[HN Gopher] My 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character
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My 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character
Author : jger15
Score : 86 points
Date : 2023-01-18 20:51 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tedgioia.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tedgioia.substack.com)
| andrewstuart wrote:
| If I was a bajillionairre I wouldn't be yelling at service
| workers, I'd be handing out $100 bills left right and centre,
| regardless of circumstances.
| euph0ria wrote:
| Regarding 5: non-lazy people tend to dislike lazy people in the
| same work group
| purpleblue wrote:
| I understand the point of this blog post but it's also kind of
| BS.
|
| For example, the last one about how to handle unexpected
| situations. Some people have a tendency to panic or have high
| anxiety over the unknown. That doesn't mean they aren't of high
| character or you shouldn't do business with them. They could have
| built their entire lives to anticipate these types of situations
| and have other coping mechanisms to help deal with it. In a work
| environment, they could easily have those things in place.
|
| To just spring something on someone without any context or
| knowing the person feels like a really, really poor "test" of
| anything.
| Jemaclus wrote:
| I agree. Context is everything. A "test" in a work environment
| is one thing, but at a restaurant? My priorities are totally
| different at a restaurant. I just want to eat and have a good
| time. I don't need to be in control. That's not why I'm at a
| restaurant.
|
| At a restaurant, short of something truly egregious like hair
| in my food or raw meat, I have tremendous patience for wait
| staff. Mistakes happen. Kitchens can be hectic, orders get mis-
| entered. Maybe I wasn't clear about what I wanted. But at the
| end of the day, what I'm eating is far less of a priority than
| the fact that I'm eating with someone.
|
| But if they bring a dish that wasn't what I ordered, I might
| just shrug and accept it. Who cares if it's a burger instead
| salmon and veg? It's not the end of the world for me.
|
| Does that make me a pushover? I don't think so. It just means I
| don't prioritize restaurant food over other things, like
| ensuring the table has a good time and is socializing.
|
| Likewise, if someone interrupted us at the table to say hi, I'd
| generally understand. Maybe it's rude, but we're in public and
| it's a social situation, and the world doesn't end if someone
| interrupts to say hi to the person I'm eating with.
|
| But when I'm in the workplace, in context, then I am much
| firmer. You don't get to interrupt my meetings. You don't get
| to deliver the wrong project. I don't get to yell at anyone or
| treat anyone with disrespect, but I also don't need to tolerate
| disruption and chaos.
| uticus wrote:
| Hard disagree. Pressure shows us as we _are_ , not as we wish
| to be.
|
| The fact that it is often more ugly than we wish, does not
| change it.
|
| Also does not negate the fact that prep work is worthwhile to
| form habits and counteract the base reactions.
|
| Source: been through the pressure cooker with some things
| myself & have seen close friends & family go through it.
| Jiro wrote:
| If some percentage of panicky people have good coping
| mechanisms, but averaged over all panicky people, having a good
| coping mechanism is still less likely than for non-panicky
| people, then it's still efficient to filter out all the panicky
| people. Probabilities matter and it's better if you pick from a
| group that is more likely rather than one which is less likely,
| even if you miss some good people in the less likely group.
| rcarr wrote:
| Author said the test was for a senior executive who by
| definition is meant to be a leader. A leader is meant to be
| someone who can navigate others through the unknown. If you
| can't navigate the unknown by yourself, then you're a follower
| and not a leader. The higher up the totem pole you go, the more
| unknowns you have to be able to deal with as you get further
| away from being a specialist and more towards a generalist. You
| literally can't learn everything so you've got to be ok
| stepping out of your comfort zone and having faith in your
| abilities and principles to be able to make it through whatever
| obstacle is in your way.
|
| There is absolutely no judgement in those sentences, as a
| species we need people with all kinds of different skillsets,
| and that includes both followers and leaders. And just because
| someone can't handle the unknown at a certain point in their
| life doesn't mean they can't evolve to be someone who can. In
| fact, we all play both roles constantly throughout our entire
| lives. The CEO is a leader in his company but when he's taking
| golf lessons he's a follower to the professional golf
| instructor.
| tbalsam wrote:
| Yes. I am autistic, for example, and situations that are
| unpredictable are (guesstimate) about 5-10x more stressful for
| me than for the average person. Most of my "unavoidable" "weak
| points" are centered around those things and the extreme stress
| that can come from them.
|
| It doesn't make me a bad person, just different, and more
| limited in some ways. My brain may be autistic, but my soul
| isn't.
| null_shift wrote:
| Some of the anecdotes seem completely fabricated to provide a
| convenient example (i.e. the guy's wife was very observantly
| watching him play a round of golf with a colleague and caught him
| cheating?)
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| Tested on myself and all rules are pretty effective. Well not the
| last one.
| godelmachine wrote:
| Kinda disagree with point 1.
|
| People marry who they fall in love with and love is purely
| emotional.
|
| There's no rhyme or reason to it.
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| Totally disagree; falling in love is 100% a choice, and a
| choice you have to keep making every single day thereafter.
|
| We are not slaves to our emotions; we have reason, we make
| decisions with our actions, we have free will.
|
| To say otherwise is to literally deny the concept of humanity
| itself.
| yowzadave wrote:
| It says something about you that this is your perspective!
|
| > People marry who they fall in love with and love is purely
| emotional.
|
| These are two different assertions, both of which would require
| substantiation. I've known many people who married partners who
| they seemed not particularly to like, either out of habit, a
| sense of obligation, cultural pressure, poor self-image, etc.
| Of course, it's always easy to say "I saw the signs long ago"
| when a marriage goes south--but honestly, haven't you?
|
| "Love" is a vague concept which could mean many things, any
| number of which could be components of a successful marriage.
| Discerning which of these attributes were important to the
| partners in a marriage is one of the things that makes it
| interesting to get to know other couples...and can certainly
| tell you something about their values.
| jstarfish wrote:
| I have to deal with People-as-a-Problem for a living.
|
| On the whole, this isn't a bad litmus test, but it's obvious he
| associates with an older crowd. In recent years, some of these
| have started to be subverted.
|
| > 3. Discover what experiences formed their character in early
| life
|
| Glad his experience went well, but this is fishing for emotional
| intelligence. No stranger needs to be asking these sorts of
| questions-- you end up letting slip things like parent issues,
| lack of friends, low self-esteem, etc. and they end up exploiting
| that later. It's Grooming, and how you end up working for an
| abusive boss.
|
| > 5. Identify what irritates people the most in others--because
| this is probably the trait they dislike most in themselves.
|
| No. This is 1960s psychobabble (projection). You don't have to be
| a liar to hate liars, nor do you need to be a closet homosexual
| to be homophobic. Nobody would suggest that a guy who commits
| hate crimes against Chinese secretly wishes he were Asian.
|
| Some people just have trust issues/take Integrity seriously, and
| other people just don't have tolerance for anything that
| challenges their world view. Be careful what you read into.
| JenrHywy wrote:
| I think 5) has some merit, but wasn't worded as carefully as it
| could have been. I find many of the things I dislike most in
| others are the "failings" that I have a natural proclivity for,
| but have worked hard to overcome. I'm not sure how well it
| works as a test of character though, because it's hard to tell
| where the person is on their "overcoming" journey.
|
| Though as you say, there are many exceptions. I have a strong
| tendency towards honesty and a strong aversion to dishonesty,
| for example.
|
| Trying to untangle it all very likely too complex a problem for
| this to be used as a meaningful heuristic, but it probably
| shouldn't be completely ignored, either.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| Yeah overall it is a good article, but #5 is nonsense that is
| spouted too often. It may be true that people often project the
| things they hate about themselves to others, but you can't know
| whether or not that is the case when getting to know someone.
|
| If you're their therapist and you know that they are homophobic
| and also homosexual, you can get to the root of things. But
| otherwise, if you see that someone is homophobic, they may just
| be homophobic.
| roughly wrote:
| Yeah, #3 in particular - man, I wonder how many people the
| author struck out because they had a rough childhood or grew up
| in a bad area. People can change, they often do change, and
| judging them by how they dealt with the part of their life they
| had no real control over, as opposed to what they've done
| since, doesn't strike me as any real kind of wisdom.
| JenrHywy wrote:
| I think the author's point is exactly the opposite - he's
| _more_ impressed by people who experienced adversity in their
| early years and (presumably) have overcome it to the point
| where they 're interviewing with him.
| tbalsam wrote:
| I would politely disagree, I think there's a fine road between
| both of what you are saying here. Oftentimes people do project
| outward their hate because they hate it in themselves -- we are
| creatures with much logical momentum unfortunately, and many
| conflicts can arise when people try to paper over their own
| biases and *isms. It's not psychobabble, it's a phenomenon that
| has been very well demonstrated and is commonly accepted today
| as a part of an evidence-based practice for trauma resolution.
| Some of the examples you brought up were fallacious, though I
| unfortunately don't have any good resources to point you to.
|
| As far as the first point, I could see it going either way. I
| know where many people came from in their early years, and it
| is actually the fuel that helps me give them respect when they
| act in inappropriate manners considering the situation at hand
| -- I can recontextualize and see where they are coming from. It
| gives me empathy, an ability to connect to them, and an ability
| to fundamentally feel safe enough to better love them.
| skywal_l wrote:
| > 1. Forget what they say--instead look at who they marry.
|
| Reminds me of Moneyball when they are evaluating potential
| prospects on how good looking their girlfriends are. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naO8n6HsqE
| skizm wrote:
| Which turns out to be completely wrong in the end though lol.
| uticus wrote:
| Seems there is _some_ level of wisdom here. Of course you can
| 't see inside a man's head by doing this, but some things are
| gonna be obvious. Besides, when it comes to judging, only God
| can see the heart - the rest of us mortals have to rely on what
| is exposed to us.
| roughly wrote:
| I think "marry" is some old-school shorthand here, but there's
| merit to paying attention to who someone keeps close.
| GGO wrote:
| I enjoyed reading this a lot. I think there is a lot of wisdom
| here. You dont have to follow everything to the letter, but there
| is something deep to learn in each point.
| uticus wrote:
| > Even worse, I'm gonna be judgemental.
|
| Apples of gold in settings of silver. Judging has value, but must
| be balanced - often by a virtue such as love. Source: Book of
| Proverbs (aka another source of techniques for judging character
| and other such secrets).
|
| Not sure if this was intentional, but sections about treating
| people who cannot repay seemed to me to bundle love and judgement
| together well.
| [deleted]
| roughly wrote:
| I'm a big fan of number 2 - people who think in hierarchies tend
| to think things are below them - but 7 is extremely
| underappreciated.
|
| If you haven't seen it, the Al Capone theory of Sexual Harassment
| (<https://hypatia.ca/2017/07/18/the-al-capone-theory-of-
| sexual...>) covers this pretty well: Someone who'll do the wrong
| thing in one circumstance has already displayed the moral
| flexibility to convince themselves it's OK to do the wrong thing
| in other circumstances. We're none of us saints, but if you don't
| have the fortitude to keep to your principles (or the principles
| to keep to) when the stakes are small, boy, it's a whole lot
| harder to convince yourself to accept the cost of doing the right
| thing when the stakes are higher.
| bryceacc wrote:
| i think the final point about using these techniques on oneself
| is the most valuable of all. I can see point 5 applying to myself
| the most. But I am also glad I don't feel the need to "analyze"
| every person I meet with a rubric, that sounds tiring
| gnfargbl wrote:
| Test 3 is really unfair. People get very different starts in
| life, and asking about formative experiences is massively biased
| towards those people who got off the blocks quickly and easily.
| The interviewer should be thinking about who you are now, not who
| you once were: your past shouldn't entirely dictate your future.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I think he is correct in this. I am someone who known one
| expected to be a high paid engineer at a top computer company,
| working in California. I did not expect it myself.
|
| But my Kansas roots, single mother, being poorer than all my
| school peers, working minimum wage jobs to pay rent and put
| myself through a junior college.... It's _still_ who I am, at
| the core.
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| You're presupposing a whole lot of stuff here, but most of all
| the idea that these formative stories have to be good ones to
| indicate a good character.
|
| Coming from a "slow start" background _does_ inform a person 's
| character, and it can go either way, but finding out about
| _how_ it informs their character is what the article is trying
| to say.
| sharemywin wrote:
| It's a good read and I could see it being useful.
| mjfl wrote:
| Protip: If you meet me, do not "size up" my wife.
|
| This is homeless-man tier advice.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character
| isalnum() isalpha() iscntrl() isdigit()
| isgraph() islower() isprint() ispunct()
| sidpatil wrote:
| To be pedantic, those are methods, not techniques.
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