Hi all,
We are down to the last two new reminders I added to my list last year. Each one comes with a longer explanation so I gave them separate posts - one today, and the last one next week.
-Biggest weakness is that when people let me down, I cut them out
Longtime readers may or may not consider me an honest person. The answer doesn’t matter much to me (though I hope I have your support). If I need to make my case here, I’ll point out all the things I’ve lied about… here it comes… just one minute… and…
This list doesn’t exist because I don’t lie... right?
Well...
OK, I do readily admit lying about one thing, one consistent lie from what I hope is the distant past. It was a response to my favorite all-time job interview question: what is your biggest weakness? Each time, I lied. I came up with a slew of passable fibs over the relevant four years. My personal favorite was ‘self-marketing’, a response I recognized smacked a bit of a ‘too cool for school’ vibe given that the very exercise of the job interview was an extended example of self-marketing, but I stuck with this answer because it was the closest lie I could tell without feeling like a liar.
Anyway, I lied for this question because the real answer would have torpedoed my candidacy (1). The real answer is that when someone or something really lets me down, I swiftly cut things off. It's not unreasonable, it's not like "oh, there's an extra ice cube in this glass, I'm never ordering a drink here again". I really try to reserve it for true let downs, betrayals even. A teammate on my college basketball team once called it my 'fuck you streak' and although I’ve mellowed out over the ensuing decade the phrase still captures the basic essence enough for me to reprint it today.
This problem seems like a direct inversion of loyalty, perhaps my greatest strength. I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense that if someone betrays my loyalty, I would reciprocate regardless of the consequences. This reminder does seem to contradict my near infinite patience, but again, I don’t bring this characteristic into play just because someone makes a mistake. My tolerance for errors is unnaturally high, particularly if I think the error was a result of an honest effort.
The best summary I could come up with for how I make the distinction is selfishness. If someone harms me because of selfish interests, I’m probably in danger of reinforcing this reminder. And if the selfish behavior is accompanied by a lie, there's no question it’s over. I suppose I’m open to the possibility of becoming more tolerant of lies and selfish behavior; I will need to hear a convincing case first.
Footnotes / blubbering excuses
1. But why would this answer hurt your candidacy?
I think anyone who has held a job will understand that 'betrayal' is far too common in most workplaces for me to gain any value from this particular trait of mine.
