How Honest Are You? By Ansley Roan
Take this quiz to check your honesty quotient. Circle the number of your response. Give yourself 1 point for each #1 response, 2 points for each #2 response, and 3 points for each #3 response.
Q1. You’re online and accidentally discover someone in your apartment building has unprotected wireless Internet access. You:
- Put up a notice in your lobby, alerting everyone to the importance of password protection
- Use it occasionally, when your connection is down
- Are using it right now, what’s the problem?
Q2. As you’re about to drive out of the grocery store parking lot, you realize the clerk gave you $20 instead of $10 for change. You:
- Keep driving. They should’ve been more careful
- Turn the car around, park, find the manager, and return the extra cash
- Resolve to donate the extra $10 to charity
Q3. At work, the office assistant does a big research project and leaves her report on your desk. Your boss assumes you did it and praises you for your hard work. You:
- Say thank you, then praise your assistant privately
- Explain that you didn’t do the work
- Say thanks and keep your mouth shut
Q4. You’re parking your car at the mall when you accidentally give another car a minor scrape. You:
- Drive away. That’s just the risk of mall parking
- Get out, make sure the damage is barely even visible, then leave
- Leave a note with your name, number and insurance information
Q5. In an office shuffle, your boss gets your old office and you get a cubicle. You still have the keys to your old office. You:
- Give them to your boss
- Hang on to them; you never know when they might come in handy
- Come in over the weekend to start snooping
Q6. You discover a $50 mistake in your favor on your taxes. You:
- Send them in as is
- Start over and re-calculate everything to get it right
- Consider re-doing it, but decide it will all even out in the end
Q7. Your intern makes a mistake on her timesheet, which costs her money. You:
- Explain it to her and show her how to calculate correctly
- Don’t tell her because you’re over budget, but give her a general reminder to check her math
- Don’t tell her. If she can’t figure out what she’s owed, that’s her problem
Q8. Your company sends out statements for vacation time earned, and you realize they’ve given you an extra day. You:
- Start looking at plane tickets
- Think about telling someone, then remember they owe you comp time from 1999
- Tell Human Resources about the mistake
Q9. Your best friend’s new hair color looks terrible. When she asks what you think, you:
- Try not to answer directly, and say something that is true like, “It brings out your eyes”
- Say it looks great to protect her feelings
- Tell her it looks awful
Q10. You and your kids are feeding the neighbor’s cat while they’re out of town. One of your children breaks a lamp there. When they return, you:
- Explain what happened and offer to pay for the lamp
- Blame the cat
- Wait to see if they say anything, then apologize
Q11. You and your spouse agree on a monthly budget, which does not include the leather jacket you’ve had your eye on. You receive an unexpected $200 windfall. You:
- Buy the jacket and hide it
- Buy the jacket, but explain the money was unexpected
- Tell your spouse about the money, and discuss whether to buy the jacket
Q12. You’ve spent hours arguing with your cell phone company because they overcharged you. On the next statement, you realize they’ve mistakenly given you 800 free minutes. You:
- Call it karma and phone your college roommate in India
- Call the company and tell them they made a mistake
- Carefully compare the overcharge to the free minutes to see if it evens out
Q13. Your computer crashed and you’ve rushed to the nearest Internet café to send in a work project on time. There’s a long line to pay the cashier, and a customer has left a computer with pre-paid time still running. You:
- Start using the time they’re paying for. You’ll work it out with the cashier when you’re done
- Stand in line anyway to pay for your time
- Start using the free computer and hope you can get away without paying at all.
Q14. Your exercise partner is going be out of town for a week. You promise to walk every day while she’s gone, but you sleep in all week. When she returns, you:
- Explain that you missed every day
- Don’t mention it
- Tell her only if she asks
Q15. You’re given a new work computer, but the configurations haven’t changed from the higher up who had it last, so you can view employee’s salaries. You:
- Don’t look, and alert the tech team to fix it
- Start looking. This will help when you negotiate your next pay raise
- Are tempted, but assume if you access those files you’ll get caught eventually, so it’s not worth it
How Honest Are You?
Scoring:
15 – 24
Honest Abe – You tell the whole truth and nothing but, even if it’s inconvenient. Every once in a while, you might be so blunt you hurt someone you love. Don’t throw your truth-telling tendencies out the window, just remember you can be honest in a way that’s a little less painful. Overall, though, your dedication to the truth makes you a reliable spouse, neighbor and employee.
26 – 36
Even Stephen – You judge what’s right according to your internal moral compass, but your compass takes in more than the immediate situation. You’ll often wait to see if others notice a problem before you offer up the truth, and if an immediate confession becomes a bother, you’ll look for an easier alternative. You’ve got good intentions, but make sure you don’t go down a slippery slope.
37 – 45
Hard Knock Lifer – Your guideline for truth-telling is what’s best for you. You’ll tell it like it is to save yourself from certain punishment; otherwise, you assume everybody’s looking out for themselves, so why not put yourself first? But the more lies you tell, the harder the habit is to break. Lying doesn’t exactly inspire trust, so people are more likely to withhold information or lie to protect themselves from you. Think long-term and break the cycle. If you want other people to be honest with you, start by being honest with them.