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Comment by hluska | Hacker News Reader

My Grandpa George taught me something when I was young. He said there are two kinds of people in this world:

1.) Those who will listen to people badmouthing others and use the badmouthing to inform their opinions.

2.) Those who reserve forming an opinion until they know the person being badmouthed.

Forget anyone who falls into condition #1. You can never, under any circumstances, trust someone like this. Therefore, they are not worth your time or anxiety.

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What if the person being listened to in condition #1 was a trusted employee at the company who is interested in hiring you?

My Grandpa was a smart man, so I’m sure he would have had some specific advice for this situation. The best I can add is that my Grandpa was a big believer in meeting people and forming his own opinion.

In my experience most humans fall into category number one.

Really? I've had almost the exact opposite experience.

I've only encountered a handful of situations where someone went out their way to bad mouth someone else to a potential employer. Out of those, only one or two instances swayed the decision maker.

To OP - it's certainly possible that you were indeed bad mouthed. However, the chance of one disgruntled person's opinion affecting someone's hiring decision is pretty slim.

I honestly wouldn't worry about it. Anyone who takes a strangers word about someone else over forming their own opinion is probably not someone you want to work for anyway.

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