Psychology 101


Today I had an interesting chat with a recruitment consultant. I’m not looking for a job; I like my job. But it’s good to conduct psychological experiments, like seeing what happens when you talk to a recruiter. I think he was doing his own psychological experiment, or else he just seemed desperate to insult me by pointing out I didn’t have much emotional intelligence and was clearly just a random techie. Or perhaps he was trying to be matey by being rude to me (and if that were the case, maybe it would also demonstrate I didn’t have enough emotional intelligence to detect this until ruminating on it several hours later). Humanity is hard sometimes.

He had enticed me with the offer of free coffee. I’m the sort of person who’ll do most things for a free t-shirt, but since the promised drink was never forthcoming, I returned to the office quite chastened. Was this another trick, building new insecurities to prey upon? Still, never mind; it got me out of the office for a short break, and given I was battering at my keyboard all evening, coordinating calls across time zones and peering at new and interesting data, I needed to fit a few distractions in the rest of the day.

This evening both girls screamed at me for a while; I’d been deserted by my wife, who’d gone to drink cava and then send me photographs of the butt-cleavage of random men in the bar. I don’t know if this was a similar tactic to the recruiter, or just because my wife didn’t want me to feel I was missing out. FOMOOA, or Fear Of Missing Out On Arses, as I think the cool kids call it.

In between butt-pics and work, I had to get the girls bathed and put to bed. As with last night, there was bathtime intransigence, and then they both caterwauled while I struggled to get them dressed, but one Dora The Explorer, one Peppa Pig and one lift-the-flap book later, La Serpiente was down, and then it only took another hour to cajole her sister to sleep.

Perhaps they’re conducting psychological experiments on me too.


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