Ask HN: What people skills do you wish you learned earlier in your career?

I had a colleague like that, he was diagnosed with Asperger. He genuinely wanted to be interested in others but wasn't... At least until we discussed bitcoin, or Isaac Arthur, or Scifi audio books with interesting concepts, or his body building diet... I think he just had little in common with the family people at work. I told him, most people have something you can learn from them and if not, just be polite and it's ok. I can tell you (and I have a PhD if this helps you accept my answer) that intelligence has very little to do with having a PhD so you are ignoring a lot of interesting, smart people right there.

You know, some people that you would consider simpletons are intensely happy due to their attitude in life and I for one am always interested in those people. People with a drive to explore the world or to make their loved ones happy. To me you sound pretty ignorant if you claim that you can peel back a layer on something as complex as a human mind and then claim to find it empty.

If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you will learn the things you never knew you never knew. Though you seem to feel like you know what you don't know. And I'd consider that a somewhat boring attitude, although I'd be interested in how you came to feel that way.

> I find almost everyone intensely boring.

You're probably projecting. All your hyper-specific interests are intensely boring to ordinary people, so you retaliate by declaring them boring. It maintains your self-image.

People aren't boring, they're extremely interesting creatures that can be studied endlessly. Unlike the other great apes, you can even interact with them with human speech! So many possibilities, yet you're sitting here wasting it all.

You'd probably counter this by saying that looking at people this way is somehow immoral. I'm not going to argue with that, it's a useless argument to have.

> Small talk, feigning interest in kids, in sports, in wine, in whatever useless dull, pedestrian thing a coworker is into.

You don't have to feign interest, just let them talk about themselves and stay polite until you get what you want, which is either that the moment of conversation has passed, or something about them (or people in general) that is interesting. Either way, you're not going to be stuck in the conversation forever.

Childhood behavior in particular is an interesting topic, as is the decision to have (or not have) children. I know, you're not going to have children, but you have a rationale for that. What's that rationale? It's probably something highly misanthropic, outside the overton window of the ordinary person. Isn't it fun to see people's reaction to that? Well, perhaps not the best thing to do at work, but fun nonetheless.

> I find that anyone who isn't a PhD (or could easily have been if they hadn't gone into industry) might as well be a paper shell. I can put on a mask of civility and charm when needed, but all I really want is to talk to deeply self-aware people struggling with the boundaries of human knowledge.

Really? That's what you want to talk about over a coffee break? Come on...

> Nearly every time I work up the motivation to try to really get to know someone who I think I may have judged too quickly I find religiosity, passive consumerism, an unexamined life, something so distasteful that it takes ages before I can do it again.

Yeah, maybe don't be such a judgemental person. You clearly haven't examined yourself enough to recognize that this is a ridiculous attitude. You need to realize that this is a defense mechanism of your brain to save your fragile little ego from getting hurt. The flip side is that if you're overly judgemental, you'll be overly judgemental regarding yourself, as you clearly are.

> How do people put up with it?

Routine.

Being nicer to people. Earlier in my career I was too competitive with other people in team's I worked in. Trying to do all the work, exclude others. It was a function of insecurity maybe.

I've learned, you need to uphold your teammates, make friends and allies.

Lonewolf teams are only ever as productive as one person. Large companies, Intel, Google, want you to act as a multiplier, not an asshole. After all they are paying everybody, not just you. If you are perceived as individually great but rotten in a team, you are simply perceived as rotten in a team.

Learn to make your team and everybody in it look good and you will see your greatest successes.

interesting point you brought up, I also hate "fluffy" languages. Besides "Would it be okay..." the other one that grinds my gears the most is when you ask around for a favour people be like "I'd love to but I can't because ", why can't you just tell me you can't or rather, not bother responding at all, I'd honestly feel better that way. But perhaps you're right... not everyone is the same and everyone likes to be treated well.

1. Realise, that you are judging people on what is important to you, and not them.

"No reflection, no relevant context, no mirror provided by an intimate knowledge of history or literature ... just nothing." These are things important to you, and it is perfectly fine to make this choice on who to associate with. Realise it is a choice, and this does not mean other values are less "important"

2. Realise, that it is impossible for each person to have complete knowledge. We are limited in what we can know and do. Therefore knowledge is distributed. If knowledge is distributed, every single person could have some gift to provide the world (and you) based on their own unique circumstance and history.

The question then becomes: are you paying attention? and is it relevant?

"The use of knowledge in society" written in 1945, makes a compelling case for the distribution of knowledge in society:

https://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/hykKnw.html