet, exactly what does it do for the pizzas? Can you imagine making food at home, then immediately putting it from the oven to the freezer for, say, 10 minutes? Is that really going to to be hot and delicious pizza — or some luke-warm one?

It’s 2009. The time of year where those still writing checks mess up the dates, and checks from Jan 2008 are still potentially “valid” (as they could have just been a mistake of the year). And this year, it’s also the year of a new President in the United States – although that would be true no matter who won.