Have You Got What It Takes To Join ARG!?

The Academy of Reluctant Groundworkers (ARG!) has introduced a tough selection questionnaire for potential new members.

Have you got what it takes to join our merry band of idle navvies? 

Take the multiple-choice test below and find out, choosing only one answer to each question.

1) What is the most important piece of kit onsite?

a) The client’s 18yr old daughter.

b) The radio.

c) The accident book.

d) The digging tools.

e) The broom.

2) What is “The Academy”?

a) Where I was thrown out of on Saturday night for exposing my bollocks on the dancefloor.

b) Who cares?  It's breakfast in ten minutes.

c) There are many academies – I do not understand the question.

d) The “Academy of Reluctant Groundworkers” – of course!

e) Sorry mate, pass us that shovel, will you?  

3) Digging holes is …

a) For the new lad.

b) Better than stopping indoors all day looking at the patio I haven't finished.

c) Time-intensive, though entirely necessary and – on a manual basis - very rewarding.

d) Fun!

e) All about technique.

4) Me knowing the difference between a mains gas pipe and a mains water pipe …

a)  Is not why your wife fucks me every Wednesday night.

b)  Doesn’t matter when you stick a spade through either of them.

c) Is critical in the event of an emergency.

d) A matter of what colour it is.

e) Is not what I’m paid for.

5) “Lets get stoned up and then fuck off for breakfast.”
     What is wrong with this sentence?

a) Nothing. And, by the way lads, who else can skin up a T-joint?

b) It means get "this" stoned up - ie. lay and whack a stone bed ready for concreting.

c) Nothing – if you are looking to get fired immediately.  

d) I don’t know but it sounds cool.

e) Can you ask me again at lunch? I'm a bit busy, mate.

6) You get your work done …
a) If, by some chance, every pub within 20 miles is shut. 

b) Whilst talking about something else.

c) Because you’re paid to.  

d) And then have the craic with the lads!

e) In the morning.

7) Health & Safety is …
a) A load of bollocks, mate.

b) Sorry, I’ve done my ears in earlier on the breaker – got to go and sweep up now, bye.

c) Expensive to account for and difficult to enforce.

d) Yeah, really annoying with loads of notices up everywhere.

e) Not the end of the world.

8) If I wasn’t doing groundworks, I’d be …
a) Doing your wife, like I said.

b) Out of a job.

c) Looking to diversify my skills base.

d) Totally devastated.

e) Doing something else.

9) My personal goal at work is …
a) To see if I can beat my previous record of drinking 12 pints of Stella and then cutting a straight              line with the steel saw into the roof of the gaffer’s Navara.

b) To "bring about the circumstances necessary to trigger a indefinite, paid strike."

c) More of a vision I have to admit – to reflect the acceptable face of the British building industry.

d) To get stuck in but joke around too.

e) To have a single day when I never have to move anything big twice.

10) What is “loose”?
a) Ha, ha – back to your wife, eh?

b) The handle on the Kango, now you mention it.

c) Yet another thing I can name but never actually go near - Type 1, shingle etc or excavated material.

d) Loads of things, right?

e) Stuff that needs moving usually.

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HAVE YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO JOIN ARG!?

Mostly As:    You would fit in quite well, but you sound a bit gobby.  We already have a few gobby ones, so you would threaten the cosy – yet delicate - group dynamic that is our most cherished consolation in an otherwise brutal occupation.  Perhaps they’ll be more impressed by your attempts to be funny at a crap youth club somewhere - possibly abroad, where they won't understand what you're saying.

Mostly Bs:    Congratulations!  If you are not one of us already (who has learnt to read) – then you are now.  Critically, you've shown that you recognise the need to get on, but would generally rather not. Welcome to the Academy of Reluctant Groundworkers!

Mostly Cs:    You sound like Head Office. Are you the one we found wanking in the car on a site visit that time?  Whatever, kindly remember that ARG! was founded by the lads for the lads.  Go back to dying slowly in front of a computer writing things that nobody reads.

Mostly Ds:    You were the one at school who we used to give wedgies to.  You are a nice bloke, but must learn that offering enthusiastic conformity in many social groups (including ours) decidedly secures exclusion rather than acceptance; you are still, in other words, too much of a bitch-pissing Try-Hard. The answer is still no – you can’t join our gang.

Mostly Es:    You have excellent labouring instincts. So what do you want with us?