"H. Beam Piper - Day of the Moron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

The engineer picked up another phone, snapping a button on the base of it.

"Melroy here," he said.

Something on the line started going bee-beep-beep softly.

"Crandall, executive secretary, I.F.A.W.," the man on the other end of the line identified himself. "Is there
a recorder going on this line?"

"Naturally," Melroy replied. "I record all business conversations; office routine."

"Mr. Melroy, I've been informed that you propose forcing our members in your employ to submit to
some kind of a mental test. Is that correct?"

"Not exactly. I'm not able to force anybody to submit to anything against his will. If anybody objects to
taking these tests, he can say so, and I'll have his time made out and pay him off."

"That's the same thing. A threat of dismissal is coercion, and if these men want to keep their jobs they'll
have to take this test."

"Well, that's stated more or less correctly," Melroy conceded. "Let's just put it that takingтАФand
passingтАФthis test is a condition of employment. My contract with your union recognizes my right to
establish standards of intelligence; that's implied by my recognized right to dismiss any person of 'unsound
mind, deficient mentality or emotional instability.' Psychological testing is the only means of determining
whether or not a person is classifiable in those terms."

"Then, in case the test purports to show that one of these men is, let's say, mentally deficient, you intend
dismissing him?"

"With the customary two weeks' severance-pay, yes."
"Well, if you do dismiss anybody on those grounds, the union will have to insist on reviewing the grounds
for dismissal."

"My contract with your union says nothing whatever about any right of review being reserved by the
union in such cases. Only in cases of disciplinary dismissal, which this is not. I take the position that
certain minimum standards of intelligence and mental stability are essentials in this sort of work, just as,
say, certain minimum standards of literacy are essential in clerical work."

"Then you're going to make these men take these tests, whatever they are?"

"If they want to work for me, yes. And anybody who fails to pass them will be dropped from my
payroll."

"And who's going to decide whether or not these men have successfully passed these tests?" Crandall
asked. "You?"

"Good Lord, no! I'm an electronics engineer, not a psychologist. The tests are being given, and will be
evaluated, by a graduate psychologist, Dr. D. Warren Rives, who has a diploma from the American
Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a member of the American Psychological Association. Dr.
Rives will be the final arbiter on who is or is not disqualified by these tests."