9 ms·

My best techniques for evaluating character

• Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  Am I the only one whose "linkedIn blogspam" alarm bells rung when they read this trite shite and convenient and disbelief suspending real life examples? Plenty of people in this thread give detailed comments on why individual points are quite dubious so I will spare you my take. In any case, why and how does low quality content like this end up on the front page?
• kris_wayton 4y ago
  Character is a tricky concept to me, as it's hard to make comparisons without context. It's easier to have good character, for example, if you're born into circumstances with less temptation to push those boundaries.
• aa-jv 4y ago
  Here's my "30 second assessment" criteria, pretty much gets me the right people every time: * Are they interested, or only interesting? Interested people rock. Interesting people are sad. You are really more interesting when you take an interest. If everyone is paying attention to you, you're soaking the life out of the room. Find out something new from the people whose attention you demand, by showing an earnest and honest interest. * Do they let you finish your sentence? Interrupters have self-esteem issues. Patient listeners have the confidence needed to make social groups stronger. People are made stronger when they are listened to - they are made weaker when their sentences are interrupted. No matter how important you think you are: listen until the end of the sentence. * Can they let you be wrong about something, until you are right about it? Know-best kills the fun, always. Encouragement and enlightenment, however, feeds the fun. If I'm incorrect, and you correct me in a way that I feel improved for the experience, then we are both correct and you are awesome. But if I'm incorrect and you tout some hierarchical advantage over being right as a priority over assistance, then you are right and I will try not to work too much more for/with you. * Can they help? Can they be helped? You have to be able to accept help, as well as offer it, in equal balance with the universe. That balance is key. * Do they control everything, or nothing? Control is a substance best applied judiciously. Does the person have the temerity to judge when good control is needed, or bad control needs to be refactored? This one is not as easy as it seems .. but when you find someone who can handle control, and use it in a good way - rather than be averse to it generally as a subject - that person is grounded.
• idiocrat 4y ago
  Another good test is to take that person out to the mountains. (Assuming yourself is fit enough). The weak people will whine and complain about the hardships (sores, sweat, tired, hungry, ...) The strong characters will stay through the challenges, will remain attentive to the partner and provide for the mutual security.
• saiya-jin 4y ago
  > 8. Watch how they handle unexpected problems This is what I started doing in my relationships in the past, to get a glimpse how things really look like in the beginning when (almost) all is rosy (and thus untrue). Conflicts arise often from simple misunderstandings, nobody messed up anything there were just different expectations on both sides for example. Not creating a bad situation on purpose, they tend to come by themselves eventually. Its a normal reaction to go and fix things immediately but I advise to instead once just stay and watch the other, if he/she is a fixer or escalator of problems. If there is quiet talk, hugs, empathy or tantrums, yelling and various dramas. In the beginning of relationships, people who care about it tend to wear thick masks and tend to be more open/tolerant than they really are. Till there is a conflict, problem or similar stressor, then one is dealing with much more raw material. If 2 greatly matching balanced people meet, this is not so useful, but for more psycho ladies I've met in the past this would have been a great initial litmus paper (and in fact was on one which is why I came up with this). Much better to stop unhealthy relationships in the beginning and just move on to something better, rather than trying hard to compensate for/fix other's childhood burdens (which is almost impossible anyway, there are professionals and decades of work for such things)
• ottoflux 4y ago
  This is fantastic - (note: confirmation bias on my part) - it's quite similar to the list I keep in my head and have been trying to gently teach my daughters as they are growing up. Who they are partners with is a good one, that (for me in the work world) hasn't come up in a timely fashion to make other decisions but would be quite handy in social situations.
• ja27 4y ago
  In Boy Scouts, there's the "oreo test" for potential leaders: https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2014/02/26/try-this-identify-potential-scout-leaders-with-the-oreo-test/ https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2014/02/26/try-this-identi...
• thimkerbell 4y ago
  Some of these can be hacked, and in more than one direction.
• debugati 4y ago
  Good list. My 2c about number 5. We can agree that someone's character trait may irritate you because it goes against your values or beliefs. But the irritation can reach maximum intensity if it comes to be a trait: - you dislike about yourself AND have not accepted [0] - you've had a "bad experience" with. For example, your abusive mother has said trait __ [0] I think part of why the hate is so intense in this case is that you're forever with yourself; you can't escape; the trait is always there, in plain sight.
• xtiansimon 4y ago
  Most of the article reads like the top list of YouTube shorts play list. How someone treats service workers? Ok Henry Ford. And if you don’t get a chance to observe this? > “I heard of a peculiar technique used by a company hiring a senior executive. In the final round of interviews, the candidates are taken to lunch, and during the meal something goes wrong—of course, this is all staged as a kind of test.” This is what informs their thinking? YouTube /Reddit pranks of the c-suite? Bonkers! Don’t waste your time with this article—it all will show up in your Facebook and YouTube feed anyway while you’re trying to follow your family and friends or watching Tom Rosenbauer videos. Oh! Damn. I just revealed number 5–what I do with my extra time and money! Let rip the judgement of my capacity to contribute meaningfully to your dev team!
• sharemywin 4y ago
  It's a good read and I could see it being useful.
• bryceacc 4y ago
  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
• skywal_l 4y ago
  > 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naO8n6HsqE
  • samastur 4y ago
    This one really irks me for a couple of reasons. My wife and I have a friend whose partner is pretty despicable person. He didn't used to be before they got kids and kind of evolved into what he is now. First, with couples in long relationships who they are now tells you little about who they were when they met and why they are still together. Second, you have no idea what their relationship is like. You can't tell at a dinner party if they value the things you value in their partner or are bothered by same things. Nobody gets a perfect specimen matching their desires and needs including my wife.
  • skizm 4y ago
    Which turns out to be completely wrong in the end though lol.
    • NegativeK 4y ago
      That exchange seems like it's taking the author's suggestion to a hyperbolic extreme.
  • uticus 4y ago
    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 4y ago
    I think “marry” is some old-school shorthand here, but there’s merit to paying attention to who someone keeps close.
  • 4y ago
• euph0ria 4y ago
  Regarding 5: non-lazy people tend to dislike lazy people in the same work group
  • anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    Lazy people provide job security for non-lazy people. Why would a non-lazy person dislike them?
    • etempleton 4y ago
      Non-Lazy people want to get things done and lazy people slow things down and impact non-lazy people’s ability to get things done.
      • anonymouskimmer 4y ago
        That sounds more like a passive-aggressive person. Or a controlling slacker. Not the kind of person I think of when I think of lazy people. But then again I'm an IC, not part of an interdependent team. I'm sure it is as you say in an interdependent team environment.
• purpleblue 4y ago
  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.
  • rcarr 4y ago
    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.
    • deleted 4y ago
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  • Jemaclus 4y ago
    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.
• null_shift 4y ago
  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?)
  • NegativeK 4y ago
    It's not unreasonable to think that the wife was playing with them, was waiting for the cheater (fictional or not) to swing, and happened to notice them move the ball.
• uticus 4y ago
  > 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.
• GGO 4y ago
  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.
• deleted 4y ago
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• dmitrygr 4y ago
  > 8 Best Techniques for Evaluating Character isalnum() isalpha() iscntrl() isdigit() isgraph() islower() isprint() ispunct()
  • sidpatil 4y ago
    To be pedantic, those are methods, not techniques.
    • coder4life 4y ago
      hahaha to you both (after reading dozens and dozens of serious replies)
• hnthrowaway0328 4y ago
  Tested on myself and all rules are pretty effective. Well not the last one.
• godelmachine 4y ago
  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.
  • yowzadave 4y ago
    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.
  • SpeedilyDamage 4y ago
    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.
  • xen2xen1 4y ago
    Point #1 can be like the servers point, you can tell a lot about how they treat their spouse. Also, my wife tends to have a dominant personality (somewhat), and I tend to have a more submissive / little brother personality. I guarantee you meet us and how my wife acts says things about me. That is much less true over time though.
  • petsormeat 4y ago
    I wonder how this tactic works with people in arranged marriages: for? Against?
• jstarfish 4y ago
  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.
  • roughly 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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.
      • trgn 4y ago
        There's no way to determine that in an interview, which was the author's example. Interviewers who ask these type of questions are low key manipulative, that prying attitude is incredibly off putting, so presumptuous. If I were getting the sense that I were being judged on my childhood, I'd no way want to work with you. It's a total boomer thing, that casual condescendion. Younger people are much much better attuned to people's boundaries. Honestly, it's kind of frightening, the maturity with which a lot young people already can communicate with.
• roughly 4y ago
  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-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.
  • anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    For number 2 and some of the other points it's important to get a representative sample to make a determination on. I have once complained about food to a waitress when I was having an otherwise bad day. I have once held back anger when demanding a refund from a customer service rep - because the company pissed me off so much, not the rep, and it was really really hard to hold back the anger toward the company when talking to the rep, and I know that the anger bled through, I could hear it in my own voice. But usually I tip very well (75% for a haircut, at least 20% for food) and try to be both polite and considerate. People have bad days. For any given interaction a person loses very little by writing another person off because of that other person's bad day. But, of course, that reflects on you making the judgement to write them off based on a singular incident. And I cheated once on a test by taking an extra few seconds because I just couldn't leave a test question unanswered (I've since matured).
    • roughly 4y ago
      Yeah, for what it's worth, none of this is absolutist. You're looking for patterns over time. Everyone has good days and bad days (and that's worth remembering on both sides of the exchange), but someone with a pattern of either treating people they consider subordinate badly or cheating those around them is telling you something about how they view the world outside themselves, which includes you.
• gnfargbl 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    I think he is correct in this. I am someone who know 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 4y ago
    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.
  • jimbokun 4y ago
    Or you could be specifically looking for someone who over came a lot of adversity, not some one who achieved stereotypical markers of success due to parents with wealth and status.
  • burnished 4y ago
    Maybe reread that one, I think you are putting stuff in there that wasnt present in the article. I dont think the point is to measure how successful you were but to get a sense of the kind of person you are. In my experience with questions like this a rocky start is not held against you, tends to make you stand out in a good way if anything. Caveat; yeah gut reasoning doesnt lead to unbiased hiring practices, no argument.
  • abruzzi 4y ago
    well, to be fair, the article didn't say how you should interpret early life experiences. You state that looking at early experiences are "biased towards those people who got off the blocks quickly and easily" but when I ready #3, my first thought (as a manager that interviews and hires frequently) was looking for people who had to solve problems when young, as opposed to people who got everything handed to them. Now that shows my biases which may be negative biases towards sons of wealthy parents who are talented and motivated, but the point is that your comment assumes a specific type of bias. I suspect that whether you're hiring or just meeting people socially, having a sense of how someone got to the point they're at tells you more about that person than just knowing where they're at now.
• mjfl 4y ago
  Protip: If you meet me, do not "size up" my wife. This is homeless-man tier advice.
  • paganel 4y ago
    The author has also written a book about it, which probably explains most of the article. That was also the point where I stopped reading it.
  • the_only_law 4y ago
    Yeah don’t fucking pry about my childhood either.
  • mturmon 4y ago
    Agree that this is poorly worded, and objectifying. But it's trying to get at something real. Here's another version of the same idea that isn't entirely wrong, and is also reductive and objectifiying, and meant towards assessing men: look at their shoes, their car, and (if they have one) their watch. Two-door Civic and New Balance joggers? Subaru and hiking boots? Minivan and sandals? Tesla and exotic hi-tops? There's information there.
    • mjfl 4y ago
      you could have met any of Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Warren Buffet, and come away like "what a bad car. what a loser."
      • red-iron-pine 4y ago
        richest person I ever met, an ex's dad who quietly owned a ton of automotive stuff, was fond of crocs and hawaiian shirts. he collected jaguars (the cars) and restored them in his basement basement garage, which had 5 bays. there is, of course, an argument for counter-signaling here, but I am in agreement with the parent post -- hard to make a judgement based on shoes or cars.
    • the_only_law 4y ago
• andrewstuart 4y ago
  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.
  • mythrwy 4y ago
    Ever try to give a cracker to a seagull at the beach? It turns into a big problem, and not because you mind the loss of a few crackers. Some restraint and judgement might be in order with this approach (which I basically admire).
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  My wife worked at a 7-Eleven, when we got married. 7-11 is where the people that get abused at other jobs, go to abuse someone else. Some of the stories she told me, at the end of the day, made me want to go back to the place, wait for the customers, and do some mayhem. I know many, many folks in lower-echelon, and service jobs. I've learned to treat servers well. My mother, on the other hand, was a "Hyacinth Bucket" type of English woman. An amazing person, but also incredibly class-conscious. She could be downright abusive with servers, and I always wanted to slide under the table, when she would start.
  • btach 4y ago
    "It's Boquet, dear!" ... I sympathize. Part of me also wishes to be a fly on the wall for these interactions.
• aclatuts 4y ago
  I have seen so many articles about evaluating people popping up recently. I expect someone to write an article soon about how you need to watch someone make love to a hooker for assessment purposes.
• epolanski 4y ago
  I have found that it is valuable seeing whether people gossip: if Mark starts gossiping about Steven, I know Mark will gossip about me with Steven as well. People (not even thinking about it) use revealing "secrets" or talking sh*t about others for bounding. I try to stay away from these people, and while writing this post I realized that all of my closest friends rarely gossip. I also noticed those kind of people in a work context are both a treasure and a peril. They are a treasure because they tend to give information for free, but they are also liabilities as these kind of people won't move far the social/corporate ladder. People who give informations for free do not understand the value of information in the first place. The second way I judge character is by checking how late they are at appointments, meetings, parties, video calls, whatever. People that are often late simply value their own time more than yours, they disrespect you.
  • CaptainZapp 4y ago
    > People who give informations for free do not understand the value of information in the first place. I disagree. I learned most from very smart people who were willing to share their knowledge. They didn't mind providing such information for free. Not everything in life is transactional. For example: Successful networking is not about maximizing the "profit" out of contacts you make.
    • cnity 4y ago
      > Not everything in life is transactional. Thanks for saying this. Posts and threads like this read like real life is some kind of war zone with tactics and plans, as opposed to a beautiful dance in which we find ourselves pleasantly surprised with how things can turn out if we keep an open heart. I urge these people to read less Art of War, and more fiction. Go and enjoy life without thinking of how to "win" all the time.
    • bsenftner 4y ago
      I do not believe that is the type of information being referenced. most people love to share their education knowledge, it is practically showing off. The point of people not understanding the value of information refers to organizational knowledge about how this collection of persons actually accomplish goals, rather than the official story - that's the valuable information referenced, not what one was taught in their schooling.
• dilyevsky 4y ago
  This reads like the 5 knight virtues from medieval times in a lot more words
• asah 4y ago
  sigh... these "sound good" but in fact are probably hot garbage, and certainly lacking data. - choice of spouse? people choose spouses (or don't choose: arranged marriages!) for all sorts of reasons that have NOTHING to do with how they'll interact with you. They may also be headed for divorce, and you wouldn't know. - how they treat service workers? if you're a service worker then sure, but if you're a client you may have a completely different experience - in fact, it's classic for shitty clients to abuse good vendors, who then abuse shitty service workers, who kick their dogs and so on. I've been decent to people who get abused, and gotten decent results. - early life? sure, I can buy this - but good luck if they don't share. Also, some people specifically fight against those early-life learnings while others embrace them. IMHO you gotta be careful with this one. - how they invest time and money? sure I can buy this - assuming they have discretion and their time and money isn't pre-allocated... which it is for many people!!! - "Identify what irritates people the most in others—because this is probably the trait they dislike most in themselves" - maybe ??? this feels like pop psychology, and I'd love to see real data. - "Can they listen?" - ok, this is very good advice and easily "tested" in various ways. Of course, "good listener" may not result in good service - but bad listeners rarely give good service. - "If they cheat at small things, they will cheat at big things." - assuming honesty is the default, then sure... but again, I'd really like to see data to back this up. In particular, I've met some sociopathic scoundrels who know this "game" and are scrupulously honest about small things, so they can run off with millions when it matters. - "Watch how they handle unexpected problems" - this seems like good advice in general, and not just problems but unexpected and out-of-control situations. Some people freak out, others become control freaks, others get quiet and listen, others do research. Again, it depends on the relationship - some jobs it's fine to perform poorly under change, others it's part of the job! hope this helps.
  • jimmygrapes 4y ago
    Can someone please explain the recent rash of comments like this?
    • spit2wind 4y ago
      Just a hunch–thousands have been laid off from their jobs recently, often through no fault of their own. Society tends to judge a person's character by things like "can they 'hold' a job". A person who has been unfairly judged would probably have a strong opinion on the validity of character tests.
• mshake2 4y ago
  >Identify what irritates people the most in others—because this is probably the trait they dislike most in themselves. ... Cheaters always gripe that others are dishonest. The liar always accuses other people of lying. I think the answer is more complicated. Why do security companies hire convicted black hat hackers to do security? Why does the government employ convicted scammers and fraudsters to investigate scams and fraud? Because the qualities that let you see something clearly are also the qualities that can make you vulnerable to it. Which is why integrity is so important. I'm irritated (lol) by the implication that the person with no irritations is the one with no vulnerabilities. As if being tolerant and permissive of all things is the correct way to exist. That there is nothing worth feeling strongly against because it implies to others that you are guilty of it, and so if you don't want to "out" yourself, you must not feel strongly about anything. EDIT>> I think I'm saying that "integrity" and "capability" are two dimensions of this idea, and that they are orthogonal. Low capability, high/low integrity = mostly harmless. Low integrity, high capability = hurts others. High integrity, high capability = helps others.
  • haswell 4y ago
    While I appreciated some of the thoughts in the essay, this is the one that jumped out at me as problematic as well. I thought long and hard about this, and my biggest frustration is when people around me refuse to change their minds despite all evidence. This goes hand-in-hand with people who refuse to engage in a good-faith debate. While I am certainly not perfect and need to keep improving, I've worked hard to cultivate these qualities in myself, and I think that hard work is partially why I am frustrated when I encounter the opposite in others. For sake of argument, I'll assume the author is right, and one's frustrations are also one's own weaknesses. The author's test does not account for the people who have learned the most by recognizing these negative qualities in themselves and working to change them.
    • Swizec 4y ago
      Irritations can also be past weaknesses. Like you said, you’ve put in the work why don’t others? That’s irritating/frustrating in itself because it implies that they don’t think it’s worth the work which by implication invalidates your effort and that feels bad.
• alexashka 4y ago
  This man didn't mention parents or children. Conclude what you will about his character based on those two facts. When evaluating these sorts of pieces, I've found it more fun to look for what they leave out, because the pieces people leave in, are almost by definition going to be self serving cliches.
• karmakaze 4y ago
  I was hoping for this to be a eye-opening list, but don't know which ones apply even moderately to myself or which ones I can apply effectively. On the whole I haven't had clashes with character very much and am quite self-sufficient so not so much impact there. Sure, I've trusted the wrong people and lost out but that's the cost of living and trusting people--sometimes you get it wrong. 1. who they marry: however the chemicals worked out some critically fateful days 2. treat service workers: this might be a good one (unless they're wise to it and faking it) 3. early life: hit-or-miss I suspect. What you really want is to know what drives them. I'm mostly driven by a desire for knowledge and craft but I can't point to where in my childhood that came from. 4. time & money: I tend to either waste both of them or have more than I can effectively use. knowledge & craft doesn't cost much to feed 5. what people irritate them: this one's probably more applicable when younger. Now when someone's getting on my nerve I might recognize my younger self. That gives me some compassion, more patience, and a slightly laughing sigh. 6. talk, listen, neither: Hmm. work-wise sometimes discussions can get to talking past each other because they both have valid points being expressed but can't communicate both simultaneously. Talking is sync, listening is sometimes async (delayed). Doesn't make bad people, just bad communicators like most. 7. cheating: I knew one guy who was super non-cheating on games, splitting bills, etc. He cheats on his girlfriend(s?). Knows how to game it. 8. handle unexpected problems: doing nothing is actually pretty good. One time a shared network server got it's main documents volume wiped. I was working late and someone told me about it. I had admin access. We went for dinner, I can't think without food. Came back and found that there's a way to undelete from a Novell Fileserver. I enlisted whoever was there to manually undelete about 10k files, including ones meant to be gone as we couldn't tell. I think this is better used as a list of how to fool people about your character. So basically I don't think there's much point in judging people. If you get the sense they're untrustworthy, don't associate too much. I think it's better to find out how you can get along with them in a professional or social setting. If I had to say there's one character flaw that I can't stand, it's people who assert their value system over others for no purpose--like telling a vegetarian there's no meat in there because they don't think it matters.
  • washedup 4y ago
    > 4. time & money: I tend to either waste both of them or have more than I can effectively use. knowledge & craft doesn't cost much to feed This is what drives people, which you alluded to lacking in #3
• danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  People who write articles about techniques for judging character are of questionable character.
• angarg12 4y ago
  Most of these might ring true, and some have been extensively explored (like 2.), but overall I can't help but feel like I'm reading astrology. I need something more solid than "one guy's opinion on the internet" to take this seriously.
• serf 4y ago
  >1. Forget what they say—instead look at who they marry. I'd appreciate the character assassination to stay between party A and party B, rather than creating more collateral damage with familial review, thanks. Pretending to be able to gauge 'character', whatever that is, without knowing the exact situations to judge -- in the case of a new hire that'd be on-the-job situations, not "which pear did you choose at the grocer?" -- is nothing that's any more precise than the 'systems' that gamblers have at any casino. Why not just have a pissing contest when the hire walks through the door? Set up some wall targets, first to knock all the toy-soldiers off the ledge gets a job. aside : friends and family have told me that the scars and medical issues that I have acquired through injury and rough-living give me 'character' -- where's the subsection in this blog-post about comparing scars and battle-wounds... or is that too old-school?"
• Scubabear68 4y ago
  This is a really good list. Just yesterday I was chatting with a senior management person about character, and we were discussing a mutual colleague (Let's call him "Joe") who had failed quite spectacularly in the last year. We had three points of view on him - mine as one outside contractor who replaced the individual as an interim CTO, his as CEO of a vendor to the company, and the view of a PE investor who owned a big chunk of the company. He said the first early warning sign he had that Joe was going to be a problem was when a group were out to dinner, and Joe spent quite a bit of time talking about the school his son was going to. The PE guy is meticulous and of course when he got home he looked it up. After some digging, PE guy found that Joe's son actually went to a less prestigious mid-level college. Why, everyone thought, would Joe go out of his way to lie about his son's school, when no one had even asked about it? A lot of money and tears later Joe was finally let go for a host of reasons. But it really all came down to character.
  • paganel 4y ago
    Looks like Joe lived and worked in an environment which valued things like "where do you send your kid to school", hence why the PE guy felt the need to "look it up" (if said PE guy had not felt the same about "good" schools as joe did then he wouldn't have felt the need to search). I don't blame this on Joe, I blame it on the system.
    • jcbrand 4y ago
      Fascinating how nowadays people are excusing clearly unethical (and sometimes criminal) behavior and instead decide to blame it on something nebulous such as the "system". While it might be true that Joe felt pressure to lie due to the environment he was operating in, that doesn't absolve him from lying. Just like being really horny doesn't absolve someone from raping.
      • strken 4y ago
        Without excusing Joe specifically, lying is not seen by nearly everyone as intrinsically wrong in the same way rape is. Lying in response to an unjust question can be seen as just, e.g. answering "What's the code to the door? Tell me or I'll shoot" with a duress code, or more controversially answering "Where did you go to school?" in such a way that you appear to be wealthier during a job interview where candidates from poorer backgrounds are discriminated against. I don't think this absolves Joe because I don't think anyone would have discriminated against him on the basis of where his kids went to school, or that he could have reasonably expected them to.
• LeroyRaz 4y ago
  I disagree strongly with "5. Identify what irritates people the most in others—because this is probably the trait they dislike most in themselves." Often what irritates someone most is if others have a different engagement style. E.g. someone who likes to take a conflict head on will be most irritated by the avoidance or the silent treatment, someone who likes to let things settle will be most irritated by someone who always feel the need to force the point of conflict. Not all resentment or irritation felt towards others comes from projection! It also feels rather silencing, if applied at large. Can one not call others deceptive without being labeled deceptive oneself?
  • The_Colonel 4y ago
    Agreed, I think the author mixed several different things together and it would be better to just stay with projection.
  • mihaic 4y ago
    I wanted to post almost the same comment. While it might sometimes be true, since a practitioner has an easier time to identify a fellow sinner, it's terribly wrong at other times: most upright individuals strongly dislike corruption for instance. I'm wondering what the author is generalizing from himself.
  • raducu 4y ago
    I came back to the comments to say this! I'm quite tolerant (perhaps overly so) but I can't stand bullies, un-professional people or unpolite people in the workenvironment. I'm 100% not on one of those. What the author is ON to this statement is when people say "I can't stand X" it really means "I don't know how to deal with X", and that's 75% true for me.
  • _yb2s 4y ago
    You raise good points, but I think your point is actually compatible with, rather than at odds with the article. For example, someone that likes to take conflict head on will deeply dislike their own desire to be avoidant, and for example will likely deeply regret the few times they failed to take a conflict head on. In any such scale, e.g. being deceptive vs truthful, everybody has a bit of both, and if they identify strongly with one end, they also dislike the part of themselves that is opposite of that (a la Carl Jung's shadow concept). I think most people are actually pretty successful at suppressing parts of themselves they most dislike unless they are suffering from addiction or depression, etc.
• abetusk 4y ago
  This reminds me of the scene in Moneyball where they're assessing a potential ball player by how pretty they consider the player's girlfriend [0]. There's probably a way to evaluate a persons character based on what they consider good evaluations of character. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naO8n6HsqE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6naO8n6HsqE
• makeitdouble 4y ago
  > 7. If they cheat at small things, they will cheat at big things. This is old adage bullshit. It’s simple enough to make sense intuitively, there are similar sayings in almost every culture, so it must be true, right ? Except in practice people don’t work that way. Some might cheat at small and big big things, but most of us still apply different principle to different things. Try to apply it to yourself: if a coworker left their desk unintended you could enjoy yourself messing with their system settings. If on top of that they left their bank account unintended you wouldn’t shuffle their savings options and hide their money in obscure accounts. In a way, people deeply believing this are super scary to me. Do they work see their own little lies as an effect of an internal broken moral system ?
  • ValentineC 4y ago
    > Except in practice people don’t work that way. Some might cheat at small and big big things, but most of us still apply different principle to different things. This just came to mind: how would the same point work out for people that wouldn't mind buying an item that's obviously mispriced, or credit card rewards terms that weren't implemented properly? Or pirating when one's a software developer? I personally wouldn't mind hitting a large public company for all I've got, but I wouldn't touch a small business that's just trying to feed themselves.
  • mattmanser 4y ago
    Messing with someone is not cheating. Cheating at golf is cheating.
    • makeitdouble 4y ago
      But cheating at golf also stays that, just cheating at golf. My analogy was clunky, but the author doesn’t expand on anything that happens besides that golf story. The guy that moved the ball might as well be extremely ethical in his business deals, we have no idea.
      • gwd 4y ago
        On the contrary; the guy who cheated at golf later robbed his business partner: > I recently heard a man complaining about a bad business deal. His partner had robbed him, and he should have known better. The story about golf is the reason, in retrospect, why the man who was robbed said he "should have known better".
• ruivil7 4y ago
  A few important ones are missing or are unclear, but some of these techniques evolve getting closer to people. So trying to findout about it can be an exausting experience. Otherwise can take a year or two.
• HiroshiSan 4y ago
  The only technique I’ve ever relied on without fail is to trust my gut.
• rsp1984 4y ago
  I wish it was this easy. I wish there were short cuts. 1. I had a business partner once who has a wife that I do think highly of, and who made me ignore a million red flags. But at the end of the day he turned out to be the exact sc*mbag that any neutral observer would have said he is from day one. We separated and he tried hard take down the company with him, purely out of spite. Complete POS. Unfortunately will have to file the spouse-test under useless metric. 2. Nobody who's not been living under a rock for the last 30 years is gonna make this mistake in 2023. 3. Bad characters lie about a lot of things, including their childhood. 4. The only true test on this list. 5. As said in another answer, this is '60s psychobabble. 6. Unfortunately I myself haven't seen any reliable correlation between this and the true character of people. 7. The dumb bad characters get caught cheating. The smart ones will make sure to appear extremely correct about all the small stuff, just so you'd never suspect them of anything bad when it comes to the more important things in life. 8. Maybe that's true in some cases but you know who completely thrives in unexpected social situations: psychopaths. This is because all the normal people show some amount of insecurity and vulnerability in these kinds of scenarios and a skilled psychopath will leverage that to manipulate people.
• dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  All these rules are comically inaccurate rules of thumb. Better than a coin toss, sure but not that much better. IDK why the internet has such a fetish for this kind of advice. No amount of rules of thumb will ever make up for critical thinking, judgement skills and experience over time.
  • smcin 4y ago
    What do you specifically suggest instead?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• drpixie 4y ago
  A great list. I'd like to add #9: Look at how they think other people behave. Most people assume other people's motivations are similar to their own. So someone who is paranoid about small time thieves might be assuming that other people will do what they would consider. (Of course, their paranoia could be due to personal experience, so some judgement is necessary!)
• karaterobot 4y ago
  > 4. How do they invest their two most valuable resources? Right! Now we just have to get ahold of all their receipts, so we know how they spend their money, and follow them around everywhere so that we know how they spend their time. It's almost too practical.
• notacoward 4y ago
  Pretty good list, but definitely led with the weakest. Lots of people marry an ideal instead of an actual person, or marry someone who changes (perhaps quite drastically) later. The divorce rate wouldn't be so high otherwise. Then there are (formally or informally) arranged marriages, and other confounders. This rule will spew both false negatives and false positives all over the place. The others are all much stronger.
• antisthenes 4y ago
  I have 1 technique: Do they own a dog and treat it well? If yes, they're a pretty good person
  • trogdor 4y ago
    Like Hitler. (Sorry, I had to.)
• lvxferre 4y ago
  I think that #5 is a bad point, as there are multiple reasons why someone might get irritated with a trait of another person, and "I see that trait in myself" is only one of them. I don't think that it's even a "probably"; it's at most a "perhaps". #7 is way more complicated than it looks like, as it only works under the assumption that humans are morally consistent (we aren't). Other points look fairly sensible IMO.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• spit2wind 4y ago
  > 1. Forget what they say—instead look at who they marry. I'm confused by this. How does judging someone you just met and know zero about (the spouse or lack-thereof) tell you anything meaningful about the other person you know zero about (the person whose character you're primarily interested in judging)?
  • birdymcbird 4y ago
    > So the next time you’re introduced to strangers at the party, and they start talking business, spend at least a little time sizing up their partners. If you don’t pay attention to this, you will have lost an important source of insights, and may pay a high price as a result. What criteria for “sizing up” their partner? This sound sociopath behavior. if me business partner do like this maybe they not right person to partner with. if someone partner a business criminal or physically hurt someone good to know what you getting into up front. but otherwise trying to judge someones partner feel poor behavior. seen havior like where one tries to judge your ability, motive, and success based on how you look..what car you drive..value of you house..based on what you father does and how much he earn. toxic traits. always fools errand and people like this never get far long term.
• Kaotique 4y ago
  7. Using this can be pretty dangerous. What if a person is very fair and honest about everything with the intend to screw you over big time later? And on the other hand if a person does some silly cheating in a friendly game and get caught right away, how dangerous can they really be for big stuff? There will probably be a lot if signs before that happens. Most of the advice can be easily spun around to "prove" the exact opposite.