[mccon104]

What you don't believe the defensiveness was merited?

The top comment on HN (with 136 karma) was run4yourlives decrying his generation's lack of humility and saying "You are not fucking special in any way shape or form." You mean to tell me you wouldn't be a little bit defensive? Don't kid yourself.

Also- just because you, psych degree and all, think he is self centered doesn't mean anything more than you, eggbrain, feel he is self centered. Give him some credit. He was in a rut, tried something new, and was successful. And now you want him to feel bad about it?

[eggbrain]

I am not denying his success, in fact, I think it was an interesting spin mixed with some good timing that he made successful.

That being said, while some of the comments in the original thread were in poor taste, his defense came off sounding petty, rather than well thought out. Instead of addressing the concerns people had with him thoughtfully (maybe I worded my orginal post too strongly, I never meant to come off as being being arrogant, simply someone frustrated with the job search process. Next time I'll also add my qualifications as well, so that way I can get applicants for X, etc), he basically just retorted back with "everyone is wrong, they don't know me" kind of mentality. He basically does no self-critiquing, but rather puts it off on other factors (it was a joke/you are all wrong/you didn't understand) vs taking blame (or talking about improvements) that he could use for next time. So it came off as sounding like "Hey look, I got a job, I was right, the haters can hate" kind of thing, which didn't really improve his image from what some people thought was self-centered.