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Comment by Victerius | Hacker News Reader

Take this with a pinch of salt, but I read an anecdote on Reddit a long time ago about a corporation in New York (I think it was a bank) where an executive was looking for a new VP/Director/something. He found a potential candidate and invited him to a one-on-one lunch. When the candidate placed his order, the executive discreetly told the waiter to bring the wrong order for the candidate. The point was to see how the candidate would react to unexpected situations. Would the candidate assert himself and demand that his order be corrected? Or would he roll along and adapt to the new situation? Either choice could reveal potential qualities or defaults about the candidate.

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No it really does not, or at best barely, if you don't think too much. Brains are highly context dependent in how they work.

I doubt a similar baking mistake would get a similar response than a wrong-order mistake in a restaurant. Maybe it does, or maybe it doesn't, but making a prediction from one to the other based on such little evidence... well, the person who gets tested really is the one doing such a test, and it does not look good. Okay, there's an A for effort, at least he tried it at all.

I'm sure the very-negative case works, if he freaks out or becomes too obsessed over such a mistake that speaks against the person. But the cases you described sound pretty tame, if he merely asks for the mistake to be corrected that in itself isn't noteworthy. I certainly don't see it as being useful for determining what he would do if there was a similar mistake in the bank business. The context is totally different.

Interesting.

Honestly, I'm the guy who would just "roll with it" and eat whatever was brought to me because I honestly can't bring the energy to arguing with the waiter.

But having hired people and other professionals, I almost always hire the person who would assert themselves and demand the right thing be done.

Why?

Well, I recognize that I don't like to be "that guy". So I hire people who can do it for me. It has always worked out quite well in the past, where I've been able to form a team of people who work well together, but can be assertive to external groups. (And I, of course, only need to get out of their way.)

As "that guy" it's somewhat refreshing to hear this. I think the key is really self-awareness and understanding of group dynamics enough to help you get the balance of individuals right.

I can imagine that being "that guy", you may not be appreciated enough. But definitely we can't get anywhere near what we need to get done with the mix of all types of personalities. It's absolutely a team effort and requires the whole spectrum of talents.

It's a combination of being loved and being hated at the same time, sometimes by different sets of people at the same time, sometimes by the same people at different times. I think hated is a bit of a strong word, but suffice to say it's quite tricky because the reasons for both of those emotions come from exactly the same place.

> Would the candidate assert himself and demand that his order be corrected? Or would he roll along and adapt to the new situation?

This is a false dichotomy, not to mention plenty of people who _are_ abrasive and rude to service workers would probably have the smarts to not do so in that situation... Kindly mentioning that the order was wrong (especially in the case of an allergy/health issue) shouldn't be seen as assertive or demanding and I hope that's not what they were implying!

I mean, if I were in that situation, I'd probably accept it just because the accuracy of my order doesn't really matter compared to the meeting as long as it's edible, it doesn't really say anything about my decision making when it does matter.

It's knowing P(A|B) and trying to obtain a P(A|C) where B and C are mostly disjoint, making the info not too useful.

Seems like a bad experiment. If the water brings something that I'd like equally or maybe more (having seen it in front of me)-- why argue?

Depending on what was brought I might not even be confident that they messed up the order-- e.g. if what they brought was also something that I credibly could have ordered.

Is the correct response to slip a Benjamin to another waiter to "accidentally" trip the one who screwed up, so you can judge from their response what your demeanor should be like when requesting a correction?

OK, what qualities did the choices reveal? I can attribute both desireable and undesireable traits to either branch taken.

What was the desired outcome?

I hate dark patterns in dates, that was a date. Learn to communicate and choose that.

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