Quiz Time: How Much of a Tool Are You?

The following quiz was in the February 2009 issue of Money, in an article called "Fireproof Your Job."  It has "six smart, field-tested strategies" that "will help ensure you don't get burned by cutbacks at the office."  Mm-hmm.  The following quiz was originally titled "How Vulnerable Are You?", but I get a whiff of toolishness when I read it.  Here's the quiz: all answers were to be yes/no and are written here in bold, followed by my commentary (mostly relating to my own myopic workworld view).

1. Do you work from home more than three days a month?  Why? Do you need a ride?  Look, me working from home doesn't make a damn bit of difference unless you're one of the people for whom it's all about "face time."  When I work from home, I turn "face time" into "productive time", which tends to make the company "money" and makes me "happy."  Next question.
2. Has the number of meetings you are invited to dropped off noticeably from six months ago?  Yes, especially since I started mocking my coworkers for ending prepositional phrases with a preposition (duh, it's 'number of meetings to which you are invited').  Actually, yes, the number of meetings I've been invited to lately has dropped off because we have no work to meet about.  Next question, puh-leeze.
3. Are you late for work more than once a week?  No, just on the days I have to hit the methadone clinic for a latte and a booster shot.  I seriously hate this question.  I roll into my office every day at 8:15 and I leave at 5.  Sometimes I work through a little lunch, sometimes not.  But you know what? In all my years at DA, no one has ever mentioned my technical-so-called-tardiness in a performance review because for the 7 hours and 45 minutes that I am there, I Get. Shit. Done.  Which reminds me...
4. Has it been more than a year since your last performance review?  Depends on if you count the one I got in Swank last month (very extremely NSFW)--that review of my performance was that I was sure to go places in the industry with my supporting role in "Debbie Does Frank Gehry's Whole Office."  Can we move on, please?
5. Has it been more than a month or two since your boss asked for your advice or opinion on pressing business?  Not at all!  Just last week he asked me what we should do about the lack of work in the office, and my helpful and professional advice was "get the effing banks to loan our clients some effing money and then get some effing work." Does anyone have a boss that asks you for advice or opinions on "pressing" matters?  "Which shoes would look better with this outfit, Pixie, these or these?"
6. Do you earn more money that co-workers who have the same title or job responsibilities as you do?  Okay, finally there's one of these that almost doesn't annoy me.  But still, how many people actually know what their colleagues make?  Don't companies keep a super-tight lid on that sort of thing?  Though I guess you could get your colleagues roaring drunk and get them to fess up.  We do that at DA; it's called Tuesdays.
7. Are you getting assigned fewer high-profile projects to work on lately?  *sigh* are we still on this topic?  Again, if there's NO WORK TO DO, are there gonna be a lot of high-profile assignments?  Oh no, Liz got asked to clean up the code book collection and I'm building medical equipment in Revit: I'm doomed!!
8. Do you leave before your boss more than once a week?  Not really.  That bastard is in at 10 and out by 3 or 4 because THERE'S NOTHING TO DO.  And, I might also add, many of our bosses have laptops and can write proposals and do work at home, where we probably won't bother them and they can concentrate better (see question #1).  And furthermore, what's with this obsession with time?  I know that good work takes time to do, but if you can do a fantastic job in less than 8 hours, then why stick around and bother everyone (see question #3).
9. Is your immediate supervisor the only person who can vouch for the quality of your work?  Yes, and now he works at Safeway spraying the produce with a garden hose because he made more than me and did the same job.  Actually, this one almost doesn't annoy me either.

Okay, let's check your score! If you said yes to:

• Two or fewer questions: You are a belt sander.  You make a lot of noise, throw a lot of dust around, but when you're done, whatever you worked on doesn't actually look that different, just a little prettier.
  
• Three to six questions: You are a circular saw.  You definitely make a difference in what you work on, but you're loud and dangerous.  At least one person who has worked with you has lost a finger due to something you've done.
• Seven or more questions: You are a hammer. You're not a power tool, but you can only do one thing and you break more stuff than you actually fix.

(Thanks to Eric at S7g Architects for contributing to this post.)