What I learned about filters from Sobriety Checkpoints

A few years ago I was driving on a suburban road and saw a sign that said “Sobriety Checkpoint Ahead”. The road was dark (I couldn’t see the checkpoint as it was about a mile ahead and the road curved), and I had plenty of opportunity to turn around if I were drunk. I thought, What a stupendously stupid thing to do — this gives drunks plenty of time to turn around!

A few days later I ran into a friend of mine who was a cop in that town. I repeated my thoughts to him, “Bryce, what a stupendously stupid thing to do — this gives drunks plenty of time to turn around! Please explain this to me, is this just some regulation you need to follow to look good? I mean come, I can’t imagine you actually catch anybody!? Our tax payer money is paying for this!!”

His response was, “It’s actually extremely effective, we catch many people all the time!”. I didn’t believe him, “Come on Bryce, bullshit, explain that to me.” His explanation resonated with me and taught me an important lesson about filters.

Bryce said there were 3 types of people:

1. Those who are sober and had no problem getting through the checkpoint
2. Those who are tipsy, maybe a little drunk, maybe on the edge of legal vs. non-legal, see the sign and turn around
3. Those who are so drunk, they don’t see the sign, hit the checkpoint and immediately get busted

He said there were plenty of people who fell into category #3. Every night without fail. And it was really easy to nab them because they were SO drunk, it was really obvious. I.e. He didn’t need to distinguish between #1 and #2 and deal with any legal ambiguity on the sobriety tests. The sign was a filter. (I forgot to ask him if putting up the sign was a legal requirement or if they chose to do that).

I thought about how much I could apply this lesson on filters to so many aspects of life. I could use filters to not waste my time on trying to distinguish between people who were good to go (#1) and the other two (#2 — those on the fence, #3 — those I didn’t want to associate with). Here are some examples:

Working with people on a creative project (e.g. music, activism, etc).

How do I know if somebody is serious? (I don’t want to waste my time with somebody who isn’t really interested in working with me). So if they express interest, I ask them to send me a message by the next week (or the week after if they say they’re super busy) and give me some ideas, setup a time to talk, etc. And here’s what happens (Following up #1, #2, #3 filter framework above)

1. If they said they’re interested, the ones who actually send me a message by the next week, are clearly interested. Almost without exception, when I engage with them, it’s a fruitful and enjoyable experience. It doesn’t always work out, but their intention is there, we both gave it a good shot with good intentions. And often a future opportunity comes out of it. And the ones who send me a message quickly are usually the most interested and engaged.
2. If they said they’re interested, the ones who don’t bother to send me a message as discussed, I ignore and forget about them. If I see them some weeks or months later, sometimes they’ll say to me “Hey, we were going to work on a project together”. I tell them, “You were going to send me a message and you didn’t, so I’m going to pass”. Many slough it off (because they didn’t care to begin with — filter worked), and every once in a while one of them will say, “Yea, but I was really busy”. Whatever, I think, because I have comfort that I didn’t miss a good opportunity (they could still have sent me a message telling me they were busy). And if there is a chance I missed a good opportunity (I’ll never really know), I just chalk it up to the cost of “doing business”.
3. If they don’t express interest or don’t agree to send me a message, well, they’re clearly not interested.

This may sound complex or negative to some people, but this is what professionals do.

Gauging people’s attitude about a work request

I use this one at work all the time, and it’s EXTREMELY effective. If I ask somebody to do something as part of my job (e.g. providing me information about cybersecurity risks associated with their project by following a well established and agreed upon template for which they have all already received training), there are 3 types of responses:

1. Those who do it with a positive attitude: They may not always do a thorough job, but at least they’re trying. And if they tell me they’re so busy / resource constrained, I ask them when they can complete it, or what they need from me and work with them. The results are usually pretty effective and efficient, and they learn better for the next time and sometimes even help other people on a similar request.
2. Those who reluctantly do it half ass and have a shitty attitude: I look at the material, listen to their excuses, and then tell them they need to do a better job. Their response is almost always coming up with more excuses, and they almost always reveal their real thoughts — that they don’t think it’s important or it’s a waste of time or we can do it later (yes, they actually think they can analyze their cybersecurity risks AFTER the product is released, because they think it’s some bullshit documentation or loose compliance exercise). I then immediately goto their boss, and his/her boss if necessary right up the chain (or goto my boss in some cases and he goes up the chain). I won’t waste 1 extra minute arguing with them.
3. Those who outright refuse: Similar to #2, but I don’t even try to argue with them, I just remind them, they have no choice (in 99% of the time, that makes no difference), and I jump right to escalating.

This has proven to be extremely effective and extremely efficient. It also reduces my frustration and makes me better at my job. People also respect me a lot more because I don’t get into endless arguments with people.

Firing people from volunteer or low paying projects immediately if they don’t follow a simple procedure

I work in Tech (Yuck, but it pays well), but I’m also a performing artist in NYC (I play piano, guitar, sing, play cabaret, produce/write/perform musicals, etc.). When producing a show (some of these I’m putting a lot of my own money or it’s really important to me and has high visibility), in order to be efficient and effective (something you MUST do in order to be a successful artist, especially if you have another job that pays the bills), I often write procedures for people to follow (e.g. for a live show or a video shoot). These are simple procedures that I typically type up in a spreadsheet (e.g. rows are tasks or order of the show and columns are people’s responsibility). Here’s what happens

1. Those who have a positive attitude are almost always very effective and easy to work with
2. Those who reluctantly agree and have a negative attitude: I sometimes give them one chance, but unfortunately, they typically will NOT be effective and easy to work with because they want to be proven “right” that this spreadsheet is a “stupid idea and too complicated”. So recently, I’ve been firing them immediately as they are a cancer on a project (their attitude affects other dedicated people and I can’t have that).
3. Those who refuse: I fire them immediately. This is clearly unprofessional.

There are many other examples, but you get the idea.

And remember if you don’t trust somebody (because a shitty attitude CLEARLY indicates that you can’t trust somebody with the task), you just tell people right out of the gate, “I don’t trust them/you”. Don’t start off with detailed explanations of why you don’t trust them, wait until somebody asks you why you don’t trust them. (Trust me, I learned this from decades of management experience in business, producing live shows — some with celebrities, and creative projects).

Applying simple filters has made my life SO much better. I’m more able to focus on productive activities and work with quality, motivated people. And life is a pleasure that way.