The Hanover Collaboration

I’ve done a little bit of job applications before but never in earnest. I recently lost some naivete that I think I should share with you.

I already knew that hiring people are always very positive. They want to keep their options open. If it is possible under the most improbable set of circumstances that they might want to hire you someday in the future, they want to keep that option. So I don’t get excited when I have good interviews and hear encouraging things from HR or management.

What I didn’t know was how far they’ll go. I just had a job offer rescinded after a month. During that month I passed up a number of opportunities that I’m probably not going to get back.

I just learned to keep hunting until a contract is signed. And if you’re going to be working “at-will”, I would keep job hunting until I had my name on a door… and not in paper.

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to increase the amount of soccer playing in my life over the last year or so. Mostly it’s been pick-up and co-ed intramural or city league teams.

I really love soccer, but haven’t always enjoyed actually playing the game, so it’s been great to have fun playing again. I’ve discovered that they key is to find a group of people that are (a) pretty good and (b) not assholes.

(b) is harder than you might think. The main problem is that when it comes to recreational soccer (or athletics in general) many of the assholes aren’t really aware that they are, in fact, assholes. What follows is a simple guide for identifying assholes, even if they happen to be you!

There are essentially three classes of rec soccer assholes.

1. Knowingly malicious assholes
2. Obliviously malicious assholes
3. Momentary assholes

Some basic observations: (1) and (2) are assholes pretty much all the time (when playing soccer). (3) are only assholes when they are (or feel) provoked, resulting in a sudden, usually short lived burst of assholish-ness.

Those falling under (1) generally tend to remain assholes even when not playing soccer, whereas (2) tend to be pretty cool people off the field. (3) will appear like the exact opposite of assholes until suddenly you seem them running at another player wielding a flaming baseball bat and describing unholy acts between themselves and the offending player’s close female relations.

How can you tell if you are one of these assholes? Let’s take them in order of ease of identification:

1. Do people routinely call you an asshole? Are you generally disliked? Do you really enjoy hurting people, both emotionally and physically? You are probably a type (1) asshole. There’s not much we can do about these assholes, except give them a wide berth and if possible ignore them.
2. When playing soccer, do you find yourself routinely exclaiming “But I got the ball!” in order to excuse the obvious pain of someone lying on the ground? Are you often pulled aside by teammates and asked, politely, to chill out? Are you genuinely baffled by both of these trends? You are probably a type (2) asshole. You obviously don’t realize it, but you are a danger to yourself and others. You may not mean any harm, but due either to lack or coordination, excessive enthusiasm or some combination of these, you are placing your limbs in the paths of others at much too high a rate of speed. Luckily, there is hope, as type (2) assholes can be reformed (c.f. Rich). Just concentrate on doing things more slowly, and don’t kick at the ball unless you are really sure you can actually touch the ball. Type (2) assholes should be nurtured, not shunned, for they truly know not what they do. Patient, polite reminders are necessary. Avoid retaliating, as they will not understand why you are fouling them. It will just make them mad, and push them towards type (1).
3. Are you quiet person? Does the thought of actually fighting another human being make you tremble? Do you tend to let things irritate you for so long without saying anything that when you finally lose it, you do things that you regret for years? You are the most elusive asshole: type (3). The key here is to resist that retaliatory urge, perhaps by channeling it elsewhere. Yes, we know that guy fouled you. It’s ok. Buy a punching bag. Strangle a puppy. Something. Type (3) assholes are very difficult to spot. The most reliable method found so far is to place people in a situation where they are playing with a large number of type (2) assholes. The type (3) assholes will show themselves eventually. Once a type (3) assholes has been identified, extreme caution is advised. Pay close attention to their mood and facial expressions. Type (3) assholes hold onto shit for very long periods of time, so their apocalyptic nuclear strike of a foul may come days, or even weeks, after the fact. The key is to learn to recognize the early warning signs of building frustration. The nice part is that simply talking to the type (3) asshole rationally about it often defuses their (subsumed) anger. (Full disclosure: I am a partially reformed type (3) asshole.)

Finally, I should make a note about how we should react to assholes when they do something asshole-ish. We’ve all seen it happen, some type (i) asshole just totally fucking wails on some poor undeserving player. This usually results in large numbers of people running up to the asshole and screaming at his face about what an asshole he is.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I have never, ever, witnessed an asshole (of type (1), (2) or (3)) respond to this by saying, “You know, it never occurred to me, but know that you’re screaming horrible things at me and shoving me, I realize that my actions were wrong. I sincerely apologize and promise to never do that again.” The only thing you are provoking is more asshole-ish behavior. So next time someone’s an asshole on the soccer field, take a few breaths. Relax. Is someone talking to them calmly about their asshole-ish-ness? Yes? Good. No need for you to do anything. Go get a drink of water. Take a breather. Consider yourself lucky that you have now identified an asshole and can avoid them on the field in the future.

So there you have it. If you’ve discovered while reading this that you are, in fact, an asshole, do not despair! There is hope for you! Unless you’re a type (1) asshole, in which case FUCK OFF!

Ever since the Airtran Cup thing, I’ve gotten a lot more familiar with the Wendies Menu. The menu from one on Mass ave at Berkley contains:

#Junior Cheeseburger $.99 #Junior Cheeseburger Deluxe $.99 #Junior Bacon Cheeseburger $.99

If you’re unfamiliar with Wendy’s fare {JCD}—{JC} = {pickles, onions, mustard} and {JBC}—{JC} = {bacon}.

You can’t ask for a “Junior Bacon Cheeseburger Deluxe” since that isn’t on the menu—get kicked out of the store. If you ask for a “Junior Cheeseburger Deluxe with bacon” if you’re lucky, you’ll get a sandwich but it’ll costs you $1.39. Chances are good that you don’t get anywhere with that order either.

The correct thing to order is a “Junior Bacon Cheeseburger with pickles, onions and mustard” since adding those items is explicitly allowed at no charge¹. But it is perilous to order with that particular wording because you will find yourself with a cheeseburger lacking tomato and lettuce and mayo. What tends to work for me is, “Junior Bacon Cheeseburger to which I would like added [pause] pickles, onions and mustard.”

The key is to stress the word add. They are going to need to press a special button to make your order work… a button that says “ADD” on it. Then you watch their eyes and gauge the level of fear—you need to be prepared to quickly call it off to avoid destroying the whole restaurant.

Another insider Wendy’s trick is that you can get ground up M&M’s in your frosty for $.30 extra (and occasionally for free if the cashier is new or flustered from your JBCD).

¹ While the posters say that they even encourage this sort of customization, in practice it would seem otherwise.

I have never been too keen on the idea of winter camping but I got some very nice mittens for Christmas and I think I’m going to give it a go. I was wondering if any of you guys have any good advice in the technique or gear departments.

Not you, somebody else: Hey advice column guy, I’ve got a problem.
—Negative Adjective

Advice Column Guy: Dear Negative Adjective,
Imagine you’re driving somewhere and you make a wrong turn, drive for a little while and then realize it. What do you do?

Let n be the fraction of the time that the optimal action is to turn around and drive straight back to where you made the wrong turn. I think people tend to choose that action substantially less than n of the time.

Let me try to be more clear. You were driving from A to B via C at which point you drove from C to C’ which is not on the optimal route from A to B. Suppose the optimal route from C’ to B goes through C. People prefer not to retrace C’ to C or even to go through C again at all. My question is why?

Is it that they don’t want to admit a mistake? That could be, but I don’t think that is quite it. I think it is that people feel “invested” in C to C’ or that they are “committed” to the new plan. Backtracking would be to sacrifice that investment—to show a lack of commitment. Or maybe people simply forget that C to C’ is sunk and shouldn’t be considered in the C’ to B problem.

Due to this affect, it seems that plans generate a strange momentum. You know what it is like. You accumulate commitments to all kinds of people and activities. “I’d love to but I have to…” you hear people say. Maybe it has something to do with the high seating of “responsibility” in the pantheon of virtue. When you say that you will do something, you have to do it. Sounds good right? Maybe not. What if future information tells you that not doing it is the better course of action? Do you still do it? What if you never actually said it but rather just told yourself that you would do it? [1]

I often find myself advising people to “take a step back”. What does that mean anyway? I mean that it is easy to lose track of primary goals in pursuit of subgoals. But the subgoals are not what matter; you are totally free to punt on them.

I define plan as a weakly-ordered set of subgoals that terminate with a primary goal. If the plan is going shitty, for instance failing subgoals, you don’t have to “stick to it” you can just make up a new plan.
—akward positive adverb,
Advice Column Guy

¹ philosophical side quest What if you promised someone something on their deathbed. Noone else knows that you made this promise. Under what circumstances would you break that promise? I seem to be abnormal in that I would have no trouble breaking that promise. That’s a heads up to you guys—If you want something tedious done with your ashes or Beany-Baby collection or something, you should ask someone else.