Stories like this also remind me of the "Magical Negro" trope where a simple but helpful black person offers sage advise or magic to help the protagonists out of a jam. These "The taxi driver was your real interviewer" stories don't (necessarily) have a racial element, but it's the same, magic wisdom of simple lower class folk idea.
When two people don't get along it's hard to find the objective truth by talking to one of them. Maybe the candidate didn't talk to the taxi driver because he was nervously thinking about the interviewer and that came off to the driver as aloof or arrogant. Maybe the driver didn't like the candidate's race, gender, experience, age, etc. Maybe something was said that was misunderstood by one or both parties. Point is - it's a very weak test.
OP can report back on what the bar was, but I doubt people were getting rejected simply for being aloof or untalkative. And it's unfair in the opposite direction to try to apply the "Magical Negro" trope to anyone with a blue-collar job. By that bar -- it would be better to completely ignore the driver and treat them as a nonentity, which we (hopefully) know is wrong.
Use whatever resources are at your disposal to vet candidates.
This story is supposedly about an actual taxi driver, not a plant from HR. It's absurd to trust this person like this.
> It's absurd to trust this person like this
If your friend told you "man, my last customer was a jerk" you would distrust that?
If a homophobe was working for HR (in 2022) they would hide it, even to the extent of making sure to hire some percentage gays no matter what they thought personally.
> If your friend told you "man, my last customer was a jerk" you would distrust that?
My personal friend? That's the standard we're expecting from a giant corporation's bureaucracy? It just has its personal friends that it trusts.
That kind of thing is just gross, is my point. Maybe it's how everything works, welcome to the real world, etc. But it's nothing to be praised or admired.
The corporation should vet its "personal friends" at least as closely as its official HR personnel. Otherwise they're an unaccountable source of bias in the hiring process.
Observing how people behave around nominal subordinates is not a new trick or one that is gross. It's an interesting data point. This is unusual as rather than a receptionist or security guard, it is someone who doesn't work for the company.
That you think it's impossible to trust someone without formal vetting is really interesting to me. It suggests that formal vetting by Big Corps is useful but knowing someone from a significant number of interactions/conversations is worthless. I don't buy into that at all, I'd argue pretty strongly the inverse is true and vetting is garbage and interpersonal interactions are useful.
A similar way is to take the candidate out and see how they deal with the waiter.
sounds like both
what do you mean when you say "Maybe the powerless person is a homophobe" ?
> what do you mean when you say "Maybe the powerless person is a homophobe" ?
The taxi driver may cause conflict with gay passengers. Or female passengers, or whatever else. Then they would blame their own victim for their reaction. The taxi driver's personal biases and animosities would become a vector for corporate discrimination.
There is a reason that corporate bureaucracies take such care to look out for this kind of thing. If you let ordinary people just go with their gut on things, you end up excluding a lot of people based on stereotypes and bias. It's not some theoretical possibility, but empirical fact.
But what if this taxi driver really did toss around the interviewee's expensive luggage, with his best interview clothes and perhaps some materials or documents for an important interview the next day? Does the taxi driver report back, yea he got upset, but it was my fault? What if the interviewee just got off a long flight, wants to rest up for the interview, and isn't really up for chatting with a taxi driver? Does the taxi driver report back that he was rude, wouldn't talk?
I will agree that if the person is a total rageaholic nutcase, passing that info along to the company is valuable information. But reporting on anything else -- asking the driver to keep quiet, requesting he take better care of luggage, asking for a specific route, turning down the radio, whatever -- I'd be more suspicious that the driver is a nuisance than the interviewee has character flaws.
This subthread is really getting absurd. It's a perfectly good test to hear whether a candidate mistreated someone who they might perceive to be beneath them, and only severely asocial nerds would interpret Op's anecdote as if they put this taxi driver into the CI/CD pipeline to pass/fail candidates.
It's an urban legend, a tired old trope of "gotcha!" style human observation that today is commonly used on the bottom-of-the-barrel TV talk shows like Maury Povich. The "absurd" part is that despite the tons of comments here, you haven't realized that yet. Lol.
i wonder which of your demographics predisposes you to judge such people in this way?
"Latin America offers a contradictory narrative: The region has the highest rates of violence against the LGBT community, according to research done by Transgender Europe, a non-governmental organization, but it also has some of the most progressive laws for LGBT equality and protection."
It seems like a pretty intuitive step to me to go from "Highest rate of hate crimes" to "more likely to be homophobic".
1 - https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/26/americas/lgbt-rights-in-the-a...
This actually happened in my workplace, I recognised a coworker as gay long before he told me, just from his vocabulary.
Also, wouldn't the taxi driver also have to know about these clues?
With all respect, I think the scenario "Taxi driver planted/used as an interview prescreen is openly anti-gay and sniffs them out." is a bit contrived.
In this case just knowing the driver well enough to ask them "Was that person nice to you?" when they drop a candidate off gets you another very useful signal when the response isn't neutral. A lot of the time it'll be "they were OK", but occasionally you'll get a positive "they treated me like a human being" or a negative "no, they were rude".
If you just get an "OK" then you're back to hiring as normal, without the extra data. If you get a positive or negative signal that can amplify what you see in the rest of the hiring process. For me, a tick in the "nice to people you don't have to be nice to" box is a good thing. I like to work with people who have that trait. If I can find a signal that indicates a person has it then I'm going to use it when I'm hiring.
That's the whole range eh?
Sure. Everyone should be sad about that. There are plenty of people out there who don't have any willingness to treat people in service jobs like driving a taxi with any sort of humanity. Too many people will just ignore the fact that these people are living, breathing human beings with feelings of their own, and treat them as if either they don't exist, or that they exist to serve them. It's quite appalling.
Treating someone like a human being means having kindness, respect, and empathy for them. It means not expecting them to demean themselves just because you're paying them to do something. It's treating them well even without knowing them.
It's quite a high bar apparently, and a lot of people out there don't manage it.
It's not a high bar. There's just a surprising number of people that are really good at playing limbo.
Missed this first half of the sentence.
- They were OK
- They treated me like a human being
- They were rude
There's no room for "We had an interesting conversation" or "They gave me some good advice" or "I think I made a new friend"? Not even "They seemed like a good person"?
The maximum is "They treated me like a human being" which is somehow above "They were OK"?
My original point, however, was to highlight the fact that "They treated me like a human being" was given as the example of a positive interaction.
Which is absolutely absurd. And I don't think I'm taking that too literally.
I get the impression everything was relatively informal in the process they described. In forums like these, it's about looking at the spirit of what they were trying to say and get across.
2. Have you interacted with many human beings?
We'd all love it if being treated as a human being were the bare minimum, but quite a few people didn't get the memo and fall quite a bit below it. You really do want to filter out those folks in your hiring process. Unfortunately, here on HN, some commenters view any sort of hiring filter, much less one like "don't be an asshole", as a personal attack.
2. Yeah... You're not wrong.
I have an admin, and people who treat her poorly pop up all of the time. She’s a trusted person who can wield whatever authority I have in many scenarios. Treating her poorly is rude and gross, but also self-destructive (hint: who actually manages the budget?). Plus, she won’t be an admin forever, and it’s a small world.
I worked in retail sales in college and encountered all sorts of people. You get a sense of people when you work with the public. When somebody chooses to exert power over someone where that person lacks agency to respond, that’s a character trait worthy of future consideration.
I've heard the comment multiple times that everyone should work in a restaurant at least once in their lives so they have a better understanding of what the employees go through. I tend to agree, and I would probably add retail in there as well.
I was a motorcycle mechanic for six years before going to college. Some customers where a joy, you looked forward to seeing them, most were just average Joes that needed work done, and a very small few were arrogant self entitled jerks, but it was a job, and you had to deal with it.
Some of the nicest people I know have had retail experience in their life.
Need new batteries for my pager? Done! Would like some updated business cards? Done! My desk phone needs replacing. Done!
The comments above talk about punishment for bad behavior, which happens all day every day. Nobody cares about giving the candidate a 'fair shake' because if you know and trust someone enough to listen to their opinion then "hard pass" is all you need to hear. You've decided the taxi driver was savvy enough to make this call long before this specific incident.
Of course it's not an instant reward like it is for children but good behavior is one of the things I can point to that led me to be in the position I am now.
The last two thirds of my so far 38 (next month!) year career have been "call Doug, he knows this particular topic and he is a great team player". Most of those from people I never worked with, but they were asking friends for recommendations.
So yeah, good behavior has fueled the two thirds of my career where I earned about eighty percent of my income.
So yeah, my experience lines up with yours.
Not true! Yesterday I walked out of a Home Depot with an unpaid drill bit in my shirt pocket (my hands were full). I discovered my error when I reached the car. I went back to pay, and got a 20% discount for being honest!
An (absolute, not relative) reward for good behavior — i.e. a positive-ROI outcome for doing the right thing, vs. not doing the right thing — would be, for example, if you came back and told them you didn't pay, and so they gave you the drill bit for free and also gave you a nickel. Any less and it'd just be "no reward, no punishment."
To be clear, theft isn't theft (legally or ethically) without mens rea — if you accidentally walk out of a store with something, you haven't done anything wrong.
And if you later realize you now have possession of the thing, that doesn't mean you're suddenly guilty of theft, either. Theft is an act requiring mens rea, not a state of someone who possesses something that was at some point illegitimately dispossessed from its owner. (If the latter was true, then most people who buy anything from pawn shops would be guilty of theft, because those things were often stolen from someone at some point.)
You might, separately, see there being positive ethical value in returning an item to its owner; but this ethical value should be considered independently from the ethical cost of having stolen (or not stolen) the thing. If you think there's positive ethical value in returning things to their owners, then you'd likely feel an ethical impoetus to e.g. "steal" stolen bicycles from those piles you see on the front yards of flop houses, and bring them back to the people who own them. (Even though those people have probably bought new bicycles already, and won't know what to do with the returned ones. Even though the stolen pile of bicycles is likely just a pile of rust due to lack of maintenance.)
What if, instead of the same day, it had been the next day when you noticed you now had the drill bit, long after you brought it home? Would you still think you had an imperative to return it? Would it still feel like deliberate theft?
How about if you didn't notice that you had it, and it fell out of your pocket at some point on your way home, and then you realized the next day that that had happened? Would you feel an ethical wrongness that could only be righted by retracing your steps to find the store's lost drill bit, so it could be returned? Or would you accept this as just a series of accidents with neutral ethical value — like e.g. goods being damaged in shipping?
What if, instead of a drill bit, you found after you walked out of the store that you had a $5 bill stuck to your shoe? Would you feel the need to walk back inside and ask who lost the $5 bill?
When a salesman gives you a squeeze ball or a bottle of scotch, it’s not a “bribe”. It’s an artifact that provides an excuse to talk, and perhaps anchor the conversation positively.
Likewise, the store policy of providing a discount is intended leave you with a positive memory that reinforces your action.
“Wow. I made a mistake, caught it, and the nice lady at the counter thanked me and gave me a discount.” That’s a powerful feeling.
There are plenty of "asshole filters" around https://cafebedouin.org/2019/11/10/the-asshole-filter/
That would be indeed implausible. But not every transaction happens between undeferentiated cogs.
A specific person organises the interview logistics from the company. Let’s call him Joe. When they agree with a candidate on an interview date Joe picks up the phone and calls the hotel to book a room. After that Joe calls George the trusted taxi driver they always work with. He lets him know who needs the ride and when. They exchange pleasantries. George also lets him know that the one on Monday cussed him out when he thought George was not driving fast enough. Joe laughs, and tells George that that’s crazy since he is always on time if not early. George feels good about that. He likes that Joe noticed that he is always punctual. They say good byes . Joe makes a mental note to not hire the cussing candidate.
What is implausible about this?
> How frequently are people so rude to the taxi driver that they are disqualified from consideration?
Have you met people? Happens all the time.
> Does the taxi driver get compensated?
Yes. He receives a steady supply of rides and the company pays him for that.
> Why is the taxi driver doing this?
He is a human being and those in general don’t like it when someone mistreats them. They let others know when it happens.
> Does anybody vet the taxi driver's personality testing ability?
Yes. It is called a personal connection. The driver behaves like a decent human being and only rarely say that someone was rude to them so the hiring manager believes them when it happens.
I think the reason you find this story implausible is because you are thinking on a different scale. A team of hiring managers managing 500 interviews per week for a megacorp can’t do this. They won’t have the mental bandwidth, they won’t use a specific driver, they won’t have the personal connection. Not every company is that size. Some company might only interview a few people a week.
It's also bizarre to me that the company would have a "trusted taxi driver". A trusted driver for executives or something might make sense, but a trusted driver who isn't employed by your organization that you specifically route candidates through? It just doesn't sound like the type of thing that happens much to me.
Finally, on the subject of people being randomly rude to taxi drivers, never having been a taxi driver I don't have real first hand information. I did ride a public city bus multiple times a day for years though and the number of people who I witnessed being rude to the driver, who were not visibly drunk or homeless, is zero. It just doesn't fit with my experience of humanity to think that, in a typical daytime taxi ride you're going to get much absurdly inappropriate behavior - i.e behavior that would rise to the level of disqualifying the candidate. Maybe if the taxi driver were a woman I'd believe it, but I bet the vast majority of people would just say where they wanted to go and little else.
Many years ago, in the days before Uber and Lyft, I lived in an apartment complex in Campbell, CA. There was a nice Ethiopian family a couple of units over from me. I would often smell the delicious food they were cooking, and they probably smelled the coffee I would roast in my Gene Cafe. I mostly roasted dry process Ethiopian coffees (and still do).
When I had a minor medical procedure scheduled that would require light sedation, I thought to myself, "I need a way to get there and back." I was going to call a regular taxi, and then I realized I'd been seeing this Green Cab parked in our lot a couple of spots over from mine.
I had a feeling it might be one of my neighbors, because I'd often seen Ethiopians driving Green Cabs.
So I left a note under the windshield wiper: "Hi neighbor! I see you drive a cab. Would you happen to be available on such-and-such a date and time to drive me over to San Jose and then back a couple of hours later?
He called, we made arrangements, and we sure had a lot to talk about between Ethiopian coffee and food and life in general.
You never know what kind of connection you may make with someone who is "just a taxi driver."
Even a couple of years ago on a business trip to Spain, the guys at the company there had a taxi driver they knew who they got to take me to their facility. Then I just organised with him to pick me up each day at a certain time when I paid. Beats me having to get the hotel or the company to keep having to call for cabs and beats him having to wait for fares.
Finally, I'm very surprised that you can't imagine somebody being rude to a low-wage worker...
People... talked before phones were invented?
Why is it so hard to imagine that the guy from the car service you always use might exchange some small talk when he drops someone off? Sometimes a friendly relationship develops between people who regularly interact
Perfectly sensible service to out-source and something that you want to work each time or have responsibility to arrange someone else to do same thing.
Heck, one of my neighbours is a taxi driver, and Im not in the office very often maybe 1 or 2 days a week, so for me having him drive me is cheaper, faster and less "Viral infectious" than paying for the commute on public transport.
I've arranged for him to pick up and deliver everything from people, dry cleaning, and packages in a pinch.
One thing about Dublin taxi drivers, they love to chat if given half a chance.
(Also it might have been a "car service" and the term taxi was being used a bit liberally there)
I very much doubt that the taxi driver in this story had hiring veto powers. But as a "does this person act as an asshole" test, with possible results of "yes" and "maybe" is still very valuable - you get to remove the (apparent) assholes from your selection pool, and focus on those that might have enough decency to not be assholes in public.
And often enough that's all you need. If you are always polite and respectful in public, but secretly get off on feeding baby chicks to your pet snake... that's weird, but not a dealbreaker for working together. As long as there's no spillover into your public life, I'm not here to judge.
here the treatment of a person of actual lower class is included as a point of reference in the interview process. it is implied that previous iterations of the hiring process failed to weed out people who were rude when the thought they could get away with it. what are you thinking is the implied purpose of such a strange test?
But, seriously, I feel like if you're using a potential employer's services, you should assume they're taking that into account when they're hiring you.
I switched to Delta, and I'm much happier.
All commercial airlines are pretty much awful. I've flown first class on one or two occasions and--while it's relatively more comfortable than flying in the main cabin--on an absolute scale it's still an uncomfortable, terrible experience. Flying sucks and airline management is the reason why.
Granted, I've a lot less miles flown with Delta, but that's because every ride has been bad… (also, I ended up flying less miles with Delta on one of the horror shows because it seemed like they weren't actually interested in fulfilling their end of the bargain, and switched to a different airline: Southwest!)
If I had very young children, or needed special accommodations, I might have a different opinion. The SWA preboarding process doesn't seem very generous.
Hello, how are you. Thank you. Yes, water please. Have a good day.
I think I asked once for a pillow (usually on Redeyes they hand them out)
I've never had a fight attendant decline my request, or complain about it...
Are the cc ads part of the safety video, or on the life preservers?
it'd be a tight squeeze through the aisle if it were possible, but I could make it work in my chair.
(I ended up taking a seat in the rear for a bit & riding it out until a slightly smoother portion. Still had to bend the rules a bit. I owe you for your patience, flight attendant…)
Although, on one flight, there was a child behind us, real young (not really yet old enough to "know better"), listening to a tablet that was playing the ABCs song. But the tablet had to be stowed for take-off (apparently). She forced the parent to take the tablet from child. Child threw a tantrum. I'm eye'ing the attendant like "you caused this. ABCs > bawling kid, and takeoff with the tablet would have been fine"
(Please note that I’m not arguing that’s it’s a reasonable requirement, just that FAs likely don’t have the authority to ignore violations.)
And be careful what you say at the bar.
US agencies but private corporation's data on people, such as the CDC recently, on mobile phones.
With livingrooms bugged via smart TVs, and virtual assistants(alexa, etc), leaving the house may not be necessary.
But in my experience job interviews can also be successfully concluded in similar places on occasion, although perhaps more often started.
Dave Barry
What's next? sending a fake date during probation to evaluate how they behave with their spouses?
what is worse, this, or the guy under severe stress taking a taxi and not “engaging” because he has other shit on his mind?
Stress is a reasonable excuse, but it's also reasonable for many jobs to require a minimal level of curtesy even under stress, especially in a highly collaborative environment
edit: to clarify, I'm talking about behavior that could be interpreted in different ways by different people. If you tell a driver to fuck off, yeah; I don't want to hire you or work with you. The parent gave no example of the behavior they'd reject a candidate for, and I assume it'd be reasonable; my point is just that this kind of thing is hard to do right and I'd avoid it.
Similarly, I'd worry that this might unintentionally discriminate against neurodiverse candidates, who sometimes might act in ways which are perceived as impolite by others without realising they are doing so. Often, if you simply analyse the interaction and give them a calm rational explanation of how it went wrong, many of them are happy to adjust their behaviour in response, and will improve over time. But, instead, some just want to label other people as "assholes" over misunderstandings. And a significant percentage of service workers may have weaker skills at "analyse the situation and try to infer the psychological processes involved" than others with greater education do, which may make them more likely to jump to the "just an asshole" explanation and less likely to perceive other possible explanations.
I come from a culture where directness and argumentation are valued over deference to seniority or authority. In some contexts, or by some people, this can be mistaken for rudeness, when really it's just a mode of solving problems.
It's important to know what culture you're dealing with and act appropriately. I might bite my tongue or code-switch if I know I'm dealing with a very conservative/authoritarian culture where it's less important for me to be myself or solve a problem than it is to have people like me. But having other candidates like you rather than solve problems is not usually the main point of a job interview, so creating unwritten tests like this with parameters involves some deceit.
It also goes to the WASP distaste or disdain for the Jewish style of discourse. Historically, someone at IBM saying a candidate was brusque could quite easy be code for saying they were Jewish.
I can easily agree that both situations are possible and probably happen in the real world enough to be worth talking about. However, based on my (admittedly anecdotal, but extensive) experience situation A is probably something like 95% of the time and situation B is probably something like 5% of the time. How do we tell when B is happening and can you really fault people for assuming A is happening when that is the vast, vast, majority of occurrences? Is there an easy and objective way to tell the difference? In a world where wrong hires are expensive, can you fault people for assuming A? Is there a better way to ensure that B candidates are adequately evaluated?
Better question, does it matter? As you said, bad hires are expensive. We aren't talking about language barriers here, we're talking about behavior that comes across as (your words) capital A asshole. If the person is going to behave that way on the job and it drags the team down, does it matter why they behave that way? I know I wouldn't want to be stuck working with them.
> It also goes to the WASP distaste or disdain for the Jewish style of discourse. Historically, someone at IBM saying a candidate was brusque could quite easy be code for saying they were Jewish.
I have the kind of personality which likes facts, details, debate, argument, pedantry, technicalities, obscurities, etc – given that, I get on quite well with other people who have that kind of personality. I'm not especially bothered by bluntness, and though I try not to be too blunt, I probably am sometimes anyway. But I know some people sometimes perceive personalities like mine as "rude" – possibly even "assholes". When my wife and I were getting married, I got in a dispute with the church secretary over what kind of proof of identity documents we were legally required to produce. I pointed out to her she was wrong, and that if she read section 42 of the Marriage Act 1961 it should be obvious to her that she was wrong. She was very offended by that suggestion. In hindsight, I try to see things from her point of view – she's probably never read any legislation in her life, wouldn't even know where to look for it, the idea of reading legislation sounds scary, she isn't used to reading legal texts and might struggle to understand it (or worry that she would), etc. Whereas, for me, I'm the kind of person who reads legislation for fun, and of course I'm going to read the laws about marriage before getting married – and the thought that most other people aren't like me isn't the first thought that pops into my head, I have a somewhat autistic mind which gravitates to the facts immediately, and is slower to think about the impact those facts might have on the thoughts and feelings of others. Then again, the thought that there are people like me probably didn't pop into her head either, and if it did she would likely have been far less offended.
I'm not Jewish myself (mostly Irish Catholic ancestry), but I actually have an appreciation for some of the bluntness of traditional Jewish culture – Israelis often call themselves sabra, after the Hebrew word for the prickly pear, the idea being that while they do have somewhat of a reputation for rudeness and bluntness on the surface (the prickles), it hides a soft and sweet interior (as the prickly pear itself does). I suppose I have some appreciation for that cultural trait precisely because some aspects of it overlap with my own personality.
Also, I'm Australian, and Australians have somewhat of a reputation for being blunt, rude, overly informal, particularly by American standards. I remember once reading an interview with an outgoing US Ambassador to Australia (I wish I could find it now) explaining how he was a bit taken aback by this cultural difference at first but got used to it over time. On the other hand, one of my Argentine colleagues once told me that I am "extremely polite" – I think in certain ways I actually am – although I also have absolutely no clue what Argentine ideas of politeness are and how they may compare to Australian or American or Israeli or whatever politeness standards.
Anyway, my point is, sometimes "drags the team down" may be because a person really is behaving in an objectively problematic way, other times "drags the team down" may actually be because the existing team has insufficient awareness of cultural and personal diversity, and is being overly judgemental of someone who is different from them. I'm sure both sometimes happen.
This isn't being blunt, this being a straight up dick. I hope you went back and apologized for acting out later. If this is your definitions of bluntness and is standard fare for your behavior, you are actually the capital A Asshole the comment chain is referring to. It's not about the truth of the matter, it's the total lack of empathy in your entire comment about this interaction.
I have no empathy for her? So, when I said "In hindsight, I try to see things from her point of view...", that isn't an exercise in empathy? And did she have empathy for me? When I said "the thought that there are people like me probably didn't pop into her head either" – isn't that pointing to a gap which likely exists in her own empathy?
Have you ever heard of the English autistic researcher, Dr Damian Milton's, "double empathy problem"? Autistic people are commonly said to lack empathy, but actually most non-autistic people have at least as great a lack of empathy towards the autistic. I think it is relevant here, because I very much can see my own autistic traits at work in the situation we are discussing.
Finally, where's your empathy for me in your comment? I can't detect any. If a "total lack of empathy" makes one a "dick" and a "capital A asshole", what does that make you?
Empathy is a skill high-functioning people on the spectrum can learn. I spent a lot of time in therapy as a child pretty much solely focused on learning empathy. Your behavior showed a complete disregard for her emotional well-being and _her feelings_, which is synonymous with a total lack of empathy. That you are capable of commenting on Hacker News and getting married means you could learn the skill too; everyone has to learn it, like any other skill, and it doesn't come easy to people on the spectrum.
I understand the double empathy problem and I do not agree with it whatsoever. My exposure to adults on the spectrum who wear their autism as a badge of pride or disclaimer in conversation do so as a means to dodge responsibility for their part in a social interaction because it makes them uncomfortable.
> Finally, where's your empathy for me in your comment?
Doesn't feel good to have your intellectual / personal short comings aired out in public does it?
> What does that make you?
Speaking how you speak to others, but to you. As a narrative decision.
Also, you weren't actually there, so you don't know exactly what I said or what she said–I mentioned the gist of the message, but no details on exactly how it was conveyed–which obviously makes a significant difference. You are drawing a lot of conclusions based on very limited information.
> Empathy is a skill high-functioning people on the spectrum can learn.
Have you actually learned that skill? Of course it would be unfair to judge you on the basis of a single interaction – but you aren't demonstrating any of that skill here.
> Speaking how you speak to others, but to you. As a narrative decision.
I don't go around calling other people "dicks" or "assholes", especially not directly addressed to them, but to be honest I don't even use that kind of language in the third person. (I suppose I did suggest that maybe your abusive language directed at me could possibly be better applied to you, but I said that more in the hope that you would see the contradiction and withdraw it, rather than because I think you actually deserve to be called that). Nor am I prone to draw conclusions about other people, such that they have a "total lack of empathy", based on their brief descriptions of social interactions which I didn't personally witness, and hence couldn't possibly have a complete picture of. I think the way you and I speak is actually quite different, and a lot of the flaws which you are accusing me of having, your own behaviour actually exhibits them much more than my own.
I have the sense things I have said have triggered an emotional reaction on your part, and a lot of what you are saying is really more about your own emotions than about anything I have said.
> I have the sense things I have said have triggered an emotional reaction on your part, and a lot of what you are saying is really more about your own emotions than about anything I have said.
You're so very close to getting it. This entire interaction has been incredibly frustrating to you, because I engaged in it in bad faith from a place of (supposed) irrational emotional anger, same as you described. I called you out on a personal failing, and it caused you some level of frustration or hurt. Even when I have over-emphasized the point and flipped the tables, you're still not getting it. You treated that poor lady horribly, more horribly than I have treated you (unless you really think a random curse word on the internet is more devastating than being told in as many words, to your face, that you're too stupid to do your job, which is what you described your interaction as) and you're ready to back out of this interaction. The tables are reversed and you think I'm an asshole. What do you think that lady thinks about you?
You claimed before that "She did not consider that you might not follow the same social contract as everyone else" – but isn't your own (self-confessed) bad faith engagement here a violation of most people's social contract, and especially the social contract of this site? (Read the Guidelines.)
> unless you really think a random curse word on the internet is more devastating than being told in as many words, to your face
You are making assumptions. Was the interaction in-person, via email, via phone? I haven't said. You can't really judge an interaction you know nothing about except a very brief description. Our interaction here is as much "to your face" as any email exchange would be–given which, your ideas about what differences exist between the two interactions are very questionable.
> that you're too stupid to do your job
How is it telling someone "you're too stupid to do your job" to point out they've got the facts about something wrong, and that you've got concrete evidence to substantiate that?
I mean, if a colleague tells me I'm wrong about X, and shows me something which proves I'm wrong – I don't interpret that as "you're too stupid to do your job". My response is "thanks for enlightening me". In fact, just a few weeks ago I was telling people "Cassandra can't do X" (I forget exactly what X was now) and one of my colleagues said "no you're wrong" and sent me some blog post pointing out how to do that thing with Cassandra. I was thankful to him for correcting me, I didn't take his correction as having any implication on my own intelligence or ability. Sure, being shown to be wrong feels somewhat uncomfortable, but adults should be able to handle that feeling. And it wouldn't matter if it wasn't a colleague – such as a customer, or a complete random stranger.
> The tables are reversed and you think I'm an asshole.
As I said, I don't like language like "asshole", I generally avoid it. But, what are you doing here? You think I behaved inappropriately in a situation – possibly you are right, possibly you are wrong, you don't really know enough about it to actually judge – and so you think that by behaving inappropriately to me you are going to convince me of something? Whatever you are trying to do, I don't think it is thought through very well, and I'd question its compatibility with this site's Guidelines.
> What do you think that lady thinks about you?
How would you know what she thinks? You've never met her. I've actually spoken to her quite a few times in the years since that event, and (as far as I can tell) the interactions have been positive, and (other than that one occasion) I can't remember her seeming upset about any of them. (None of our subsequent interactions have involved anyone disagreeing with anyone else's facts, for what it's worth.)
>> In hindsight, I try to see things from her point of view – she's probably never read any legislation in her life
with a real understanding of yourself
>> I know some people sometimes perceive personalities like mine as "rude" – possibly even "assholes".
And an understanding of the friction...
>> the thought that most other people aren't like me isn't the first thought that pops into my head yet it is full of love and care for another person.
Thank you for taking the time to write this in response to my post.
I don't believe we have to classify ourselves as autistic just because we like "facts, debate, argument, pedantry, technicalities..." in fact, my entire culture thrives on exactly these things and it's been fairly successful if you consider surviving mass genocide for thousands of years, and surviving current hatred for our existence right here and now, to be a form of success. I just had a long conversation with my girlfriend tonight about this. She left an extremely repressive evangelical home in Texas at 17, moved to Chicago and ended up knowing a lot of Jewish people, but her mind works the same way. She said it's what you learn, and I said no, it's a kind of formatting. It changes how you learn and what you learn. It apportions different spaces and relationships on the hard drive. It's not a religion, to me, I'm an atheist. It's a type of questioning, seeking, which is consistently going to be offensive to people who want to defend the status quo. And - skissane - you're a mensch, because you didn't want your wife to be hurt and you asked yourself if you'd put her through unnecessary stress. It's gotta be coupled with an understanding of people's limitations and making them feel OK. That's why I said you have to know what culture you're dealing with. What I'm describing here isn't "Judaism", and very religious Jews would likely disagree because they're hardliners. It's the liberal western freedom-loving offspring of a very old religion that argues constantly but looks for accord, and humanity. I find the same tolerance, forbearance and questioning mentality in Sikhs, Druze, and Irish Catholics, all people who are too jaded to take religion literally, who also (1) loved debating the written word, (2) have been seeds of rebellion, and (3) borne the brunt of genocidal oppression. A very specific cocktail. But you can find it here and there in the rebels in every culture. The only one which elevates tendentiousness to the highest form of merit is Judaism, by a process of elimination.
Anyway, I've lived in Australia (not rude by American standards), and Argentina (assholes, but I love 'em), and have family in Israel (just completely uncontrollable, uncouth, wildly rude like Italians or Spaniards, where I also lived) - in the grand scheme of things, all these places respect intellect. Places which don't respect intellect, per se, but prefer submission, are like Thailand. I love Thai people, don't get me wrong. But they are in fear of their hierarchy, and gripe about their place in the world. Go over to Vietnam and everyone thinks freely, works two jobs and goes to university and learns three languages; if I had to bet on the future of authoritarianism in those two countries I would suggest that Thailand is doomed and Vietnam will be the third major democracy in Asia along with Korea and Japan; a Vietnamese revolution is a half-generation away, because they're formatted to think independently. Partly thanks to France and America; and knowing they beat both in a war.
By the same token, America is totally fucked. Because the people here who look for liberty are authoritarians who've never lacked for it, and the anti-authoritarians in this country apparently have decided that liberty is dangerous and anathema to their agenda. This leaves me as an American Jew in a perilous situation, a mere 50 years after IBM routinely discriminated against my people for being too talky, and what, like 75 years after IBM built the mechanical calculators for nazi germany to tally up dead Jews.
So, sorry for the horribly long ramble. But I wish I was still in Oz, you sound like someone I'd really enjoy a pint with. Sorry if I'd talk your ear off. But your story was quite well written.
As someone who views most psychiatric diagnoses (autism/ASD included) as being primarily cultural constructs (with the science behind them being quite weak, far weaker than most people think), the suggestion that some of these things labelled as “autistic traits” are really just traits which some cultures (especially mainstream Anglo-American culture) disapprove of, is one I have a lot of sympathy for.
Well, to be honest I think a lot of "capital A assholes" actually are neurodiverse – if not in the more common sense of ASD/ADHD/etc, then in the sense of narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, etc. But, there are limits to the extent of neurodiversity anyone can handle: schizophrenia is a form of neurodiversity too, but a candidate who exhibits florid symptoms of psychosis in a job interview is obviously not a suitable candidate at this time (but they might make an excellent candidate in the future if their psychosis remits). If someone's behaviour is somewhat outside the norm, but they show some insight, willingness to take on feedback and attempt to change, etc, they can still make a positive contribution to a team. If they appear to have no insight, no ability or willingness to consider the feedback of others, no ability or willingness to change or compromise or meet others half-way – it probably isn't going to work out.
> However, based on my (admittedly anecdotal, but extensive) experience situation A is probably something like 95% of the time and situation B is probably something like 5% of the time.
Do you actually know the split is really 95% vs 5%? Is it possible that, some of that 95% really belongs to the 5% but you didn't realise it?
A couple of strategies which might help: (1) force yourself to stop and think about other possible explanations, and whether you have any reason to think any of those other explanations could apply in that particular case; (2) try to gently broach the subject with the candidate, and try to see if you can get any information on the interaction from their perspective. Possibly, their behaviour may seem less unreasonable when you understand it from their point of view. Also, you can judge how open they are to receive feedback and responding to it – there is a big difference between "yeah, I could have handed that situation better" and a rigid insistence that they did nothing wrong.
I'm sceptical of intentionally putting any kind of "hidden test" in a hiring process. When the process is totally transparent – directly ask relevant questions about technical skills/knowledge/experience, soft skills, etc – I think that is fairest on the candidate, and minimises the risk of unintentional indirect discrimination–and I think lawyers who specialise in employment discrimination law would probably agree with that. I don't think that means one has to completely ignore any incidental feedback outside of the transparent formal process, but there is a big difference between incidental feedback and intentionally engineering a "hidden test". Also, I don't think one should rule out an otherwise good candidate on the basis of such incidental feedback without some serious thought and investigation.
Indivual persons can't be "diverse". Only a population can be "diverse".
It's wonderful if you can weed out a person who treats others badly, I really can't see why it would matter if it's because some real or imagined condition causes them to be an asshole, or because being an asshole is allegedly okay in their culture.
Ive worked retail for quite some time but broke out into IT. But the abuse is expected in retail. Managers are paid minimally more to deal with it - and that's to prevent customer complaints to corporate.
Pretty much everyone, at some time, has flailed out at restaurant or retail staff. It's terrible, but part of the expectations.
I read somewhere that our "obnoxious American tourist" stereotype came from some time in the 60s when rich tourists started flying across the Pacific, showed up and and started demanding service like they did back at home
I suspect it is this dynamic more than tipping culture that gave rise to the stereotype of the ugly American. In small numbers people in foreign lands try to stay quiet and unseen. In larger numbers they feel safe and, maybe because they feel free from consequence or maybe as a stress reaction, they become worse than their normal selves. It isn't just Americans. But for a period in the last century Americans were the folks with sufficient money to show up in other people's countries in tour groups.
Also, the people who create the stereotype are the ones who are noticed. If there are lots of foreigners blending in and a group of them who don't, it's the ones who don't who create the reputation for the rest.
Still, you could be right that tours select for rude tourists. The large, rude groups were more likely to have designated organizers. The rude Americans on the train didn't.
Being identifiable (appearance, langauge), significant in number, and crossing some threshold of observably obnoxious behaviour tends to leave impressions.
Within the US, you'll often find neighbouring-state stereotypes: "massholes", Texans (particularly in Colorado), Californians (Oregon), New Yorkers (city, everywhere), Yankees (the South), Southerners (the North), city slickers (country), country hicks (cities).
Much of this is inherent tribalism and not matching local patterns of speech, behavioiur, specific local knowledge, and the like.
Sure, i probably could hang up, turn the other cheek, whatever. And i'm sure my responses/actions made them no nevermind.
You might be as stoic and nonplussed as you claim, but we're all the heroes of our own stories, or something.
I prefer the terms lazy and non-confrontational, myself. But no, my first response to undue difficulty isn't to lash out. Better to save my energy and time and just hang up, walk away, etc.
I'm the above in part because: I'm certainly no hero and don't expect my words to magically fix the cable industry or have some insularly bigoted person see the light of day. There are others who spend full time+ attempting to do such feats with varying success. Some may find that lack of resistance as tacit approval of the current norms, and they may be right on a subconscious level. But I simply don't have the energy or will to care 99.9% of time with so many other things demanding my attention.
I don't see myself as some paragon of patience turning the other cheek, I just say to myself "I don't have time to deal with this" and run away (metaphorically speaking. Mostly)
Some people really have the ability to keep their cool (for one reason or another, trained or personality-driven).
Personally, I’m with you, but, I think, making progress on becoming more like the person you’ve replied to.
Everyone has bad days, and some people are just plain assholes; that doesn't mean you have to treat them poorly, whether provoked, deserving, or otherwise.
Maybe i'm a bad person?
It seems pretty obvious to me that the premise is supposed to be that the driver is courteous and professional, and they just see if the person treats the driver decently, or like trash because they feel they're above them.
That makes about as much sense as saying that you shouldn’t be held responsible for stealing office supplies because no one informed you that there were cameras installed.
If you treat cab drivers and other service personnel badly, that’s because you’re a shit person. It’s really that simple. I’ve been in extremely stressful situations in my life involving lots of travel and I’ve yet to “take it out” on a third party.
That attitude seems the same one that judges service workers. IME, and based on what I know of humanity, people act badly because they feel vulnerable; they are scared or anxious. It's still bad behavior, but they aren't 'shit people'.
If bad behavior damns us, then we all qualify. The mistake is judging others, and lacking empathy and humility.
> I’ve been in extremely stressful situations in my life involving lots of travel and I’ve yet to “take it out” on a third party.
We all act badly sometimes; if you really think you don't, you are not seeing it. It's not ok in the situation, but it's ok in terms of our humanity. Apologize and work to do better.
really depends on the candidate and the situation. We dont have the context for neither here. If a truly senior candidate who has deep domain knowledge interviews, they may not be dinged as much if they gave a service worker a low tip or complained about the smell of the car.
But sure, for some college candidate in a yearly hiring spree that are all from top schools, maybe that is the little bit of a filter needed to make a difference.
Life is littered with cases where people thought they understood each other but didn’t. If there’s a chance you’ll be misinterpreted, you’re not communicating well and need to take steps to correct it, just out of general empathy for those who don’t have the exact same knowledge as you.
Some discussions are not serious, and are destined not to be really productive anyway. Dating advice falls into that category.
Is ignoring context like this your idea of being a "helpful contributor to discussions?" Because I don't see who's being helped by this.
Then you could have said as much from the beginning.
>Is ignoring context like this your idea of being a "helpful contributor to discussions?" Because I don't see who's being helped by this.
You communicated poorly, in being (almost deliberately) unaware of what context others might lack. That error followed a pattern that others often make. I pointed out why it is an error so that you, and those others, can avoid it. And then, in doing so, I got you to reveal context your original comment needed.
Yes, I absolutely feel like I contributed here, and that you made the forum just a little bit worse with your original reply and contempt for discussion quality. Do you see why I might think that?
I did have a coworker cheat on their spouse. I certainly lost respect for them, avoided working with them whenever possible, and cut off the non-professional aspect of our relationship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
>I don't see how this behavior is relevant to the job; and evaluating it on a hiring committee invites all sorts of "cultural fit" biases that generally making the hiring process inconsistent and discriminatory.
I don't see how not doing this, really changes anything. The process is already inconsistent and discriminatory. The only thing this really tests is integrity.
If you end up with people who ass kiss those above them, abuse those below them, backstab and/or sabotage the competition, focus on empire building, and misrepresent things for their benefit then your best staff will find elsewhere to work. Those that stay will fight among themselves and will only help the company or it's customers when it happens to overlap with their other goals.
Sounds kind of like the Dilbert comic now that I think about it.
It's this kind of inference that doesn't belong on a hiring committee; you likely don't have enough data to support this kind of conclusion about a person. The parent comment made a similar assumption about racial animus. I just don't think spying or eavesdropping is an effective way to evaluate a candidate.
In the interview room, any candidate will be on their best behavior since impressing those people "matters" greatly. Same for the behavioral lunch sessions that many companies also use. If I have any sense, I'm going to recognize that this is still part of the "interview" even though we may be at a restaurant offsite discussing anything from the job to the Yankees pitchers.
The argument, that I tend to agree with, is that gathering info from the taxi driver is a better indicator of true character. I don't expect the taxi driver to deliver a full psychological report but I would like to know if they felt mistreated in some way.
Doesn't make me rude, just makes me normal.
Would I be an asshole according to US standards? Probably. Doesn't mean I am a shot person, just unaccustomed to new normal.
Otoh, not clear what gp means by “rude”. Someone could perceive sad/neutral silence and “thank you, goodbye” as rude-ish too.
As an aside, I'm always shocked at what people will start saying in a taxi/uber, particularly I'm thinking of talking about confidential work stuff. My personal view is you never know who the driver is and loose lips sink ships, don't say anything in front of him that you wouldn't say in public. But I know many don't see it that way.
Also, when you're making hiring decisions, why are you trusting the opinion of a taxi driver who isn't even on your payroll? They certainly have their own prejudice, and if they know they have weight in hiring decisions, they could very well just be feeding you lies.
I may have agrees 15 years ago. But in a day and age where one random tweet of personal opinion can cause a PR disaster to an entire company, it seems inevitable that they want to make sure a candidate isn't going to potentially go off the rails.
For better or worse, many people are connected worldwide for a signifigant part of the day, and have accounts that are easy to cross reference. e.g. a twitter account has the same name and location as a linkedIn profile.
----
with all that said, I'd be surprise if it was anymore than what was described; an ability to interact without unneeded hostility in life. I don't think you're gonna be dinged for failing to count change correctly and have that impact your eligibility despite whiteboarding your practiced algorithms to perfection.
What's lacking from this conversation is any definition of what behavior we're actually talking about, and the conclusions (understandably) vary wildly. This is a similar dilemma to what a hiring committee would face when reviewing a second-hand narrative from a contractor about a candidate.
I don't think a company interested in having a healthy culture should spy or eavesdrop on people.
You may be conducting reducto ad absurdum here, but this is unironically one of the biggest shifts of the Overton window from millenial to Gen Z. It may not be your search history, but they sure can check your Twitter/Facebook/etc. going back years to weed you out. It was kind of awkward for my demographic of late millenials, but gen z candidates entering the workforce may very well have their entire life online to see.
It's honestly a bit chilling, but I think the lines have been set in the sand here.
It's a bit like psychological or sociological studies. All the time, for ethics reasons, the researchers must tell the subjects than they are part of a psychological or sociological test. But, the test is generally not exactly what is said to the people. For example by testing something hidden or by using actors. See for example the Asch conformity experiments or the Cognitive Dissonance Experiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
https://explorable.com/cognitive-dissonance-experiment
In this case the people where told than they where tested, no surprise here... That said, is it really ethic to trick people by telling them than they are tested on "something" but in reality testing them on something else ?
I think where this might get dodgy is with the possibility that some of the candidates might have tipped this driver, which puts us in the position of asking for an opinion about several candidates from someone who might have been compensated by some of them.
I always find it interesting how i'm perceived. I didn't intend wage-theft as part of the idea. Also it is possible that there's people who are qualified to do this work (passenger/commercial endorsements on their driver's license), good character actors, and generally ethical.
I took it all as a thought exercise, anyhow. Having been on the hiring side of the table, i'm not the "team fit" or "social" interviewer. Technical and creative questions. I let people in their fields deal with how their interviews go.
So all told i wouldn't be in the position to hire someone to filter potential hires.
Little did the candidate know - we knew the driver quite well and he knew many people in the firm. More than once there would be a candidate who thought they could be rude and disrespectful to the taxi driver because ... you know... its just an immigrant taxi driver with a distinctive accent. Oops! Cost them an offer. But just as well. Avoided some arrogant jerks in the process.