Work & Play

The Quitting Quiz

By Thomas P. Farley

What are the telltale signs that the time has come to leave your job? Take this Men’s Life Today test for a definitive answer to an age-old question: Should you stay or should you go?

1) Every Monday morning, as you ponder the workweek ahead, you pull out your iPod and put one particular track on repeat. Its title is:
a) “The Lazy Song” (Bruno Mars)

b) “Just Can’t Get Enough” (Black Eyed Peas)

c) “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” (Katy Perry)

d) “Forget You” -- and not the clean version (Cee Lo Green)

2) When you get in late, your boss:
a) Doesn’t notice, because he never strolls in before noon anyway.

b) Asks if everything’s OK, since you’re usually the first one in the office.

c) Pulls you aside and tells you not to let it happen again.

d) Screams that the next time you’re tardy with his dry cleaning, there will be hell to pay.

3) Your workplace attire consists of:
a) Bed head, baggy shorts and a pair of turquoise flip flops.

b) A three-piece suit, wing tips and a freshly sharpened pencil on the ready, tucked behind your ear.

c) An Oxford shirt, khakis, and -- for rare occasions -- a Kevlar vest.

d) An airport gift that reads: “My Boss Went to Sheboygan and All He Got Me Was this Lousy T-shirt.”

4) At lunchtime, you:
a) Drive home for a nap, followed by a little Angry Birds action, followed by another nap.

b) Eat at your desk to save time. Gotta love multitasking!

c) Bring your PB&J into the conference room and complain to your work buds about the idiots in accounting.

d) Fashion voodoo dolls of the CEO using paper clips and a bubble mailer.

5) On Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, you:
a) Teach the boss’s kids how to make faces on the photocopier and fax the laugh-out-loud results to their teachers.

b) Put together a gripping PowerPoint presentation on how working hard in school truly gets you places!

c) Advise every youngster you see to put off the real world by getting an MBA.

d) Call in sick. Having to be nice to your colleagues is bad enough; being nice to their kids is beyond your pay grade.

6) A typical day’s assignment is:
a) Assignment? I’m not sure I’m following you.

b) There is no typical. Every project that lands on your desk is more refreshing and interesting than the last.

c) Not anything to write home about, but at least you’ve got good dental.

d) So ludicrous and incomprehensible you wonder whether a lobotomized monkey thought it up.

7) When it comes time for the annual company picnic, you:
a) Remind me again of the difference between my job and an actual picnic?

b) Whip up some of your Aunt Sassy’s ambrosia for everyone to savor.

c) Bribe your significant other to join you and promise you won’t make her stay for the whole thing.

d) You mean that was yesterday? Darn! Now why did I write it down for next week?

8) Upon returning to the office after a week away, you …
a) Fire up your computer so you can surf do some research using your favorite websites: Facebook, YouTube and, of course, Men’s Life Today .

b) Run to your cube, eager to rifle through the contents of your inbox.

c) Linger by the water cooler, sharing -- with anyone who will listen -- the tales of the traveler’s checks you lost in Colonial Williamsburg.

d) Have 17,543 emails to answer. Of those, you count 16,876 marked “URGENT.”

SCORING
Calculate your answers according to the values assigned to each:

a = 1 point

b = 2 points

c = 3 points

d = 4 points

If you scored a total of…

8 to 12: Are you seriously getting paid to do what you do? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, dude. Ride this one all the way to retirement!

13 to 19: Congratulations you worker bee, you! Sounds like you’re in a job that you were born to inhabit!

20 to 26: Your current means of earning a living might not be as exhilarating as driving racecars, but it sure ain’t ditch-digging, either. Since you never can be too sure, though, might as well dust off the old resume … just in case.

27 to 32: Get thee to a recruiter without delay. This job is making you miserable.

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