In a job interview ask lots of relevant questions and do not let the interviewer get you talking about any of your bad work habits or traits, even if the interviewer tries to trick you into doing so. If the interviewer persists down this road simply say, “You don’t want me for my weaknesses. You need me for my strengths.” Then talk up your strengths.
However, if you are pressed on giving the interviewer something negative about yourself, say something like, “Maybe I’m too much of a perfectionist” or maybe “I’m a little overzealous at times when I’m trying to get a certain task done right.” In the end always go back to and focus on your strengths, or better yet, make any possible weaknesses seem like strengths.
If asked to tell something about yourself ask, “What would you like me to focus on relative to the job?” This way you are re-directing the questioning and you are more in control.
If you are asked embarrassing or incriminating questions simply respond with, “Let’s focus on what I can do for this company.” Focus on getting at what the job is really about and what you can do for the company.
Try and take control whatever you do, do not be controlled. It may be considered a sign of weakness if you are easily guided and controlled. So take charge in a nice way. Ask about the company more than about the company employee benefits or salary. Save this type interview question for last after you know more about the person interviewing you.
Whether in letter form or in person, an attention-getter is to focus on your major accomplishments. If you send in a job application, work history, etc., always send a “knockout” cover letter and follow up with a phone call if you decide you really want the job.
When determining the merits of someone’s argument used to persuade you, one way or another, when someone says, “My experience is this so therefore….” Remember that experience or know-how is subjective not objective. People would like you to believe their experience or know-how makes them knowledgeable or all-knowing.
This does not mean experience should be discounted but someone’s experience may actually be narrow and limited and not open to all other possibilities, alternatives, options and consequences. Someone’s experience or know-how can also be the exception and not the rule. Objective thinking strives to consider many or all possibilities and not just one or a few possibilities. This suggests that experience can be limited therefore possibly not as reliable as the one trying to persuade you would like you to believe.
It is much easier to make decisions based only on experience instead of going through the time consuming task of thinking things through to a logical, rational, objective end. It is always easier to attain a subjective, emotional end using mostly experience as a basis for your decision-making instead of performing a more time consuming, more difficult to attain objective, rational, logical thought process.
In addition, in an argument someone tries to persuade you to act or believe their point of view then may follow their point of view by saying, “For example…”. However, the example they use to illustrate the validity of their argument could just as easily be an “exception” to the rule and not an example of the rule which would not validate or reliably back up their argument. Their so-called “example” used to back up their argument could be nothing more than a coincidence and coincidences
do not make strong arguments like a valid and reliable example can persuasively demonstrate.
So how are you ever to know if someone’s example used in an argument is really a strong, consistent example of what they are trying to convey or prove, or is it merely a weak, coincidental exception? Odds are you cannot know for sure. You can only ask yourself the question, “Does it make sense?” If you are not sure it may be best not to believe the person trying to persuade you because, generally, most folks too often do not know what they are talking about and just want you to buy into or believe in what they are saying to persuade you to their side or way of thinking.
Remember, too often nobody really KNOWS for sure, they just like you to believe that they know then they try to convince you they know when, odds are, they do not know. They merely believe they know.
When it comes to the truth about a fact, it is nothing more than a consensus of opinion, basically meaning it is an educated guess that many people believe is true. When someone says, “The fact of the matter is…” their argument would not come across as strong if they had said, “The educated guess is…” Consequently, an opinion, stated as if it is a fact, by a good speaker can be made to sound or come across as indisputable. Remember, also that a so-called fact may be more of an “exception” to the rule instead of an “example” of the rule. Anyone can distort the facts and call it the truth or the facts but their facts too often may not even be close to the truth.
One final note, when someone says in a conversation, “I’ll be frank” or “I’ll be honest with you…” unconsciously they may actually be suggesting that at other times in the conversation they may have been less than honest with you or insincere. If they were not already “always” being honest with you then why would they have to note that the next thing they were going to say to you would be frank or honest?
Meat-Eaters, The Planet And The True Cost Of Consumer Culture
Meat-eaters may be abusing the planet beyond comprehension. For example, 87% of all U.S. agricultural land is used to raise animals for human consumption. This is 45% of the total land mass in the USA. More than one half of all water consumed in America is used to raise animals for human consumption. It takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat while it takes just 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A vegetarian diet for one person requires 300 gallons of water per day to produce the food a vegetarian diet requires while a meat-eater’s
diet requires over 4000 gallons of water every day. Furthermore, raising farm animals for human consumption contributes more water pollution than any other industry in the U.S. or 87,000 pounds per second which may too often end up contaminating water sources too. More than one third of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S. are used to raise animals for human consumption.
Producing just one hamburger patty takes the same amount of fossil fuel as it does to drive a car 20 miles and enough water to take 17 showers. Fifty five square feet of rain forests may be cleared to produce just one quarter pound hamburger and an acre of trees disappears in the U.S. every 8 seconds just to grow crops to feed the animals we raise for meat. To feed the animals takes 80% of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. The livestock industry is accused of using up to 50% of the USA’s available water supply just to feed livestock.
Cattle alone eat the same amount of food that it would take to feed nearly 9 billion people which is more people than the entire population on earth, to date. Meat-eaters will leave behind a heavy environmental toll that future generations will be forced to cope with and pay for. In addition, meat-eaters may have up to a 50% chance of dying of a heart attack compared to vegetarians. Up to 60% of Americans dying each year may be dying from diseases possibly linked to meat consumption according to meat industry critics.
Each year 9 billion farm animals are killed for food not counting those which die of stress, suffocation, injuries and disease. Just one typical American meat-eater may be responsible for the death of up to 2400 farm animals each year which includes approximately 2287 chickens, 92 turkeys, 31 pigs and 12 cows and calves.
The average American consumes up to 5 times more than someone in Mexico, 10 times more than someone in China and 30 times more than someone in India. Americans are the most voracious consumers in the world but only make up 5% of the Earth’s population while consuming 25% of the Earth’s natural resources.
Americans over-consume to feel good and to impress. Consumer culture is greedy and as a result the planet Earth’s resources may be diminishing for future generations. The answer may be a simple one. Consume less…simplify your lifestyle.
American politics may possibly just need new political blood like a viable 3rd political party full of conservative environmentalists that lean green, Constitutional and libertarian. It would be a political party with ecological vision but with practical solutions, if mankind and the planet are ever to attain sustainability. A political party for genuine change would have to attract voters from the ranks of the agitators and the agitated.
Unfortunately, the reality is odds are the only way for a third political party to take hold and survive is today’s existing self-absorbed, wasteful, commercial
consumer culture needs to die out and leave it to future decision makers to figure out how the planet and mankind can realistically make it to the year 3000. Of course, this could take hundreds of years to accomplish.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS NOVEMBER 2000 and CONSUMER REPORTS MAGAZINE DECEMBER 1997 and THE ANIMAL PROTECTION INSTITUTE DECEMBER 1998 and ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE FALL 1997