<story><title>I don&apos;t hire unlucky people</title><url>http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-dont-hire-unlucky-people</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>plinkplonk</author><text>I agree with every &lt;i&gt;point&lt;/i&gt;  Reginald makes but (and I am being nitpicky here) the form of the story -  the seeming  overtailored parable nature of it, of the kind you&apos;d find in the Reader&apos;s Digest or a religious tract  -  rubs me  ever so slightly the wrong way.&lt;p&gt;I could have done without all the fake (or seemingly fake anyway) dialogue between the Wooster/Oscar etc and would have preferred a straightforward &quot;This is what I(Reginald) think&quot; mode.&lt;p&gt;Imagine pg writing his essays in the  form of &quot;Paul wrote an ecommerce site in Lisp while Peter used C++. When Paul met Peter&apos;s wife Rosa in a coffee shop he asked her why Peter was looking so haggard and she said &apos;he is working through the night fixing bugs and not getting enough sleep. Would you mind talking to him? ..&apos; &quot;&lt;p&gt;Again, this is a &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; minor nitpick, just consider this feedback from &lt;i&gt;one&lt;/i&gt; reader. I am probably considerably outnumbered by the people who like this &quot;story&quot; form better (and that is perfectly fine). Of course it is completely Reginald&apos;s prerogative to pick any style he wants.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>amirmc</author><text>I understand your nitpick (and the post could have been a lot shorter had raganwald opted to use a different style).&lt;p&gt;However, the main benefit of the story format (to me at least) is that the underlying message is so much more &lt;i&gt;memorable&lt;/i&gt;.  I&apos;ll probably forget the names of the characters and some of the detail but I&apos;ll certainly remember the point.&lt;p&gt;More importantly perhaps, is that I&apos;ll be able to &lt;i&gt;re-tell&lt;/i&gt; the story to others (in some form).  Expecially if I&apos;m trying to convince them of this view point.&lt;p&gt;Stories are easier to remember and share (and it&apos;s one reason that telling stories about your products is better than, say, a feature list).</text></comment>
<story><title>I don&apos;t hire unlucky people</title><url>http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-dont-hire-unlucky-people</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>plinkplonk</author><text>I agree with every &lt;i&gt;point&lt;/i&gt;  Reginald makes but (and I am being nitpicky here) the form of the story -  the seeming  overtailored parable nature of it, of the kind you&apos;d find in the Reader&apos;s Digest or a religious tract  -  rubs me  ever so slightly the wrong way.&lt;p&gt;I could have done without all the fake (or seemingly fake anyway) dialogue between the Wooster/Oscar etc and would have preferred a straightforward &quot;This is what I(Reginald) think&quot; mode.&lt;p&gt;Imagine pg writing his essays in the  form of &quot;Paul wrote an ecommerce site in Lisp while Peter used C++. When Paul met Peter&apos;s wife Rosa in a coffee shop he asked her why Peter was looking so haggard and she said &apos;he is working through the night fixing bugs and not getting enough sleep. Would you mind talking to him? ..&apos; &quot;&lt;p&gt;Again, this is a &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; minor nitpick, just consider this feedback from &lt;i&gt;one&lt;/i&gt; reader. I am probably considerably outnumbered by the people who like this &quot;story&quot; form better (and that is perfectly fine). Of course it is completely Reginald&apos;s prerogative to pick any style he wants.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Timothee</author><text>The writing style reminded me a lot of the book &quot;Leadership and self-deception&quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-out-Box/dp/1576759776/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;#38;ie=UTF8&amp;#38;qid=1333659388&amp;#38;sr=1-1&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Self-Deception-Getting-out-...&lt;/a&gt;) in which a guy shows up at a new job and gets a day-long welcoming from the CEO, during which they slowly go through the idea of putting people in boxes and what to do about it.&lt;p&gt;The ending of raganwald&apos;s post especially was similar in tone with &quot;You belong here. We&apos;ll do great things together&quot;.&lt;p&gt;edit: &quot;they slowly go through the idea of putting people in boxes and what to do about it&quot; Hmm, this sounds kind of odd when you don&apos;t know the book I guess :) To clarify: in the book, you put people &quot;in a box&quot; basically when you have prejudices about them and look at things through that angle only. Or something like that.</text></comment>