AN ORIGINAL COUNTER-ESSAY
How to turn a good conversation into a performance review
A playful guide to over-planning a human conversation until everyone misses the part where they were together.
Prepare a rubric first
Before meeting a friend, draft categories for honesty, emotional range and follow-up potential. A quiet pause can then be entered as “insufficient data,” which is much easier than being present.
Optimize the room out of the room
Spend the afternoon choosing the perfect question list, then cancel because the list is not quite ready. The low-cost repair is wonderfully unscalable: ask one real question, listen, and let the other person change the subject.
Keep a human exit
A conversation is not an exam and nobody owes a disclosure. Stop, change topics or leave whenever either person wants.
Return to the complete source
These entries retain the original wording, citations, evidence label and applicability notes. The essay is a separate satire.