2008-12-19: Job: Postdoc in Visual Perception, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Well, I really did just read the book last weneekd so I haven't yet had a chance to apply the tactics it suggests. However, in terms of understanding other people, I was easily able to identify difficult people I've dealt with in the past (who I hadn't really understood) while I was reading the descriptions in the book. With reference to Eclipse, there are two specific cases that stick out in my mind where a difficult person overtook a meeting and had a negative effect. One of these was a sniper and the other was a whiner. (I'm purposefully being vague as I don't want to embarrass anyone.) I can't say for certain but I think I'm now in a better, more knowledgeable position to deal with these types of behaviour in the future.In terms of understanding myself, after reading the book I wouldn't say that I'm any one of the difficult people identified in the book but that at times I have shared characteristics with several of them. It's quite something to read a description of yourself and recognize certain instances when you have been difficult. While understanding yourself is a life long goal the more you recognize of your behavioural patterns the more you can control how you behave when presented with a difficult, frustrating, maddening, situation.