"Your body language is telling me that you don't want the job".
I turned up for my first day of a new job. I was supposed to be writing training manuals for a woman and her beauty business.

I tried to plug in my laptop. "Let me do it!" she shouted, diving beneath the desk: "Health and safety! It's not safe for you to do it".

She then handed me a sheath of typed notes. "This is what I want you to type up. I wrote it on my computer, I just want you to put it into a nice format."

"If you've already done it on your computer", I asked, "could you email me the file? I could just reformat it then. It makes more sense than me typing it from scratch."
"No. I don't want to get a virus from your computer."
"You won't get a virus from emailing me a file."
"No. I don't want to do that. Just type it up."

I started typing up the many pages of notes. While I did so, she stood over me. After five minutes of staring at me, she spoke:
"I don't think you want this job, do you?"
"Excuse me?"
"Your body language is telling me that you don't want the job."
"Excuse me?"
"Look at you, with your shoulders all hunched up. You think this job's beneath you, don't you."
"No, I want this job. That's why I've turned up to do it. You don't seem to want me here though."
"That's right, I don't want you here because your body language tells me that you don't want this job. You should go now."

Baffled, I closed my laptop and went to unplug it.

"No!" she shouted, diving under the desk again. "Health and safety! I must unplug it for you."

I grabbed my laptop and left. It was less than forty minutes from arrival to sacking. It remains one of the strangest - and definitely the shortest - jobs I've ever done.
( biscuitbiscuit is in ur garden, watering ur plantz, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 10:21, 43 replies)

Never trust anyone who types their notes on a condom

( wakeupandsmellthebacon, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 10:41, closed)

she was expecting a male prostitute

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 10:59, closed)

comfortably the worst porn script ever

(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 11:29, closed)

^

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 11:53, closed)

Body language, the most pointless thing of the new age.
95% bollocks and the people who use it could not decipher a turd from a piece of clay.
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 11:59, closed)

is it higher or lower on the absolute bollocks scale than handwriting analysis
because there are still large French firms that use that for all senior positions ... the fucking doppers
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 12:27, closed)

Since when can scarecrows write?

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 12:48, closed)

I swear this swipe keyboard becomes more of an idiot every day

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 13:09, closed)

Better give it back to her, then

(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 13:10, closed)

ba-dum tsch

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 13:26, closed)

swear this swipe keyboard s
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 14:34, closed)

chevron

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 14:36, closed)

If you are going to ask the difficult questions you will have to send money towards the ritualistic
slaughter of goats. Anyway, the entrails said that marginally handwriting is more utter bollocks than body language. Micro expressions are the key.
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 13:27, closed)

To be fair
you can make a pretty good model turd from a piece of clay.

I seem to recall from pottery classes at school, that we rarely tried to make anything else.
(username failed moderation, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 12:54, closed)

Nonsense.
Body language and vocal tone combined are about 70% of the message you give across.

The words you actually say are relatively minor in importance.

To test this, get right up in a nightclub bouncer's face and scream "YOU'RE A FUCKING NICE BLOKE!" at him, and see how he responds.

Likewise the enjoyment of juxtaposing amorous body language and tone with expressions of hatred - stroking someone lovingly and saying softly "I'd like to watch you die in a fire ... "

Shit I'm sorry - I appear to be taking the internet seriously.

Ahem.

As you were, ladies and gents.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 14:36, closed)

Have i tried to pick you up at some point in time you seem very aware of my chat up lines.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 15:32, closed)

Vagabond is completely right on this one. I have to know all about this kind of stuff for my job.
Communication is about 70% body language, 20% tone of voice and 10% actual words.
(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 18:23, closed)

you work in the 'gullible hippy bollocks' department?

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 18:36, closed)

No, I work with people with mental health issues and learning difficulties
Proper ones, that is
(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 18:55, closed)

seriously? they let people who by into that pseudo-scientific wank work with people with learning difficulties? they'll never fucking learn at that rate

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 19:25, closed)

Don't forget colour and light therapy, oh and the real money spinner - drugs

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 19:49, closed)

Homeopathy isn't drugs, silly.
It's Crystals that's drugs.
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Tue 3 Jun 2014, 22:20, closed)

terrible homeophobia

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 22:33, closed)

I quite like the Iliad

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Wed 4 Jun 2014, 8:37, closed)

To be fair, if your learning difficulties are so severe that you cannot really talk properly,
then body language is pretty much all you've got.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Wed 4 Jun 2014, 11:05, closed)

Prove it then.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 19:51, closed)

I'm not going to try to turn something qualitative into something quantitative
But consider how likely it is you'll be misinterpreted typing on the internet, then how comparatively less likely you'll be misinterpreted talking on the phone, then how vastly less likely it is that you'll be misinterpreted talking face to face.
(Eukanuba, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 22:08, closed)

nobody is suggesting that there is no non-verbal component to communication
but the 10% words claim is utter fucking twaddle. even the hippy psychologist who did the original experiments admits they've been misused by witless hippies and charlatans. the idea that those charlatans are working with vulnerable people is horrifying
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 22:35, closed)

My point is that the vast majority of people who have a belief in body language and non-verbal
communication do not know how to interpret it, have no real knowledge of it and therefore reach incredibly bad decisions based on stupidity. The OP's short term boss being a case in point. Also, all 'negative' body language can be trained out of a person. Micro expressions never lie but that is a real subject.
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Wed 4 Jun 2014, 8:35, closed)

I think you got off lightly, she sounds pretty fucking mental.

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 14:36, closed)

In a job I had many moons ago,
a guy would print an Excel page and fax it to me. I asked if he could email it to me instead, thinking he would send me the file, thus saving me time entering the data back into Excel. He scanned his print and emailed me that.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 14:38, closed)

A woman in the admin department of my last job refused to learn how to output a pdf from Excel.
Instead she used to print the spreadsheet out and scan the pages into the photocopier, which emailed them as a horribly pixellated and compressed pdf. And then she wondered why the sales manager got upset.
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 15:06, closed)

She didn't have the decency to take a photo of a polaroid (on a wooden table),
as one of the media transform stages? She's doing it wrong.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 17:14, closed)

Hi had to explain
to our finance officer that you use the forward slash key to divide stuff in Excel.
(Nitrous Nitrous, Wed 4 Jun 2014, 10:31, closed)

Thank fuck they didn't have to do any multiplication.
Why doesn't my x key work properly???
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Wed 4 Jun 2014, 15:31, closed)

I lol'd.
*click*
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 15:31, closed)

she sounds like a sane and sensible person

( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 15:33, closed)

Presumably your body language said "Get away from me, you loon", rather than "I don't want this job?"

(IHateSprouts is baking a huge pie shaped like an enormous pie, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 18:25, closed)

Given your line of work i imagine that is a posture you know well.

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 3 Jun 2014, 19:51, closed)

I'm just happy to learn that people working in mental health care so casually throw around terms like 'loon'
Very edifying and professional.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Wed 4 Jun 2014, 10:50, closed)

Clearly you're gonna need at least a few derogatory terms,
if your job is constantly having to put up with spackers.
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Wed 4 Jun 2014, 11:18, closed)

She went under your desk TWICE and you didn't say "While you're down there love"?
NO WONDER you got sacked.
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Tue 3 Jun 2014, 22:22, closed)

By "your body language"
was she referring to that thing you did with your genitals?
(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Wed 4 Jun 2014, 14:40, closed)