Home Depot

Home Depot’s slogan is “You can do it. We can help.” That means it’s mostly for do-it-yourself types, with relatively little service.

And I didn’t need much service the other day, I just needed to find out where the furnace filters were. This is a really big place, and they could be anywhere.

As I was looking around, I came across someone who worked there. “Where are the furnace filters?” “Aisle 32.” Done. That was all I needed in that case.

Banana Republic

Banana Republic’s slogan appears to be “Suffocating the customer with unwanted attention.” They really do a good job of living up to that.

I had a 40% off coupon (go recession!), and I needed some pants. As soon as I walked in the door, I made sure to avoid eye contact with anyone. It didn’t work. (It never does.)

Someone came up to me and asked if I needed help. I said no. She told me her name in case I needed anything. Somehow I knew she’d be back whether I needed anything or not.

As I tried to remember what kinds of pants I already had and think about what I should get, she came back to ask if I needed any help. Yes, I needed her to help me by not talking to me when I was trying to think. I got her to leave, but not before she took my stuff and went to get a dressing room. Um, did I ask for one?

Then when I wanted a dressing room I couldn’t find her. I tracked her down and she gave me back my stuff, saying that I could come get her if I needed her opinion on how the pants looked. Oh good, because my goal was to impress this annoying person I’d never see again.

How much help to give?

There are two different strategies at work here. Home Depot employees wait for you to come to them, if you can find them. Banana Republic employees pounce on you and don’t take their fangs out until they ring you up. Home Depot doesn’t need to hire as many people, but Banana Republic makes sure customers buy everything they can.

What’s the right amount of help to give? I think it’s however much the customer wants. Maybe in some cases it makes sense to compensate salespeople based on the customer’s rating, instead of by how much they sell. It’s possible to sell a lot but also make people want to avoid you in the future.

Best Buy

I’ve got one more story. Not exactly on topic, but close enough.

When I went to Best Buy the other day to get a new laptop, I wanted to get some advice. No salespeople were available, so I just looked around. I overheard one employee talking about laptops, and I could tell he really knew what he was doing. I knew some Best Buy employees had the ability to turn sugar into sh**, so I decided I’d wait for this guy instead of looking for the first available person.

The people he was helping were really slow, having many concerns such as whether the laptop case made enough of a fashion statement. I got impatient, but at last he was swiping their credit card and about to finish up. Right then, another salesperson, a teenage girl, came up to me and asked if I needed anything.

I figured that since this was a major purchase, I’d rather just wait another minute for the guy who was knowledgeable, instead of taking my chances with this random person. (My old boss used to say “Just because you have a tie doesn’t mean you’re smart.” At Best Buy, the saying would be “Just because you have a blue shirt doesn’t mean you’re smart.” It also doesn’t mean they’re not smart. We just don’t know.)

So I said I didn’t need anything. The guy I was waiting for heard this and asked again to confirm that I didn’t need anything. I said I’d wait for him.

But when I thought he was finished, he started walking away to do something else for the slow customers. He asked if I had a quick question. I said I needed advice on laptops. He said “Actually, this guy over here knows more about laptops than I do.”

I was a little annoyed that I didn’t get him after all that, but whatever, another knowledgeable person would be fine. So I went up to the other guy, who asked “What did he say about me?” I said “That you know a lot about laptops.” He said “Yes, but I’m not on sales duty right now. Let me find somebody else to help you.”

So he started walking away, and after a few seconds I saw him walking up to the teenage girl I had turned away before. No, not her! She’s going to think I rejected her help because of age or sex discrimination!

I assume that’s what she thought, because she flipped out. From 50 feet away, I heard her shout “He told me he didn’t need any help!” I walked over there and said “I just said I’d wait for that guy because I overheard him talking about laptops, I could tell he was knowledgeable, and he was almost done with those people. If there’s someone else who knows a lot about laptops, that’s fine. Who would that be?”

It ended up being a different person, who was a perfect salesperson, knowing the answers to all my questions and telling me just what I needed to hear. This would fall between the Home Depot and Banana Republic cases, and it’s the best one from the customer’s perspective.

On another note, does Hallmark have any cards saying “Sorry about the age and sex discrimination misunderstanding?”

What makes people fall in love? Biological anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher has spent her life studying this question. She’s the author of Why Him? Why Her?: Finding Real Love By Understanding Your Personality Type.

Despite the saying that “opposites attract,” Helen Fisher says (and we all know) that people tend to seek out mates who are similar to them in many ways:

“Psychologists have determined that men and women tend to fall in love with individuals from the same ethnic and socioeconomic background; with those of a similar level of intelligence, education and physical attractiveness; with individuals holding similar religious, political and social values; and with those who have a similar sense of humor.”

But beyond these factors, matchmaking involves a huge element of personality. Is there any rhyme or reason to what personalities we find attractive?

Geneticists have been able to map many traits to our DNA, and Helen Fisher says they’ve learned that our genes act together to create behavior syndromes.

“For example, if you have a biological appetite to seek novelty, you are also likely to be energetic, spontaneous, risk taking, curious and creative. If you are predisposed to be traditional instead, you are also likely to be loyal, cautious, respectful of authority and eager to make plans and follow schedules. We express constellations of related biological traits, creating what are commonly called personality types.

…

In fact, after doing extensive research on the biological underpinnings of personality types, I have come to believe that each of us expresses a unique mix of four broad basic personality types. Moreover, our primary personality type steers us toward specific romantic partners. Our biological nature whispers constantly within us to influence who we love.”

These four broad personality types are associated with four specific neurotransmitters and hormones: dopamine, serotonin, testosterone, and estrogen.

I haven’t read the book, and I’m not entirely clear on how this works. I know that both men and women have both testosterone and estrogen, but don’t men always have more testosterone, while women always have more estrogen? She talks about inheriting particular genes in the various hormone systems, so I guess it’s not necessarily that people have more of these neurotransmitters and hormones, just that they have genes that cause them to be more heavily influenced by them. Therefore, the personalities associated with testosterone and estrogen can be found in both men and women.

Anyway, she says we’re all a unique combination of the four types, which she calls the explorer (risk-taking, associated with dopamine), the builder (calm, traditional, associated with serotonin), the director (analytical, tough-minded and decisive, associated with testosterone) and the negotiator (emotionally expressive and empathetic, associated with estrogen).

Although she didn’t say one word about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in the articles I read, I noticed a striking (though not perfect) correlation between these types and the MBTI temperaments. Below we see the types, the associated neurotransmitter or hormone, the associated temperament (in my opinion), and the corresponding traits.

So which types attract each other? Fisher says that explorers go for other explorers, and builders go for other builders. But directors go for negotiators, and vice versa.

For now, I’m not convinced about this. I’ve always considered the MBTI to be useless for selecting jobs or partners. It’s great for understanding people, but not for filtering them. So if these four types can be mapped to Myers-Briggs types, my instinct is that they wouldn’t be good relationship predictors.

Then again, I haven’t spent a lifetime studying it. Maybe there’s something to this.

Dr. Fisher admits that types aren’t everything. She observed a “test date” between two explorers, who should be a good match based on type. But he says he’s into sports, while she calls herself a cultural woman. Having the right type isn’t enough unless the people have common interests, or at least a willingness to learn about each other’s interests.

Enough talk. Let’s find out what you are.

WhyHimWhyHer.com redirects to the test at chemistry.com (a sister site of match.com). Allow about 15 minutes for this. It’s a bit of a pain to get started, but worth it.

You have to create a username and password, but since you don’t ever need to log in again, you can just use random letters. I was going to say you can use Mailinator to get a throwaway email address, but the test gives you the results right there in the web page, so you can just make up a fake email.

The test is pretty interesting. The very first question is the only one about physical attributes. Specifically, the relative lengths of your index and ring fingers. I guess this is influenced by the neurotransmitters and hormones in question.

There are two items about visual perception, where you have to make one thing bigger or smaller until it’s the same size as another thing. The rest of the questions are normal personality questions.

I expected that the test would find me to be a director, and I was right. But it determines both a primary and a secondary type. I was a director (testosterone) for the primary, and a negotiator (estrogen) for the secondary. I don’t know if I’m thrilled about my secondary type being associated with estrogen, but the description does match me partially.

Do you think Dr. Helen Fisher is right? Do you think explorers are best matched with explorers, builders are best matched with builders, and directors are best matched with negotiators? If you’re married and willing to share what types you think you and your spouse are, that could be interesting.

Are rules just arbitrary hoops to jump through, meant only to demonstrate power and mete out punishment? Or are they necessary to prevent everything from slipping into anarchy and chaos?

Here’s one more post on this line of thought from Darkworker Supervisors Want Doctor’s Notes.

When rules are necessary

I’m really not “anti-rule” per se. I think that sometimes it’s essential to have very strict rules with no exceptions. A great example is anything about security.

Back when they were putting the post-9/11 security measures in place, a lot of objects that used to be perfectly fine on a plane were no longer allowed. There was even a pilot–not a passenger, but a pilot–who was stopped from bringing a fairly harmless item on board.

I don’t remember what the forbidden item was, but let’s say nail clippers. The pilot thought it was crazy that nail clippers were considered too dangerous, when there was an axe in the cockpit. Let’s just use some common sense. Shouldn’t they have let the pilot on board with the nail clippers?

Actually, no, they shouldn’t. In this particular case, the rule seemed pointless. But the problem is that once you start allowing people to bend the rules according to their judgment, you’re opening the floodgates for security breaches.

I worked at a company where we had to pick a password that contained a mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and numbers. It couldn’t be based on a dictionary word, it couldn’t be one we’d used before, and we had to change it very frequently. They wanted our passwords to be almost impossible to crack.

But do you know what the biggest cause of compromised passwords was? People were simply revealing their passwords when a stranger called them and asked nicely.

“Hey, this is Bob from tech support. We’re working on the network and trying to fix a problem that’s making everything run slower than normal – maybe you’ve noticed that. Can we take a look at your account real quick? What’s your password?”

And people were giving their passwords away like this. Yeah, it sounds like an obvious scam when you think about it, but many people would fall for it. It’s called the rule of authority: if someone seems like an authority, people won’t question them. That link points to Dean Rieck’s post about a TV reporter who staged a bank scam as an experiment, fooling 10 out of 10 customers, just by looking authoritative.

So if you’re a security guard, and a pilot wants to bring his nail clippers on board, you have to stop them. What if they’re not really the pilot? Maybe they just stole an ID card and managed to get someplace they’re not supposed to be. Maybe they’re going to leave the nail clippers for their friend to pick up, while they go for the axe. You need to do your job by serving as an additional safeguard. Besides, if you make one exception, it’s easier to make the next one. You only have to be wrong once for disaster to strike.

Photo by zzellers

When rules get in the way

On the other hand, many rules aren’t so necessary. In Darkworker Supervisors Want Doctor’s Notes, I talked about a supervisor who made up a pointless rule to enforce. They wanted an employee with ongoing health problems to provide two doctor’s notes per visit: one confirming that the appointment was made, and one confirming that the appointment was attended.

This wasn’t the company’s rule, but something the supervisor made up because they thought it was a good idea. It wasn’t. Even human resources didn’t understand the need.

Was it a doable request? Sure. Getting doctor’s notes isn’t hard. The problem is that it’s creating a needless hoop to jump through, while conveying a lack of trust.

But wait–without this rule, wouldn’t people abuse the system? Yes, some people might. Some people just want to coast through their job, doing the bare minimum not to get fired. Maybe they’d get a kick out of scheduling doctor’s appointments and not showing up, just to get out of work.

But why not address the problem directly? Why not fire the useless employees, instead of trying to control everyone with excessive rules?

I used to work at a company that had a clearly stated internet policy. Brief personal use of the internet was allowed, but you should make it quick and then get back to work. Fine. That’s how it should be, right?

Then one day they decided that some people were spending too much time on the internet, so they were thinking about disabling internet access for everyone. I thought that was a terrible idea.

First, it would have repercussions. People who used to spend five minutes a day scanning the news would instead be spending four hours a day bitching about how they had no internet access.

Second, it wouldn’t fix the problem. People who used to waste time on the internet would simply find a different way to waste time.

Instead of imposing this rule on everyone, why not tackle the problem directly? If someone’s spending a lot of time on the internet, why is that? If they don’t have enough work to do, then find out where they can help out. If they just don’t want to work, then fire them. This is not complicated.

Just today I spoke to someone who joined a company as VP a few months ago. He said one of the first things he did was get rid of the obvious underperforming employees. OK, that’s a good thing, but why were they there in the first place?

I worked at a company where I wasn’t allowed to remap my keyboard to the Dvorak layout (a more efficient alternative to QWERTY that greatly reduces hand strain). I had to actually get a doctor’s note saying it was medically necessary before they let me do it. So I eventually got around it, but it was a pointless hoop to jump through. Why would they make up a rule just to slow me down and give me carpal tunnel syndrome?

I worked at a company where someone got in trouble for installing Firefox, which was not the company’s “official browser.” Why did they care what browser he used? But anyway, if it was that important to them, they could have just asked him to uninstall it. Instead, they removed his adminstrative rights. That kept him from installing Firefox, but it also kept him from installing the applications his job specifically required. He couldn’t even set his clock to the right time.

And then there’s the whole ROWE vs. TOWE thing.

Of course, everyone needs to put up with some rules. But some rules are helpful, and some aren’t. Companies need to stop valuing compliance with pointless rules over performance. They also need to stop paying people who do nothing but slow their employees down. Companies make money by getting stuff done, not by following rules.

When rules appear to be pointless, but aren’t

I worked at a company where people weren’t allowed to install anything on their computer without getting it cleared by network support first. Some people thought this rule wasn’t important, and they decided to go ahead and install whatever they wanted.

But the rule was there for a good reason. A lot of the programs people were installing were introducing viruses into the network. And then network support had to waste a lot of time cleaning up this problem that shouldn’t have been there in the first place, if people had just followed the rules.

So what did the company do? They sent out periodic emails to everyone. These emails reminded people about the rule, but more importantly, explained why the rule was necessary.

Instead of treating people like children and saying “You’re going to do this because I said so,” it came off more like “This causes a lot of extra work for us, so we’re counting on you to help us out by simply asking before you install anything.”

If you need to start a rule, (1) make sure it does more good than harm, and (2) explain to people why it’s necessary, and get them on board with it. I see a lot of people in power failing at both of these.

But first, a trip back in time. For thousands of years, there have been ways of classifying personality types into four different temperaments. And while these temperaments have had different names over the years, they’ve described roughly the same behavior.

In 590 BC, Ezekiel called them ox (sturdy), lion (bold), eagle (far-seeing), and man (humane).

In 400 BC, Hippocrates called them somber (black bile), cheerful (blood), calm (phlegm), and enthusiastic (yellow bile).

In 340 BC, Plato called them sensible (pistic), artistic (iconic), reasoning (dianoetic), and intuitive (noetic).

In 325 BC, Aristotle called them material (propraietari), sensual (hedone), logical (dialogike), and ethical (ethikos).

In 185 AD, Irenaeus called them historical, spontaneous, scholarly, and spiritual.

There were many more names over the years, but you get the idea.

The current names for the temperaments come from David Keirsey’s work in 1998. He called them guardians, artisans, rationals, and idealists.

By then, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator had been well established. And it came as a big surprise when Keirsey discovered that the 16 Myers-Briggs types could be mapped perfectly to the 4 temperaments, as follows:

(This is a 4 to 1 mapping. For example, the guardians correspond to any MBTI type containing SJ, meaning ESTJ, ESFJ, ISTJ, and ISFJ.)

Not only do SJ, SP, NT, and NF map to the temperaments, but these 2-letter MBTI snippets happen to be the 2 letters that say the most about a person. Group people into these 4 temperaments, and you’ll get the starkest behavioral differences.

Isabel Briggs Myers protested incorporating temperaments into the MBTI theory, but it happened. (As you’ll see below, the temperaments often go by different names in an MBTI context.)

I find temperaments to be a very convenient way of describing someone’s personality in a nutshell. Without getting into a whole lot of details, we can look at the differences between the temperaments by going back to the bomb threats.

If you were in an office building when someone called in a bomb threat, what would you do? Here’s what’s likely for the different temperaments.

SJs (The Traditionalists):

SJs will whip out their procedure manuals, if they didn’t already have them memorized. They’ll follow the rules to the letter, making sure they did exactly what they were supposed to do in the event of an emergency.

SPs (The Experiencers):

SPs will spring into action, taking charge to make sure everyone gets evacuated. After getting a read on the situation, they’ll know what they have to do, and they’ll keep updating their plan on the fly as they get more information.

NTs (The Conceptualizers):

NTs will be fascinated by the situation. They’ll be less interested in evacuating the building than in discussing the possible motives for the bomb threat, whether it’s an effective strategy, and what the response should be.

NFs (The Idealists):

NFs will be terribly saddened that anyone would do such a thing. They’ll reflect on the state of humanity, what this world is coming to, and how they can help.

Now, do these blurbs really predict exactly what everyone would do? Of course not. In reality, a lot of people would probably just panic if there were an actual bomb threat. But this shows the theoretical differences in behavior. You’d be surprised how consistent people are in acting according to their temperament.

Back to the comments on Darkworker Supervisors Want Doctor’s Notes. I don’t like to type non-famous people without their consent, because some people don’t like it. However, Akemi from Yes to Me previously identified herself as an ENFP, while Dot from Deeper Issues identified herself as an ISTJ, and I’m an INTP.

As an NT, I was talking about how absurd this “two doctor’s notes per visit” policy is, and why they should change it.

As an NF, Akemi observed that the employee was giving away his power to others, and he needs to realize that he has the power to create his own reality.

As an SJ, Dot was saying that the rules exist for a reason, and it’s the employee’s responsibility to support the company’s policy.

All of which was perfectly predictable. Not that there are never exceptions, but people are almost always true to form. Escaping your temperament is about as likely as escaping your shadow.

What about you? What would you do during a bomb threat?

This post was originally going to have a much more mundane title. But while I was writing it, Christine O’Kelly published Turning Sh** Into Sugar, named after 50 Cent’s more colorful way of saying “turning lemons into lemonade.” At any rate, the saying and its reverse are appropriate here.

I’ve mentioned before that I often notice synchronicities, where two or more events coincidentally happen at the same time, in a way that makes you wonder whether it was really just a coincidence.

I also sometimes notice yin-yang pairings, where opposite events balance each other out. While these aren’t nearly as eerie as synchronicities, they’re still interesting to notice.

I’ve recently had a case of bad luck where customer service made it better, and a case of good luck where customer service made it worse. It all basically evened out in the end. But the important takeaway is that I remember my experience with customer service more than the amount of money I stood to gain or lose.

Best Buy: turning sugar into sh**

A couple of months ago, I got a letter from Best Buy. Apparently the DVD player I bought from them came with a warranty that was about to expire, and I had the option of paying to extend it. I never do warranties, so I ignored it.

But the next day, my DVD player broke. I wasn’t even using it at the time. Lights just started flashing, and then I couldn’t get it to work. Well, no problem, because I had just learned that I had a warranty!

I took my DVD player to Best Buy, and they said they’d send it off to be fixed. Weeks later, they called me to say they had ordered a part they needed, and they’d call again when it was ready.

Then I didn’t hear anything for a while, so I called them to find out what was going on. They said they couldn’t fix it, so  it had been approved for a “junk-out exchange,” meaning I could get a new DVD player. Hmmm, shouldn’t they have called me?

So then I went to Best Buy with my DVD player receipt, walked up to customer service, and explained what had happened. No one really knew what to do, so they passed me from person to person. The fourth person they sent me to was in the home electronics department.

I had noticed it before, and I really noticed it then, that Best Buy employees have a very clear strength and weakness. They’re great at answering very targeted questions that fall within their area of expertise. But they really suck at understanding customers and seeing beyond their exact words. My conversation with this guy went like this:

“Hi, my DVD player broke while it was under warranty, and it was approved for a junk-out exchange. You’re the fourth person they’ve sent me to, so am I in the right place? How does this work?”

“Well, the DVD players are right here.”

“OK, but how does this work with the junk-out exchange? Do I have to get the same model again, or what?”

“How old was your DVD player?”

“I guess a couple of years.”

“Then there’s no way you’re going to find the same model. They wouldn’t make it anymore.”

“Fine, then how does this work? Do I get a credit based on how much it cost?”

“Dude, they’re not going to give you what it cost back then, because it’s depreciated. They’ll give you what it would be worth today.”

“Fine, then how much do I get?”

“Well, look at these new models, and how much they cost. Yours wouldn’t be worth that much.”

“Fine, but who’s the person who decides exactly how much I get? Is that person you, or am I in the wrong place?”

What I was really thinking at this point was “I’M SORRY I DON’T KNOW WHAT MAGIC WORDS I’M REQUIRED TO SAY, BUT THIS SHOULDN’T BE COMPLICATED! JUST TELL ME HOW IT WORKS, AND MAKE IT HAPPEN!”

I kept asking questions, including whether I could use the money on something other than a DVD player (since someone had given me their old DVD player by then). He said I could get store credit instead, and that seemed simpler. He said if I went back to customer service, they would determine how much credit I’d get.

So I went back to customer service, wondering why the previous three people I had spoken to didn’t tell me how much money I’d get, or that I could get it as store credit.

I spoke to someone who ended up passing me on to someone else. Fortunately, that person seemed to be the smartest Best Buy employee in the world. She went to work, pushing a bunch of buttons in the blink of an eye, and gave me $420 in store credit. Ka-ching!

I don’t know if that was a mistake or not. There’s no way my old DVD player (which turned out to be 4 years old) would be worth $420 today. I have a hard time believing it was worth $420 back then. But whatever. I was pleased with the outcome.

Now you’d think that would be the end of the story, but no. A few days later, Best Buy called and left me a voice message, informing me that my DVD player had been approved for a junk-out exchange, so I could come in and get a new DVD player. OK, I guess they hadn’t updated their records yet. I called back, but no one answered.

Then a week later (yesterday), they called again, saying I needed to come in to get my new DVD player. Wow, they really didn’t know I had already taken care of it. And while I saw an easy opportunity to repeat the process and get another $420, I didn’t do it. Instead, I told them what happened, spent a few minutes on hold, and read them some numbers, so they could have enough information to update their records.

It’s disappointing to see this kind of scatterbrained customer service at the company that invented the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), which is supposed to boost productivity by up to 35%. But I have no idea if these particular people were ROWE employees.

So this story was about having good luck by gaining money, which was made worse by bad customer service. The next one is about having bad luck by losing money, which was made better by good customer service.

Jonathan Fields: turning sh** into sugar

Last month, I pre-ordered Jonathan Fields’ book Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love. Amazon sent me an email on 1/11 saying that it had been shipped, with an estimated delivery date of 1/15.

As I patiently awaited that date, I was playfully but mercilessly mocked on Twitter by @betsywuebker and @thinkmaya, who received their copies early.

When I still hadn’t received it by 1/17 (yesterday), I looked it up on both Amazon and usps.com. It said it was delivered on 1/13! Well, considering I didn’t have it, that’s a very interesting definition of “delivered.”

All my incoming packages go through the concierge, and she said the logs didn’t show any packages for me around that date. I could only think that it was delivered to the wrong person, and they decided to keep it for themselves.

I didn’t think there was anything I could do. Amazon didn’t do anything wrong, and the post office had no liability. Maybe there was a chance that the post office could figure out where it really went, but what would I do? Go to that address, knock on the door, and say “Hey, can I borrow my book when you’re finished?”

I sent an email to the career renegade himself, Jonathan Fields. I told him what had happened, and asked if his publisher might have any extra review copies they could part with. He could have said “sucks to be you,” or that it wasn’t his problem, or that I needed to go talk to someone else. Instead, he said he’d send me another copy. Simple as that, problem solved.

(Actually, the book arrived later that day, so I told Jonathan thanks, but never mind. It appears to have been delivered to the wrong building on 1/13, but instead of walking it across the street to me, the person popped it back in the mail. I’m not done reading it yet, but it’s great so far!)

It’s interesting that customer service can turn losing a book into a good experience, or turn a surprise $420 bonus into a bad experience. So the question then…when it’s up to you, will you turn sh** into sugar, or sugar into sh**?

In 1887, L. L. Zamenhof published the Unua Libro (First Book). It was the first book that described the language he invented, Lingvo Internacia (international language), which was later renamed as Esperanto (one who hopes).

He believed that much world conflict was caused by isolation and misunderstanding, so he designed a language that would be very easy for everyone to learn, no matter where they’re from. The idea is that Esperanto would serve as a universal second language. Everyone would learn the native language of their homeland, but they’d also learn the language that would let them communicate with anyone.

Esperanto has been described as a linguistic handshake. If I’m talking to someone from China, the only way we can communicate is if they’ve made an enormous effort to learn my language. Meanwhile, I’ve made absolutely no attempt to learn theirs. It’s completely one-sided.

What happens in a handshake? Both people extend their arms and meet halfway. And so it is with Esperanto, when two people from completely different cultures can meet on neutral ground.

Photo by ElektraCute

Obviously, it hasn’t exactly taken off like the metric system. The percentage of the world that speaks it is estimated to be 0.03%, and possibly far less. But it does work. There are actually some people who speak Esperanto as their native language, often because their parents don’t have any other language in common.

If Esperanto’s time hasn’t come yet, what other tool can we use to promote peace and understanding? How about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?

People often think of the MBTI as a career planning instrument, though I don’t think it’s helpful in that regard. To me, it’s always been a simple way of describing the essence of someone’s personality. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then your 4 letters are worth a whole heck of a lot of words too. And what this comes down to is better understanding of ourselves and others.

I thought about this while watching an episode of The Office a couple days ago. Pam Beesly, an ISFP, went to put her food in the microwave, and found a disgusting mess. In perfect ISFP fashion, she printed the following note on yellow paper and taped it over the microwave:

TO WHOEVER MADE THE MICROWAVE MESS:

THE MICROWAVE IS A SHARED
KITCHEN APPLIANCE.

BY NOT CLEANING IT UP, YOU
ARE BASICALLY TELLING WHOEVER
FOLLOWS THAT THEIR TIME IS LESS
VALUABLE, AS THEY WILL HAVE TO SCRUB
OUT YOUR DISGUSTING SPLATTER.

SINCERELY,

DISAPPOINTED

Later, she comes back to the kitchen to see her coworkers’ reaction as they see the mess and the note. (Remember they don’t know who’s responsible for either.) This conversation ensued:

Andy (ESFP): That is just obnoxious.

Oscar (ISTJ): No kidding.

Pam (ISFP): Yeah…Wait, what, the mess, or the note?

Oscar (ISTJ): The note. So holier than thou.

Angela (ISTJ): Hmm. I liked it.

Pam (ISFP): Don’t you think the person who left the mess is the obnoxious one?

Andy (ESFP): No! The note is way more obnoxious than the mess.

Meredith (ISTP): “Sincerely, disappointed?” Get off your high horse, richie!

Pam (ISFP): Just because someone likes things clean doesn’t mean they’re rich.

Meredith (ISTP): Nah, they’re rich.

Lots of conflict here, because people aren’t thinking about where the other person is coming from. So they label someone as “holier than thou” instead of ISFP. (Or “bitch” instead of ENTJ, etc.)

One set of labels says “You’re different from me, so I’m going to disregard you or insult you.” The other says “You’re different from me, so I’m going to figure out why you are the way you are, and see how we can get along. And if we can’t get along, then at least we can respect our differences.”

That’s one of the great things about the MBTI – it helps us appreciate people who are very different from us. A few months ago, I got pulled over for “disregarding a stop sign.” The cop said I didn’t even remotely come to a complete stop, and he was almost laughing because he couldn’t believe what I did.

Here’s what the cop, an ISTJ, was probably thinking:

“Are you blind? Did you not see the stop sign? Did you not know what you were supposed to do? How could you fail at such a simple task? Didn’t you learn this the first week of driver’s ed?”

Here’s what I, an INTP, was thinking:

“There wasn’t another car in sight. It was pitch black, so I would’ve seen their headlights a mile away. The purpose of a stop sign is to manage traffic at an intersection. If there’s no traffic to speak of, why would I come to a complete stop, wasting gas and wearing down my brake pads, knowing in advance that I was just going to start back up immediately? I’m surprised I even took my foot off the gas.”

Not that this would get me out of a ticket, but at least the cop wouldn’t leave thinking that some people don’t know what a stop sign is. If he had read The Personality Puzzle, he could have said, “License, registration, and Myers-Briggs Type.” Upon hearing “INTP,” he could have said, “Well, sorry about the dumb rule, but technically I still have to give you a ticket. It’s my sworn duty. Now do you want to talk about The Matrix?”

Image from The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

It’s hard to believe we’ve already reached the 10th anniversary of The Matrix. It’s a good time to remember that reality isn’t nearly as objective, straightforward, and deterministic as it seems. Instead, it’s a bizarre combination of free will, destiny and randomness that I haven’t figured out yet.

The world is constantly evolving, and in order to move along its path, it needs all kinds of people. No one is better or worse than anyone else, because we all have our part to play. We can’t all be Neo, whose purpose was to end the war between the humans and the machines.

• Someone needs to be Morpheus, whose purpose was to free Neo from the Matrix.
• Someone needs to be Tank, whose purpose was to save Neo and Trinity from Cypher’s betrayal.
• Someone needs to be Thadeus, whose purpose was to warn everyone that the machines were amassing an army to attack Zion.
• Someone needs to be the Keymaker, whose purpose was to give Neo the key that would let him reach the Source.
• Someone needs to be Trinity, whose purpose was to give Neo a choice of not rebooting the Matrix and rebuilding Zion.

All of these people have a purpose, and if one fails, we all fail. So let’s support each other in doing what we’re each supposed to do, whatever that may be.

Now, to clear up a few misconceptions about personality:

1. There are no bad types.

This is a really hard thing for many people to accept, but all types are equal. Social conditioning may have convinced you that your personality is flawed, or that you should be more like this person or that person. That’s crazy. Your personality is just as it’s supposed to be. You don’t need to change anything.

Go ahead and acknowledge your weaknesses, address them if you want to, but don’t beat yourself up about them. Anything you’d like to change about yourself is the flip side of something you like about yourself. You can’t have one without the other.

Questions like “Why can’t I be more organized?” or “Why do I just blurt things out?” point to the inherent consequences of your type. Even if you could change your personality, you couldn’t drop the downside without sacrificing the upside. The yin must balance the yang.

2. Your type doesn’t limit you in any way.

A lot of people are afraid of labels, but labels are not bad unless you misuse them. Your type isn’t a box or a prison, but simply a description of your preferences. If you generally prefer chocolate over vanilla, you wouldn’t be offended if I said “You seem to prefer chocolate.” It doesn’t make sense to be offended by your own preferences.

That goes for personality too. Preferring one side of a spectrum doesn’t mean that you couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t ever go near the other. Identifying your preferences and learning about yourself does not restrict your options, it expands them.

3. Your type is what it is. It’s not what a test tells you.

“Do you know your type?”

“Yeah, I took one test that said I was an ISFJ, but another one said I was an ISFP.”

“OK, that’s what the tests said, but what’s your real type?”

“Well, the tests said…”

“Don’t tell me what the tests said. Tell me what you are. You know yourself pretty well, don’t you?”

“Well, I guess I’m not entirely sure what the letters mean.”

“Ah, then that’s what you should work on!”

If someone measures your height at 5′9″, and someone else measures it at 5′10″, does that mean your height is messed up, or inconsistent, or a huge mystery? No, it just means that at least one of the measurements was off. That happens, because some things are hard to measure. But the answer isn’t dependent on any one measurement.

It’s like fingernails on a blackboard to me when I see people making ridiculous claims about people’s types. Tony Montana, an ENTJ? Have you lost it? Darth Vader, an INFP? Are you mental?

Even better is when people make one unsupported wild guess after another. “Barack Obama? Maybe he’s an ENTP. Or maybe an ENFJ. Or how about INFP? Hey, what about INTJ?” Guys, these types aren’t remotely similar! Either learn more about what the letters mean or learn more about Obama, but stop shouting out random letters!

How would you determine a dog’s breed? You’d observe the dog, learn about the different breeds, and make an educated guess, right? You wouldn’t say “Maybe he’s a Chihuahua, or a Poodle, or a Great Dane, or a cat, or a pig, or a bird…”

It’s not always easy to figure out your own type, let alone someone else’s. For one thing, the words don’t mean what you’d think they mean. Like “extravert” doesn’t mean social, “judging” certainly doesn’t mean judgmental, and even “intuition” doesn’t mean intuition. I still can’t believe I once left an MBTI workshop thinking I was an ISTJ. Another thing is that you don’t act the same way all the time, and even if you did, your behavior isn’t a perfect reflection of your personality.

Despite the difficulties, it’s well worth your while to learn what makes people tick. And now you can order The Personality Puzzle at 20% off the regular price of $27 (you can verify the reduced price in your shopping cart). The price goes back up on Sunday at 11:59 PM EST.

Whether you take advantage of this offer or not, I hope that in 2009 you take big steps down your chosen path, and improve both your alignment with your true self and your connections with other people. That is my New Year’s wish for you, and for the world.

I can tell you that vanilla is the best ice cream flavor in the world. I can tell you why it’s so much better than all the other flavors. I can tell you that it outsells chocolate 3 to 1.

But when all is said and done, none of that matters, because maybe you just like chocolate better. And that’s OK.

And maybe I like vanilla better, and that’s OK too.

Advice. We love to give it, we hate to receive it. I’m talking about everything from the very gentle “why don’t you try it this way” to the very blunt “you must die now.” It’s very easy to create unintended consequences with seemingly harmless advice, especially if you’ve been infected with the critic virus.

Differences of opinion

Once my boss said to me, “Nice tie. But it needs to hang a little lower.” I looked at my tie and thought it looked fine. Then I saw that his tie came down really low. I said, “Well, they say it’s supposed to just touch the top of your belt buckle, but I like it to go a little bit lower than that.” He said, “No, it’s supposed to completely cover your belt buckle. Look it up.” I said, “I did look it up. You look it up. Anyway, it’s a matter of opinion.” This eventually reached the “I know you are, but what am I” stage before it was broken up by a phone call.

At another job, my boss saw me in a tie and said, “Nice tie. But it’s coming down too low.” I just groaned and said “No, it’s not,” probably sounding more annoyed than the situation warranted, just because I wasn’t interested in going through that again. What was I supposed to say? “Thanks for the advice. My opinion of how to tie a tie has suddenly changed to match your opinion. I’ll continue tying it that way until the next person disagrees.” No, that would sound too sarcastic.

Dumb advice

Some advice is just plain wrong. Once I was at my juggling club, attempting a trick under a ceiling that was really too low for it. Someone said, “You’re throwing the balls way too fast.” I said, “I agree, but that’s because the ceiling’s too low.” He said, “Well, I’ve seen someone do that at the same height, but he did it much slower.”

At first I thought he was kidding, but no, he just didn’t have much of a grasp on the laws of physics. What was I supposed to say? “Brilliant advice! I’ll just work on changing the acceleration due to gravity. Dumbass!” No, that would be too mean.

Angry comments

I recently received this comment on my blog, in which I’ll *** out some of the words:

“You sick ******* liberal piece of ****. You’re a coward and a sick pathetic fool like all liberals. You spit on the graves of every dead victim of Terrorism and in the faces of every American soldier. You’re nothing but a parasite on society. I hope you get to watch your family members die in front of you in a terrorist attack.”

Gee, don’t hold back. Why don’t you tell me what you really think?

It’s still in my moderation queue, but I’m thinking “mark as spam and delete.” And the person who left it was anonymous of course, so I’m curious about his definition of “coward.” I’m also curious about the kind of person who leaves comments like this. I wonder if these people are 40 year old drug addicts living in their parents’ basement, or if they appear normal most of the time and only turn angry under the veil of anonymity.

But actually, this kind of criticism is the easiest to deal with. It’s clearly not based in reality (am I even a liberal?), nor do I feel the need to respond, so all I have to do is delete it. Problem solved.

“I’m just trying to help”

The toughest criticism to deal with is the kind that comes from people who are “just trying to help.” What is that supposed to mean, anyway? If you’re “just trying to help,” is that supposed to give you immunity? Having good intentions might get you off on manslaughter instead of murder, but wouldn’t it have been better not to kill anyone?

I don’t care if someone is “trying to help.” In fact, it makes it worse. Because instead of just ignoring criticism from someone who’s not trying to help, I have to think of a way to politely say, “Thanks for your advice, but I’m going to ignore it. I hope you’re not mad, but you’re wrong because…”

Come to think of it, needing to respond is the only reason I have a problem receiving criticism. If someone criticizes me on their blog, I can just read it and decide whether I want to respond. But if someone sends me an email or approaches me in person, and tells me what I’m doing wrong, I have to say something. But what? Here are some possibilities, though not necessarily in the exact wording you would use:

Option 1: “You’re right! I never thought about it that way, and now I totally agree.”

This is possible, but not that likely unless there’s a teacher-student relationship or something like that. If it’s advice from one peer to another, then to achieve this happy ending, the critic would have to not only know what they’re talking about, but also be on the same wavelength as the other person. There are lots of different wavelengths.

Option 2: “I understand that you have your opinion. But obviously I disagree, or I would have already been doing it that way. I disagree because…”

This settles the matter by explaining why you’re not going to listen to them, but it’s not what they want to hear. It’s likely to result in “Geez, I’m just trying to help.”

Option 3: “Thanks, I’ll think about it.”

There are some cases where you’ll eventually change your mind after you hear enough about it. I didn’t use Gmail right away, but someone told me about it a few times, and then one day when I needed to email myself a file too big for Yahoo to handle, I got a Gmail account. And there have been times when I was considering something, but just hadn’t been fully persuaded yet, so I was open to any input. Advice can potentially be very constructive when phrased as “Consider doing this…” instead of “You suck because…”

“I’ll think about it” actually seems like a very good response because it shows that you’re listening, but it doesn’t commit you to anything. On the other hand, is it OK to say you’ll think about it, if you know that you really won’t? If someone tells me “Your posts are too wordy, you should just list a few bullet points,” should I say “OK, I’ll think about it,” or should I explain why I’m not going to do it?

Tips for giving advice:

1. Remember that they didn’t ask for your advice. But if you really think you can help, approach with caution.

2. Give one piece of advice at a time. They don’t want a list of the top 10 reasons they suck.

3. Realize that your opinion is just your opinion. They might have a different one. So might billions of other people.

4. Don’t get mad if they don’t comply. Maybe they just have different tastes. Or maybe they’re just not there yet. Or maybe your sales pitch sucks.

Tips for receiving advice:

1. Comments from drunk morons…just ignore them.

2. If it’s helpful advice like “This link is broken” or “You have parsley stuck in your teeth,” say “Thanks!”

3. If the advice is potentially helpful but you’re not ready to jump on it yet, say “Thanks, I’ll think about it.”

4. If you disagree with the advice, or you’re sick of hearing it, or the person doesn’t know what they’re talking about…well, I don’t know. Your thoughts?

Recently I’ve read two blog posts that spawned major debates in the comments. In one of these posts, there were many people commenting on multiple sides of an issue, with lots of well-reasoned arguments as well as a lot of emotion. It was very entertaining to read. Perhaps it went a bit too far, but everyone seemed fine in the end.

But in the other one, things got completely out of hand. One person was extremely disrespectful of others and repeatedly went out of his way to be rude. Surprisingly, the blog owner seemed OK with it. I stepped in with a comment to try to calm things down, and the owner emailed me. It turns out that the rude commenter had ultimately been blacklisted. I guess the owner wasn’t as OK with it as I thought.

While the second case was obviously an example of what not to do, I think a little disagreement is a good thing. When I see environments where everyone is always agreeing about everything, it just seems a little fake to me. People are supposed to be different. If your opinion is different from someone else’s, that’s OK.

When it comes to this blog, I don’t want anyone to feel that they can’t disagree with me. It’s good to share different viewpoints, and sometimes we can all learn a lot from disagreement. Of course, I can’t say that I’ll agree with everything you say, but at least I’ll listen.

Then again, there’s a right way and a wrong way to disagree. Here are some tips for disagreeing on this blog or anywhere else.

1. Decide what you want to gain by arguing. If I see a blogger post something completely ignorant and irresponsible, sometimes I want to cause trouble. But in most cases I don’t. If your goal is just to politely offer a different point of view, keep this in mind as you write your comment, and don’t take it too far.

2. Be respectful of other people. If you come off as being a raving lunatic hell-bent on putting other people down, no good will come of it.

3. You don’t have to argue about everything you disagree with. It’s important to pick your battles, and every disagreement is a tiny battle. A little bit now and then is fine, but if you’re constantly nitpicking, people will quickly tire of you.

4. If possible, agree before you disagree. If you generally agree with what someone said and you just want to argue with one point, be sure to comment on what you liked first. It makes your criticism seem less harsh, and people will be more willing to try to see things your way.

5. Don’t think you have to finish every argument. Outside of a formal debate, there won’t necessarily be a winner of an argument. After you make your point, a lot of back and forth is probably not going to help. Say it, be heard, but don’t beat a dead horse.

You might not have noticed that the photo at the top is a photoshopped image of someone arguing with himself. I think this is an appropriate image because it shows that a disagreement doesn’t have to be “us” vs. “them.” We can all be on the same team, and just toss around different opinions because it keeps things interesting and helps expand our thoughts. If we can just argue in a respectful way, I’m sure we can agree to disagree.

This was an old draft post that had been sitting around since February. I’m posting it now because I’m about to write a post about constructive criticism, and I was reminded of this post.

By the way, those of you who read IttyBiz know that Naomi turned off comments not that long ago. She said her blog was meant to be a lecture, not a conversation, and that lame comments were impacting her writing, driving away nice people, and giving bad advice.

I think it’s perfectly fine to decide that your blog will not be a conversation, but that’s not the direction I’m taking with my blog. Feel free to converse!

I see some people out there saying that a certain blogger deleted their comment, and how dare they censor them, and why don’t they believe in the value of debate, and the First Amendment guarantees them the right to leave any comment they want (though it doesn’t), etc.

I’ve never written up a comment policy, but suffice it to say that I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason. Yes, that’s censorship. Of course I’m going to censor some things. I don’t guarantee anyone the right to leave blog graffiti here.

Having said that, I’m not going to delete a comment simply because I disagree with it. Disagreement is fine. A comment would need to contain a rather large amount of rudeness and/or stupidity for me to delete it, and fortunately, I get very few of those.

I Am Legend is about a just-around-the-corner future where they find a cure for cancer by genetically re-engineering the measles virus. But the virus mutates into an airborne strain with catastrophic results.

90% of the world’s population is killed.

9% mutate into evil vampire zombies like the one above. They’re extremely hostile, have superhuman strength, and have a one-track mind focused on killing people. Fortunately, they can only come out at night because of their painful sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation.

(The pic comes from the alternate ending where they all decide to become friends. You can see the love in their eyes.)

1% are immune to the virus. This sounds good, until you consider that these people have to constantly defend themselves from hordes of evil vampire zombies.

That’s how it goes with critics too. I’m not talking about people who simply have different opinions, but people who tell you that you need to change. There seems to be some kind of airborne critic virus that affects people differently.

90% of your critics are dead to constructive criticism. They can only offer completely useless feedback like “you suck.”

9% of your critics are mutants who retain some of their humanity, but aren’t helpful. This can be because they have unreasonable demands, or they’re not seeing all sides of the situation, or maybe they simply have opinions that are perfectly valid, just being expressed in an overly confrontational way. Unfortunately, ultraviolet light does not deter them.

In Ode To My Hatemail, Naomi Dunford gives a long list of complaints she’s received about Online Business School. These complaints are not only really picky, but they contradict each other.

Some people complained that they hate audio, and want it all to be video. Others complained that they hate video, and want it all to be audio. And others complained that they hate PDFs, and wonder why she thinks people are deaf and need transcripts. This is the thanks she gets for making everything available in different formats to make everyone happy.

But 1% of your critics are the people you need to listen to. No one is perfect, and there are always things we can do better. When someone offers good constructive advice, we should listen. But how do you know who to listen to?

You might not, at first. It might take some time for the advice to sink in, or you might need to hear it from multiple people. But what you want to look for is people who know what they’re talking about, understand your situation, and want to help you.

But sometimes after fighting off so many of the bad critics, we fail to recognize the good ones. Robert Neville (Will Smith) survived by only going out in the daylight, covering his tracks with rubbing alcohol, rigging his property with UV spotlights and explosives, and sleeping in a bathtub with his assault rifle. Not much of a life. By the time he finally met another immune person, he had forgotten how to be human.

Don’t hide from your critics, just know who to pay attention to. Also be careful when you’re the critic.