391–400 of 604 posts
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This story strikes me as pretty funny. As if he might say "damn, I was hoping you knew. We've been working on this one for weeks!"
I mean, when you know you're interviewing a Putnam winner, you could try and sneak in some "unsolved problems" ;)
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> 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. 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…
> 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 ga…
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.
Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…
I have seen several stories like this - the janitor, or secretary, or whoever is actually a trusted individual who is the true judge of character. To me, it seems implausible, more of a "feel good" story, but it also seems ill advised. Does the driver know he's part of the loop? Does the driver attend the debrief? Does the driver distinguish between great, normal, sub-normal, and bad social skills? What portion of je…
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.
Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…
I have seen several stories like this - the janitor, or secretary, or whoever is actually a trusted individual who is the true judge of character. To me, it seems implausible, more of a "feel good" story, but it also seems ill advised. Does the driver know he's part of the loop? Does the driver attend the debrief? Does the driver distinguish between great, normal, sub-normal, and bad social skills? What portion of je…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 ga…
Empathy in the context of a conversation isn't retrospective analysis of your actions. It's the immediate sharing and understanding of emotions in a moment. You did not consider her emotions at all in your interaction. She did not consider that you might not follow the same social contract as everyone else. Those two things are not the same. Empathy is a skill high-functioning people on the spectrum can learn. I spen…
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.
Honestly I see two asshole tests here. Some of the candidates failed the first one. IBM failed the other. This type of dishonest and unnecessarily stressful approach tells me that I probably don't want to be working there. Even just professing that a candidate needs to work well under stress is somewhat of a red flag. Why are your employees under so much stress? I am software developer not a trauma surgeon. If I am u…
I get that "the interview is stressful", but if you do enough of them, they're not that stressful.
And in my experience, stuff like this is really good at identifying some assholes. I can't find references, but it is based on research, and is applied in other scenarios. It is in fact often recommended you do a version of this prior to marrying someone: Usually some physical activity is picked that both of you suck at, and the goal is not to achieve it, but to see how well you work together in unfamiliar terrain. It's not a great sign if failure to succeed results in a nasty argument ("We could have solved this if you'd done it my way!")
As always, the cost of a toxic hire is much greater than missing out on a good engineer. If this has even a 50% success rate at detecting jerks, it's worth it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have seen several stories like this - the janitor, or secretary, or whoever is actually a trusted individual who is the true judge of character. To me, it seems implausible, more of a "feel good" story, but it also seems ill advised. Does the driver know he's part of the loop? Does the driver attend the debrief? Does the driver distinguish between great, normal, sub-normal, and bad social skills? What portion of je…
The problem is that you're thinking in absolutes. That's not how life works. The driver doean't need to be a formal part of the hiring process that everyone rigorously goes through. There's variation and difference for every candidate. That's just because hiring is a human process. 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 anoth…
That's the whole range eh?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I don’t ignore morals, so your counterpoint is moot.
Hahah right except that in this case the reward is purely intrinsic for returning to pay, while leaving without anyone knowing results in an extrinsic reward ($). "Being rewarded" is generally considered extrinsic otherwise you could just not do some bad thing and claim the feeling of knowing you didn't do the bad thing is a great reward in itself.
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.
When I interviewed with AWS, half the loop interviews were with remote staff. I was shown to a videoconferencing room and asked to wait. There was a pile of VC equipment but it wasn't connected. With five minutes before we were due to start, I decided this was part of the interview and plugged stuff in myself, powered it on, and clicked through some boot-time screens, guessing at the right inputs. A few minutes later…
No it wasn't. Source: I conducted +400 interviews for Amazon. We don't do weird or obscure tests. Your recruiter will explicitly tell you what to expect. It sounds like a mistake.
I'm a bit relieved to hear this: one of the weirdest professional experiences I have ever had was at an AWS interview. I've often wondered which parts of that day were a psych test or simply human error.
Timing of the interview was shortly before the HQ2 announcement (2017 I think), and the interview was in the outskirts of DC. I was told specifically not to bring a phone, which I thought was odd, but I didn't think I'd need one for the day since I'd be on site. So, per the instructions, I left it in the hotel, walked to the site, and checked in at the front desk. Unfortunately, they texted me 15 minutes before the start time that the schedule had shifted 2h later. The front desk did not get the message. So I sat in the lobby, repeatedly checked in every so often, had polite conversations with a random assortment of people, drank some coffee, and waited. That was the best part of the day. Each part of the remainder of the actual interview process had a similar "this seems a bit off" feature.
Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…