"How Do You Handle Confrontation?" (Interview Question)

From comments on a friend's wall.

Whatever your response to the interviewer, it's good if you're transparent about it. You're figuring out a mutual operation fit, as it's best to work with people who have similar modus operandi.

The question is not just about how you handle criticism. That's a very small part of it. Let's unpack the question.

A workplace interviewer wants to know what you're likely to do (i) before, (ii) during, and (iii) after a confrontation?

(i) Before: leading up to confrontations. It's really a question about what makes you uncomfortable; this can be elaborated further.

(ii) During: how do you react to personal discomfort of any kind? This includes cold-wars and silent treatments; this can be elaborated further.

(iii) After: how do past engagements tend to affect your work afterwards? This can be elaborated further.

Usually people discuss (ii) only due to the wording of the question. Receiving criticism is only one of many (i/ii)s and so it is only a small part of the system under investigation. :)

Types of (i)s:

- colleague has body odour
- colleague speaks/acts offensively
- colleague speaks unclearly
- colleague makes a proposition/statement you don't agree with
- colleague acts in ways competitively damaging to organisation; non-criminal/civil offense
- colleague acts with civil/criminal offense

Roughhhhly... it's worth thinking about these case studies. What are your (i)s and subsequent (ii)s? And of course "colleague" can be subbed out for counterparties: regulators, suppliers, customers, neighbours, shareholders, other stakeholders...

Helping Friends Analyse "Rape," "Rape Accusations," and "Rape Convictions"

I am both trying to keep this short, as well as detailed enough to be interesting, so bear with me.

I think "false rape," is a categorical error; rapes cannot be "true or false", they can only "exist or not exist" as states of affairs; and it is statements about states of affairs which can be "true or false" (aha, statements about states of affairs can also "exist or not exist", but that's another story).

(1)

Rape proposition, R:
["X raped Y, at L time, in M place, under additional ABC circumstances", where X, Y, L, M, ABC exists.]

Rape Accusation proposition, RA:
["A asserts that R is a true proposition", where A exists, whereas the truth of R is undetermined.]

Rape Legal Conviction proposition, RLC:
["R is officially recognised under L legal system as a true proposition", where L exists, whereas the truth of R is undetermined.]

(2)

Somewhat counter-intuitively, none of these three propositions R, RA, and RLC, imply or contradict any of the others. You can have any one or two of them false, and the rest true, or all of them false, or all of them true. These are not contradictory scenarios.

(3)

I would propose that the centrist position acknowledges all of the following:

(3.1.)'Y's should be encouraged and supported in filing 'RA's

(3.2.) law enforcers should be encouraged and supported in determining the truth of 'RA's

Law enforcement including judicial processes are unfortunately not deductive. In general, a judicial process can produce an RLC, based on what is decided by a judge to be evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

(3.3.) if an RLC is true with respect to a specific case of R, implicating a specific X, then social norms indicate that X should not be granted the privilege of judging the social norms of other members of society.

(3.4.) the vortex of public opinion around Kavanaugh's Supreme Court appointment are roughly that:
- 3.1. didn't happen properly (pick a side?)
- 3.2. didn't happen properly (pick a side?)
- 3.3. is happening properly (pick a side?)

(4)

Don't worry... it's not the end of the story. There is no RLC now, but they can keep digging up dirt on Kavanaugh until they managed to make an RLC happen, then he can be legitimately impeached from the Supreme Court.

But there may also, be nothing to dig up.