Business and people and singing
I've worked in technical support for...oh, goodness, five years now. Not always as the one doing support - I've been doing quality assurance for almost a year now. One of the more puzzling aspects until a few months ago was why callers who claimed to simply want their issue fixed would rant and complain and generally make it impossible to actually fix their issue.
Around that time, I was working on a legal ethics presentation, and came across a couple of articles that had found that doctors and lawyers who are sued for malpractice are NOT the ones who screw up; they're the ones who have less than perfect outcomes and don't communicate with their clients. Incompetent doctors with fantastic beside manners were nearly always unmolested. What up with this, humans?
One of the most difficult truths about human nature is that in almost every circumstance, people would rather be heard than have their problems fixed. We want both, of course, when possible. But if we have to pick only one, we would rather be acknowledged, accepted and respected than to tangibly improve our circumstances. If we go extinct, this will be one of the big reasons why.
Like any great flaw in our brain wiring, this can be exploited for good. I get between three and five emails a week from engineers who are refusing on principle to follow some policy or other. (Only once has this been something that could be reasonably construed as an ethical concern. It's usually something along the lines of, they feel oppressed when we require them to empathize with a caller's frustration, rather than change the subject.) If I were still naive enough to think that people give a shit about the things they talk about, this would stress me out to no end, and I'd spend hours composing replies about how it's fair for employers to impose (legal and ethical and moral) behavioral requirements on employees, and generally waste a ridiculous amount of time. What I actually wind up doing is calling them, letting them rant for a few minutes, acknowledge how frustrating it is for someone to imply that they don't communicate well (I mean, communication is the core of our identity), reassert that the policy won't change, and give them a couple of suggested phrases to use that will satisfy the policy requirement. And they accept it because I listened. Madness!
This isn't a new insight at all. You can't sneeze in the business section of Barnes & Noble without getting germs on a dozen books that have some variation of this principle. But it still amazes me how many people who are angry at one thing think they're angry about an unrelated thing. I haven't figured out yet how to incorporate the ubiquity of self-deception into my models of how society works. Maybe I don't need to; it may just disappear into the background noise. But it is unsettling sometimes to think of how much people pretend - not just to others, but to themselves - just to get through the day. Then I remember how little we would get done if we were constantly subject to other people's actual thoughts, and it doesn't seem so bad.
Second, completely unrelated topic: Karaoke. So, here's the thing. Most regular karaoke singers are terrible, but still act like they're the second coming of Frank Sinatra. Audiences get bored with that. Unless Simon Cowell has personally told you, "You suck considerably less than I was expecting," forget about dignity and gravitas. Call upon the essences of Ellen DeGeneres and Kenneth Branagh to deliver the goofiest performance you possibly can, while clearly mocking yourself. Bonus points if you can pull off the Arthur-Dent-in-the-headlights "Wait, am I actually standing here, singing, in front of people?" look during instrumental parts. Give the audience a reason to laugh and permission to do it, and they'll love you.
Around that time, I was working on a legal ethics presentation, and came across a couple of articles that had found that doctors and lawyers who are sued for malpractice are NOT the ones who screw up; they're the ones who have less than perfect outcomes and don't communicate with their clients. Incompetent doctors with fantastic beside manners were nearly always unmolested. What up with this, humans?
One of the most difficult truths about human nature is that in almost every circumstance, people would rather be heard than have their problems fixed. We want both, of course, when possible. But if we have to pick only one, we would rather be acknowledged, accepted and respected than to tangibly improve our circumstances. If we go extinct, this will be one of the big reasons why.
Like any great flaw in our brain wiring, this can be exploited for good. I get between three and five emails a week from engineers who are refusing on principle to follow some policy or other. (Only once has this been something that could be reasonably construed as an ethical concern. It's usually something along the lines of, they feel oppressed when we require them to empathize with a caller's frustration, rather than change the subject.) If I were still naive enough to think that people give a shit about the things they talk about, this would stress me out to no end, and I'd spend hours composing replies about how it's fair for employers to impose (legal and ethical and moral) behavioral requirements on employees, and generally waste a ridiculous amount of time. What I actually wind up doing is calling them, letting them rant for a few minutes, acknowledge how frustrating it is for someone to imply that they don't communicate well (I mean, communication is the core of our identity), reassert that the policy won't change, and give them a couple of suggested phrases to use that will satisfy the policy requirement. And they accept it because I listened. Madness!
This isn't a new insight at all. You can't sneeze in the business section of Barnes & Noble without getting germs on a dozen books that have some variation of this principle. But it still amazes me how many people who are angry at one thing think they're angry about an unrelated thing. I haven't figured out yet how to incorporate the ubiquity of self-deception into my models of how society works. Maybe I don't need to; it may just disappear into the background noise. But it is unsettling sometimes to think of how much people pretend - not just to others, but to themselves - just to get through the day. Then I remember how little we would get done if we were constantly subject to other people's actual thoughts, and it doesn't seem so bad.
Second, completely unrelated topic: Karaoke. So, here's the thing. Most regular karaoke singers are terrible, but still act like they're the second coming of Frank Sinatra. Audiences get bored with that. Unless Simon Cowell has personally told you, "You suck considerably less than I was expecting," forget about dignity and gravitas. Call upon the essences of Ellen DeGeneres and Kenneth Branagh to deliver the goofiest performance you possibly can, while clearly mocking yourself. Bonus points if you can pull off the Arthur-Dent-in-the-headlights "Wait, am I actually standing here, singing, in front of people?" look during instrumental parts. Give the audience a reason to laugh and permission to do it, and they'll love you.