A friend recently told me about a candidate who was interviewing for a role in his department. The interview loop (or round of conversations) included four members of his team and himself. After the first interviewer was done and had passed the candidate on to the next person, he told my friend that the candidate was not qualified and wouldn’t work out. Hearing this, my friend pulled the candidate aside, had a brief chat to confirm what he had heard, and told the candidate he was cutting the loop short because it wasn’t going to be a good fit….
What is critical thinking?
I remember looking at a picture on a photography site. The picture wasn’t very memorable. What intrigued me was the accompanying statement: “Ever since my first encounters with many of the great photographers who inspired me, I became aware of the value of turning my attention away from the main event. So often, the temptation is to look where everyone else is looking. But, time after time, I have chosen to observe what’s going on by looking in the other direction – before, or after, or at the edges of the main attraction. There, I find the textures, moods,…
Getting somewhere fast isn’t just about speeding
This morning, I was driving my normal route to work. The speed limit is pretty consistently 40 mph until I hit the highway. In a 40, I always drive 50. (10 over is pretty much my rule, unless it’s a 25 mph zone. Then it’s 5-7 mph over the speed limit.) Today, I was pretty much alone on the road. There was one car about 200 yards ahead of me, and then I noticed one coming up from behind me. As I was going 50, he must have been going at least 55-60 mph. As he passed me, he…
My face tattoo prejudice
It was recently time for my quarterly haircut. I like to visit a local shop and sit with whomever has an open chair. Sometimes, when I walk in, I notice that one of the hair stylists is almost completely tattooed, including multiple and obvious facial tattoos. In general, I don’t understand why anyone would get a tattoo. It makes no sense to me. They’re reportedly painful. The area on your body where you get it is going to change. Your tastes are going to change. The color’s going to fade. Why there instead of there? Why that? If it…
What do you get the person who has everything?
When I was young, I, like many other children, agonized and racked my brain about what to get my parents for their birthdays and Christmas. It seemed like my parents had everything they wanted, or could get anything they wanted (within reason). Or, maybe they just didn’t seem to want anything. So me, my brothers, and my sister, would try and come up with ideas before we finally came up with something that ended up not being as exciting as we had hoped. Now that I’m an adult, and on the other side of the equation, I can see…
Remember Sarah Palin?
Sarah Palin has pretty much disappeared from the national scene, but her name came up in a conversation recently, and I was thinking of her importance to politics and my amazement at the missed opportunity. What always struck me about Sarah Palin is that the Democrat Party was so intent on destroying her reputation and credibility that in America’s rush to make a joke of her, they forgot to actually listen to what she was saying. In fact, she was one of the first politicians to warn against the ruling class of entrenched Democrats AND Republicans. Anyone who’s followed…
The vernacular of birthday wishing
In those rare times when someone remembers your birthday (I say “rare” because it seems everyone leaves it to Facebook to remember these days), they usually hit you with a “happy birthday” early in the day to show you they remembered. Then, later in the day, maybe after dinner, you get a straggling birthday wish or two from someone you expected to hear from who probably should have known. Those birthday wishes always seems like someone called them and told them they’d better wish you a happy birthday. Is there a name for the point in the day when…
An alternative to “I told you so.”
When someone comes back to you after you’ve told them something that decidedly and obviously came through, there’s a perceived desire to say, “I told you so.” But that’s not really what we want to say. “I told you so,” says “I was right.” But aren’t you really trying to establish credibility to be a trusted source, going forward? When I tell someone something, or give them advice, and it turns out exactly as predicted, I’m not interested in rubbing their nose in it or making sure I get the credit I deserve. My motivation is to establish the…
Career risks worth taking
James May was the British presenter of a British show called “Toy Stories.” It was he who was behind the construction of a full size Lego house. (not a toy house, but a life-size, inhabitable house built entirely out of Legos… the entire series is definitely worth watching). It turns out that earlier in his career, he was fired from his writing position at Autocar magazine because of a design trick he pulled in the editing of a year-end review the magazine published. There were 41 spreads in all, and he decided to edit it so that if you read the…
Privacy and conservatism
Back in the days of routine attacks on the religious right, liberal politicians would often say that conservatives want to know what’s going on in your home. But the truth is that’s simply not the nature of conservatives. Conservatives usually want to be left alone and, in turn, want to leave others alone, as well. Conservatives have a strong sense of right and wrong. But believing in right and wrong is not the same as telling everyone how to live. Telling people how to live is creating restrictions on salt intake, trans fats, what we can eat, what we…