Reading · Soatok Dreamseeker

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I keep finding myself in situations where I explain my job to someone new to infosec and they look a bit disappointed that I emphasize active listening skills rather than increasingly difficult topics in mathematics or programming languages to study. I sometimes joke that 50% of my job is "a weird form of group therapy", because I don't know how else to describe it to folks who never developed the…

I keep finding myself in situations where I explain my job to someone new to infosec and they look a bit disappointed that I emphasize active listening skills rather than increasingly difficult topics in mathematics or programming languages to study.

I sometimes joke that 50% of my job is "a weird form of group therapy", because I don't know how else to describe it to folks who never developed the requisite social skills.

Technical competence matters, but is not alone sufficient to carry you in most workplaces. Being an irritating asshole all the time is a net negative. Being an irritating asshole when you need to be is still useful, of course.

But I'm not exactly an extrovert, myself, either. And there are plenty of everyday social norms that frustrate the hell out of me.

For example: I cannot relate to people that routinely buy celebrity gossip magazines. No amount of communication skills will bridge this gulf. Y'all are a lost cause to me.

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