I just completed a survey. It came from a Michigan university although I can't be sure who crafted the questions (e.g. students, administrators, 3rd party). The objective appeared to be to learn about the current job market directly from those of us in business who hire college graduates. I thought "great"! I love sharing my advice with students. It may or may not be good advice, but I like giving it!!

They had multiple surveys so that each employer could fill the one out that more closely matched their situation. I chose the small business survey intended for companies with less than 100 employees. We have 15.

There were at least 3 things in the survey that bothered me. They screamed academia run amok. They showed a clear lack of understanding of the way things happen in the real world . My answers showed my anger:

1) "What does your company do to attract, hire and retain 'underrepresented' students?

Answer: We have found that midgets - sorry, the vertically challenged - like to hang out together in Adult Fetish bars and can't resist free platform shoes. That's our plan, although we currently have not been able to retain any employees under 4 feet tall.

Actually, I figured they meant racial diversity, but didn't want to say it. Frankly, I have never worked in a company that said anything openly about diversity. Why? Because companies don't care about diversity so far as I can tell. I mean sure, Denny's does after it got slapped with law suits for being racist. Coke might after also being slapped with law suits. So, I guess right after the objective of making the business successful - for which having a diverse group of colored skins has absolutely nothing to do with - a successful company might want to consider hiring people of various shades simply to avoid law suits. Truly, this diversity crap exists solely in academia and for appearances. In the small business world, we don't even talk about it. Does that mean we don't have a diverse work force? Does it mean we're racists? Of course not! In fact, we are the complete opposite of racist. We actually hire and retain people with absolutely no regard for their skin color. Imagine that, a color-blind work place. And yes, you guessed it, we actually do have a diverse work force. It kind of reflects our community. Interesting how that works, huh?

2) "Studies have found that students require praise often. What programs does your company have in place to make sure employees receive sufficient praise?"

Answer: We actually have a separate praise room. Instead of breaks or lunch for executives, we gather in the praise room and kneel in front of all of our new hires. We read from various praise books, but also come up with off-the cuff praise. We do this until the praise-o-meter is full and then go back to work.

Are you shitting me? Again, complete ignorance of a work environment. Frankly, if you're the type of person that needs constant praise, you won't even get through our screening process. The idea that we might actually have a program through which we "force" praise - kinda makes me want to vomit. Here's the real low down. James Blanchard, an extremely successful banker and Chairman of Synovous, once said to a group of us that business is all about "being good to people." He's a southern gentleman and his message was sweet and simple. It wasn't about feigning praise, it was about respect. There is no program to make people respectful, it comes from the type of people we are. We treat all of our employees with respect. We might provide praise, we might criticize but whatever interactions we have with each other and with our customers - it comes down to respect. If that's not in your nature, then there's no stupid program or training class that can give it to you.