Status in America

So one thing I have noticed about America is that people are incredibly embarassed about doing menial jobs. It struck me the first day at Follies, when virtually everyone had these impressive titles: senior head writer, assisant senior head writer, head writer, production manager; it came to me and I said my name and my job, "stage hand". No embarassment. None of the other stage hands would say exactly what they do. Each was either "yeah, I'm helping out Matt or I'm in the running crew". I asked them, and one replied that they were actively searching for something to say as they didn't want to label themself as a stage hand**.

So what does this mean? Well what I have observed is the people who were the most embarassed performed the worst. Its hard to be a bad stage hand. Yet people who got into Wharton and are very bright managed to be. I think this is purely because they felt it was beneath them to engage. I have seen employees of subway, and starbucks exhibit the same behaviour. The this-is-so-beneath-us, we-dont-care-if we-do-a-shitty-job mentality, which can be quite aggressive sometimes.

So the production manager was a shining beacon of management. He made the menial tasks seem really important, and demanded perfection in a reviewing suggestive way (which gave people something to strive for; a sense of worth by achieving it). He was always happy and positive, knew all the stagehands names and was always ready with a "good work tonight"and a hand shake.

Being the one with the impressive title or visiting a subway. How do you get the best service? Be likeable and realise your positional power. Greet the person; ask them how they are going; be polite. By acknowledging them, lower your status a little bit, and sincerely thanking them, you will breed loyalty and getting a better experience

**As a side note, these seems to be the main difference with Wharton students- an amazing ability to talk absolute garbage and make it sounds slightly plausible, and an unwaivering self-confident that shows up in many people as pure arrogance.

Negotiations

Today I got beaten down in negotiations. I think my key failure was I failed to frame the issue. If you fail to frame the assumptions then you are going to lose on the argument. Plus, I guess it is not always what reasonable for you but knowing what is reasonable for the other person.

Americans. So today was my first experience with Americans. Why surprised me most is the ease at which Americans live with the dicotomy of true and lies. Today we talked about success and failure. Psychology people attribute success to themselves (internally) and failure to events outside their control (externally). What our lecturer said today. When your boss askes you, its okay to blame it on external happenings, but you need to be aware of what internally you could have done better. This is just an example. American consider it okay to lie. They are comfortable acknowledging that lying is the best option; publically showing one face by privately having another. I from 10000 miles away knew this was happening, but it never occurred to me as to how blatant it is.

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
- Stephen Grellet, 1773-1855 (French-born Quaker Minister)

People

I have three influence swimming around my head: poker, a Dale Carnegie book titled "How to wins friends and influence people, and a Neil Strauss book called "the game". All of these show me how people are not rational, and how people are strongly predisposed to certain behaviour. In poker (not that I'm a great poker player), there seem to be three kinds of people: bullies, the nuts, and the crazies. All of these stick to a flawed disposition. Bullies try too hard to push people around. They bet early in the play, and strongly...no one has 5 great hands in a row. The nuts wait until they know they have the best cards ie they'll wait until they have pocket aces. The crazies will just bet anything; they will come after you with nothing. All of these style are terrible and ultimately get beaten? why can't ppl evaluate and change? Is self awareness so hard? Are we are all like this? Is it just the degree that varies?

"How to win friends and influence ppl" is about what makes ppl tick. Its about what makes ppl feel important and special. The game is about picking up chicks and how to influence Dale Carnegies "feelings" to trick women into sex. Together they make up a strong tome on how to influence people. Dale Carnegie show what people really want, and Strauss shows how to manipulate that. The thought in this is that people are easily manipulated and how the smallest things can influence how we are perceived and how people react to us.

There is a very old social psychology study (harvard?)...can't be bothered finding the reference. Anyway, a subject is asked to come and interview a candidate. The researcher debriefs the subject in the lift on the way to meet the candidate. Because the researcher, has so much to carry, he asks the subject to hold his drink. Now get this; whether the subject liked and would hire the candidate in the following interview was significantly determined by the temperature of the drink he was asked to hold! A warm cup corresponded with the candidate having a "warm personality", and cold...well you gues the rest. Amazing! Secondly, another proven psychological bias, is that no one attributes this to the cup of coffee. No one says or will even consider that it was actually the cup of coffee/coke that made them decide who to hire.