Defense Against the Dark Arts

I went through my Negotiation Professor's article about lying in negotiations. His point is that we can't stop people from lying in negotiations, and it behooves us all to defend ourselves against it.
Here is a sampling of his defense tactics:

Conduct Thorough Background Research
Network to Choose Your Negotiation Counterpart
Create Rapport
Demand the Use of Objective (third party) standards (eg. Bluebook values for cars)
Establish Long-Term Relationships and Watch for Signs of Deception
Ask Come-Clean Questions at appropriate times

Negotiation Continued

I kid you not, someone in the class discussion said, "Why not just lie? I mean, seriously." This started the professor talking about the interesting subject of lying in negotiation--I should probably read his recent article on the subject. He said it is often a really effective thing to do, and that there is a fine line that you probably shouldn't cross. The official comments in the ABA ethics guidelines make it plain that lawyers will be lying to some extent in negotiations. The nice word for it is puffery.

This reminds me of a class in my first year of law school. The professor was trying to demonstrate the difference between lying and puffery. She gave a scenario and asked the class if it was lying or puffery. I answered that it was lying, but most of the class disagreed with me. Then the professor thought about it and said, "Actually...it is lying. Nathan, can you tell us why?" I said, "Well, it's not true, and you said it."

Lawyers don't always think in such simple terms.

Negotiation

You might think that, being raised by the famed Cheryl Reeve, I would be an expert negotiator. You would be wrong. I've learned a thing or two about negotiation over the years, but the most important thing I've learned is that I need improvement. My current strategies are: 1. give in quickly (while thinking "Maybe he'll appreciate this and help me out later." and 2. Hold my ground to the point of absurdity--like when I personalize the negotiation and don't want to give in on moral grounds or because I'm mad. Ideally, I could have some ability to assert myself in a reasonable way.

And why do I bring this up? I'm taking a class on negotiation. This class is like unto a weight training class. It isn't very fun for me, but it will be really good for me. Of course, I dropped out of my 9th grade weight training class, but there will be no dropping out this time, not with graduation so close. Have I mentioned that I'm in my LAST SEMESTER?!

Merinate was Tagged for Randomness and proof of Toquerville's Greatness

Random Things About Nate
by Nate Reeve

1. I wanted to get some direction for this project, so I looked up random in the dictionary.

2. I conclude that random, though it appears to modify "things about yourself," is actually intended to describe the way in which said things are selected for inclusion. That is, the items on the list are to be selected with no definite aim, reason, or pattern.

3. I like the word nonetheless.

4. Lately, I have been declaring at random times to friends and family that I invented and/or made up various concepts, devices, and people. Adults have been very understanding of this latest symptom of my mental illness, but children have taken great delight in contradicting me.

5. I cook by whim and nose. The results vary.

6. I'm not sure, but I think my right leg is slightly shorter than my left. My best evidence for this is how my pants fit, which leads me to wonder if my hips are just uneven. Either way, I'm not exactly balanced.

7. I enjoy reading Lao-Tzu's Taoteching. The version I have comes with commentary by various other ancient and modern Chinese philosophers. One of them, Huang Yuan-Chi, provided me with my theme for law school: "The ancients said, 'Two or three years of hardship, ten thousand years of bliss.'"

8. I met Meridy in the class where I learned about the Taoteching.

9. I also have a soft spot in my heart for stars and planets because we had Astronomy together that same semester.

10. I just remembered. I may have done a randomness post in the past. Now I'm terribly curious to see whether I am repeating anything.

11. The previous post was about "quirks." I guess its a similar thing, this post being less structured. Mer now requests that I link our previous quirk-style points....which means I'll hand her the computer and let her link the posts.

12. But not yet, because I tend to procrastinate.

13. I have one attached and one unattached earlobe. So, is that the sort of thing that gets fixed in the resurrection? If so, which lobe will change? If not, can you imagine going through the eternities with mismatched earlobes? Weird.

14. I love to eat cereal. In fact, I'm eating cereal right now.

15. The words, "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest," keep running through my mind. I thought about it and decided you could do it easily enough, provided you didn't have to have all the men on the dead man's chest at the same time.

16. I wonder what is society's facination with piratas y vampiros. If anyone has any thoughts, let me know.

This is actually Meridy for a sec, starting....now.

We were tagged to do this random list Nate accomplished above, by our friend Annjilla. I love things like that, and I love learning interesting facts about other people (as you know). However, in order to spare many of you from reading yet another one of those all about me, I had decided to post one somewhat impressive random thing, and that was going to be the new Shoe Tree (see POST BELOW and for original shoetree post click here.) Obviously, Nate stole my thunder. (But I'm glad he listed 16 random things himself because he is so interesting.) What I did decide to do, for those who have not read them and/or are interested, is create a link list to my many posts devoted to my uniqueness.

If you want to read 100 things about me: click here.
If you want to read my first list of quirks: click here.

If you want to read my second list of quirks: click here.
If you want a personality readout that I developed myself from a personality test that I took and then posted: click here. (This is very informative and accurate, it may even help you get along with me at the optimum level. :))

But since we are on the topic of that lovely place named Toquerville, I have decided to post some pictures of how beautiful it really is, because I know that some of you (named Sheri) were not previously convinced of Toquerville's greatness.

Shoe Tree 2.0

Those who joined us in our sorrow at the loss of Toquerville's Shoe Tree will be happy to know that another miracle is taking place in Toquerville, where man's indomitable spirit is on display. A new shoe tree is springing up on the north side of Toquerville. You'll have to look closely because I couldn't remember how to zoom in with our camera, but there are shoes growing on that tree--in the dead of winter no less. They can destroy our tree, but not our spirit. The Shoe Tree's legacy lives on!