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The 5% Rule

jonpauluritis.com

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Re: The 5% Rule

#181

Post by resonious »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #128
semireg wrote: post #95

I handle 100% of my indie app's email and telephone (yes, telephone!) support. My app is designing/printing labels. Printers in general, and label printers specifically are awful and inconsiderate robots, unable to perform the simplest printing job when you need it most. Sure, 2-5% of my users are nasty/mean, but let me tell you a little secret: They are immensely frustrated with their life situation and they know ho…

My experience (e-commerce) is similar to this. A lot of people contact support half-expecting that they'll get fucked around, and you see a complete 180 in their tone as soon as you offer a decent solution to their problem. Of course, there are still those people who just want an excuse to be a cunt (maybe 1% or less, from my experience). I don't push them too hard to reach a solution, and just graciously accept the…

Honestly I'm often this customer (the one that flips 180 - not the one who wants to be a cunt!)

It's quite strange. Maybe it's because I have in the past drafted kind and considerate support requests only to be met with an incomprehensible response that's not related to what I said. Getting a genuine response is a pleasant surprise.

Re: The 5% Rule

#182

Post by tanbog6 »

Is this person describing objectively horrible people, of just people who are incompatible with him?

I reckon about 5% of folks rub me completely the wrong way and I likely do the same for a similar number. I don't know that I agree that makes them inherently bad/the worst.

Re: The 5% Rule

#183

Post by mnemotronic »

My brother and his wife are like that. They hate everyone because everyone is always trying to cheat them and take advantage of them. Total victimhood mind-set. Obviously he's a Trump supporter.

Re: The 5% Rule

#185

Post by Joel_Mckay »

The general population contains sociopaths at a rate of 3% of males, and 1% of females. Additionally, roughly 70% of these people grew up in single parent homes without a father, and roughly 30% were from unwed mothers.

While these facts may reflect on a civilization's cultural values, it does not cover the roughly 1% of the general population that are born psychopaths. Psychopaths are generally not treatable, and a subset of these individuals should be considered dangerous.

Part of designing a Marketing/Sales campaign, is accounting for these folks too. One needs to realize some individuals are hostile if they feel you owe them something, and can attempt to do something nasty.

Have a wonderful New Year, and remember some jobs are just not worth the drama... there are hundreds of less traumatic jobs around that also pay well. =)

Re: The 5% Rule

#186

Post by nonethewiser »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #128
semireg wrote: post #95

I handle 100% of my indie app's email and telephone (yes, telephone!) support. My app is designing/printing labels. Printers in general, and label printers specifically are awful and inconsiderate robots, unable to perform the simplest printing job when you need it most. Sure, 2-5% of my users are nasty/mean, but let me tell you a little secret: They are immensely frustrated with their life situation and they know ho…

My experience (e-commerce) is similar to this. A lot of people contact support half-expecting that they'll get fucked around, and you see a complete 180 in their tone as soon as you offer a decent solution to their problem. Of course, there are still those people who just want an excuse to be a cunt (maybe 1% or less, from my experience). I don't push them too hard to reach a solution, and just graciously accept the…

I think this is simple selection bias. People who reach out are going to be rather motivated (frustrated).

Consider that calling customer support often takes 30 minutes of being on hold and then talking to someone with no power to help you. People are generally do everything they can to figure it out on their own.

Re: The 5% Rule

#187

Post by SpelingBeeChamp »

vineyardmike wrote: post #147
metadat wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey jiggawatts, I agree, and want to also add: If you're in software / tech (if this is an incorrect assumption on my part please say so and I apologize in advance; I've become used to seeing your posts and my sense is this might be your domain), on average you're working with people who are significantly more intelligent than the average adult human being. In my experience, the rate of nasty / miserable / mentally u…

I have a slightly contrary opinion. In my experience, the smarter someone is, the more entitled/bratty they tend to be (especially to service workers or people they look down on). On the other hand, “dumber” people (or just poorer people without a knowledge job tbh) tend to be more screwed over by society and may be more reactionary. Eg. A swe might talk down to a waiter and be demeaned while they work, but a poor pe…

>In my experience, the smarter someone is, the more entitled/bratty they tend to be (especially to service workers or people they look down on).

That is totally contrary to my experience. Maybe I hang out with good people... or maybe my friends and I aren't as smart as I thought :P

Re: The 5% Rule

#188

Post by graderjs »

metadat wrote: post #116
jiggawatts wrote: post #62

Personality traits like this are on a Bell curve, so he's just talking about the "left hand corner" of that curve. The percentage just depends on your threshold for tolerance. I know people who are convinced that 50% of people are horrible people, their tolerance stops at "anything left of the median". My tolerance is the opposite, and I can work with even quite problematic people successfully, so I would estimate th…

Hey jiggawatts, I agree, and want to also add: If you're in software / tech (if this is an incorrect assumption on my part please say so and I apologize in advance; I've become used to seeing your posts and my sense is this might be your domain), on average you're working with people who are significantly more intelligent than the average adult human being. In my experience, the rate of nasty / miserable / mentally u…

> significantly more intelligent than the average adult human being.

?

You'll probably take offence to this, and I'm sure this will contradict your general experience, and will probably even set off some folks' pet pride narratives about themselves working in software...but I think that's bullshit.

I don't think software people are smarter than any other profession on average, and I think almost anyone can learn to program and be employed in a software job. As someone who worked all of hospitality, hard science and software, I can say that all these folks that seem really smart, basically just seem that way because they use highly specialized technical knowledge. You can have pretty dull people who nevertheless are really smart at chemistry, or customer service or software, because they possess the specialized technical knowledge. I don't even think the average case is software people are smarter...but it definitely (again this will probably sound like I'm denigrating software people) seems like they think they are.

Yet that attitude is not unique to software folks, I've known people who worked other things and: lawyers think they're smarter, accountants think they're smarter, business majors think they're smarter, hard science folks think they're smarter, etc...

This probably will sound like I"m trying to denigrate software people, what I'm actually aiming to do is just to discredit the what I assume to be bullshit stereotype that (to seemingly overstate it): software is some sort of rarified intellectual pursuit confined only to some elite intelligentsia. In that sense, I think HN probably gives software a "bad name" in that sense by associating it with intellectualists, but even then truth belies that, as HN is diverse, it's not just software people.

I hope people stop with the belief that people employed in software professions are a hyper-intelligent rare species, and are actually just regular folks possessed of essentially fairly narrow specialized technical knowledge. To finish on what will probably be the harshest statement you read today: I get if people like that mystique, but I think it's unnecessary, often compensatory, and just plain false.

Happy to be wrong; guess it depends on how you define smart; lies, damned lies and statistics, etc; but that's what my gut says.

Re: The 5% Rule

#189

Post by franga2000 »

semireg wrote: post #95

I handle 100% of my indie app's email and telephone (yes, telephone!) support. My app is designing/printing labels. Printers in general, and label printers specifically are awful and inconsiderate robots, unable to perform the simplest printing job when you need it most. Sure, 2-5% of my users are nasty/mean, but let me tell you a little secret: They are immensely frustrated with their life situation and they know ho…

Damn, that demo looks awesome! Congrats on building the one and only truly polished piece of software in the entire print/label space.

Re: The 5% Rule

#190

Post by jldugger »

type-r wrote: post #161
kilroy123 wrote: post #22

This has been my experience as well. I, too, have met and talked to thousands of people from every possible background on seven different continents of this world. From the poorest people on Earth to some of the richest. I've seen the same thing. About 5% are nasty and about 1% are truly bad people who commit horrible crimes.

1% of people commit horrible crimes? feels like an incredibly high percentage

IDK about "horrible" but https://www.sentencingproject.org/research/ puts it at 1.5 million peak. Thats not quite 1 percent of the US population but its also not that far off. And we can quibble about US sentencing rules but the BoP has a count[1] of felony categories and drugs make up less than half, and its even less in state prisons.

The reason the estimate feels high is likely that the HN crowd is progressively separated from less stable elements of society. The bullies picking on kids at recess don't generally make it onto the gifted / accelerated track, or your 4 year degree granting university. You're going to encounter fewer of them at upmarket shopping centers and corporate offices, if for no other reason, 1.5 million people are in prison.

[1]: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

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