Credibility

4 April 2010

I'm not sure what gives people credibility. I suppose a history of not breaking your promises counts, but what if you've never had a chance to break or keep them? How do you judge the credibility of someone who says - a la Del Boy - this time next year I'll be a millionaire before this time next year?

This is where people start to think too much about appearances, I suspect. In the absence of any other obvious clues all to often people will think - we'll, he's nicely turned out, or she has nice shoes or they combed their hair, they must be proper experts in astrophysics or now how to run the economy. But where would the world be if Albert Einstein had been judged on appearance?

It probably a shame we don't spend a little more time working it out, though I guess it would take an inordinate amount of time to work anything out. How long would you have to spend talking to the encyclopedia salesman if you asked him lots of questions about the product rather than just thinking "Encyclopedia salesman = scum" and slamming the door in his face. And it would all be utterly wasted because of course encyclopedia salesman are scum. Anyone you meet you form an opinion of immediately. It would socially debilitating to have to investigate all their souls to see if you had made a mistake or not.

You can't give everyone a chance. If someone comes to you and asks if you'd like to take their pet badger on to your firm of accountants you shouldn't feel bound to offer it an interview. But at the same time I'd like to see people judged on slightly different criteria to whether they fit into a nice, harmless, grey box of smooth behaviour and shiny shoes. Just occasionally. Because that would give me an excuse not to bother shining my shoes.