[HN Gopher] Caricatures (2020)
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Caricatures (2020)
Author : gazzini
Score : 14 points
Date : 2021-03-13 05:47 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (gazzini.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gazzini.com)
| mypastself wrote:
| Perhaps all these people are reluctant to share their actual
| personality and insights with people who "cleverly lob" tricky
| questions, "filter for potential friends" based on binary answers
| to binary questions, and think they're being magnanimous when
| they avoid debate "kill-shots".
| belval wrote:
| No kidding, sorry I don't ask random people at the cafeteria
| what their life plans are and I respond prudently to most
| inquiries because I don't want to be used in your personal
| crusade against whatever decision our manager took this
| morning.
|
| The blog post is well written and I enjoyed reading it, but
| judging people on limited interactions will ultimately lead you
| to discount their opinion because of your preconceived notions.
| lainga wrote:
| I guess my attempt to stall while thinking deeply about the first
| question puts me in the caricature bin. I'll remember to lead
| with "yes" or "no" next time to seem more genuine...
| vessenes wrote:
| Cue endless self-evaluation loop: I hereby term it the Gazzini
| Gotcha
| junippor wrote:
| > The other example is actually our CEO - I think that there is a
| certain caricature required for public appearances & earnings
| calls, but he sometimes seems to speak genuinely at company all-
| hands meetings
|
| Dear Engineer. If you're not pattern matching him, he's pattern
| matching you.
| w0mbat wrote:
| I'm not sure if that bit is sucking up to the CEO or damning
| him with faint praise.
| junippor wrote:
| The author seems to me surperficial enough as to believe he
| could get away with purposefully being ambigous and hoping
| that he can be flattering in the CEO's eyes while damning him
| with faint praise in the eyes of everyone else.
| vessenes wrote:
| I like this essay! I'll pull an arrow from my moderately large
| experience bag and note that the attempt to categorize people at
| work or elsewhere goes back a long time, at least pre-
| Machiavelli.
|
| To my mind, the good thing about these categorizations is that
| there are so many of them, and when they're helpful, they are
| really helpful. Like when you can say: well they're an ENFJ, but
| an Enneagram 6 and high D, high I, and also they are resistant to
| follow-through, you've got lots of information, (useful or not is
| a second q)
|
| I personally liked the "conduit" thoughts, I have worked with
| people like that many times, and mostly they REALLY annoy me. I
| tend to spend my energy teasing out micro-clues about what they
| really think, but I think you probably hit the nail on the head -
| the best way to engage is to use them to get a read on the lay of
| the land without expending the direct effort, and then if you can
| hold your nose and build up their rep in your org, you could use
| them to tell everyone else what's up.
|
| As you go up in management ranks, it can actually be
| extraordinarily difficult to get real information about your
| organization, so they can be valuable there as well.
|
| Anyway, great thoughts!
| glasss wrote:
| >Be fun. Come on.
|
| I think this statement should be tacked onto many more articles /
| blog posts. While I don't know if the implications for this blog
| post makes sense with it, I can appreciate the sentiment and
| think more people would do well to drive it home.
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(page generated 2021-03-15 23:02 UTC)