Why I do what I do…at work anyway

For those of you that wonder just exactly what I do, join the club. There has always been a lot of confusion about my job, my vocation, my degree, etc. Well wonder no more, here is a brief explanation of what is I do and why I do, what I do.

First, contrary to popular belief, I am not a spy. Even though when people ask me what I do, my first response is “did you ever watch the tv show Alias?” Well, I am not really a covert operative, although some of the work that we do and the clients that we work with might make you think so. My official title is Senior Consultant. Confusing enough. Think the “Bobs” from Office Space. That is closer to what I do than to a spy.

Some background. I have a degree in Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology. That is on the total opposite end of the spectrum from Clinical or Counseling Psychology. I have never worked with a client that involved “therapy” (although many of our clients desperately need it). Most of our clients are Organizations. That is cities, counties, states, government agencies. We do have private sector clients such as retail, transportation, food and hospitality, but the bulk of our clients (this week anyway) are protective service clients.

So what is I/O Psychology? Basically its psychology of business, personnel, and organizations. If you think of clinical psychology (the lie on the couch therapy) with the individual, I/O involves groups; most of the time large groups. Here is a link if you want to know more. http://www.siop.org/. We work with personnel depts., HR, and Legal Departments.

So what classes did I take to get a degree in I/O. A lot of courses in statistics and research. Also took general psych courses, but most of the course were specific to I/O. For example, performance appraisal, employee selection, motivation, attitudes, etc. While taking courses, was helpful in that I learned basic info, most, if not all, the real learning takes place “in the real world”.

Here is an example ‘typical’ project. A large city in the southern United States is having a problem with the police officers. There is a public perception that the police are corrupt. Whether true or not, often times perception is reality. Our job or mission, is to hire or screen out “bad” or poor employees and to make sure that the jurisdiction hires the cream of the crop. We set up several procedures that screen out these potential bad hires. For example, we give a basic reading test, a personality test, psychological tests, physical ability tests, background checks and, oral interviews.

I do a lot with computers, but I am not a “computer or IT” person. I create, maintain and administer online tests around the world. On any day we test people from all over the United States and occasionally from the Middle East.

So that is the what. Now for the why. Basically, I can sum it up rather quickly. I like it. It is rewarding and no 2 days are ever alike. A lot of people can tell you what they will be working on 2 days from now or 2 weeks from now and in some cases even 2 years from now. There is nothing wrong with that, it just doesn’t fit with my personality. I like not knowing what the day will bring (sometimes anyway).