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Comment by Jach | Hacker News Reader

I'd bet that enthusiasm is significantly related to memory, too.

"What's the most exciting project you've worked on?"

"What's your most exciting vacation?"

If I haven't already considered the case for such interview/icebreaker questions, I just don't tend to remember things on that axis since most of them kind of clump together around the origin. So if I want to even try and give an answer they were looking for, I have to do a random search through a bunch of memories and guess at levels. Or default to the first thing I remember regardless.

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My lack of excitement was interpreted as a lack of passion. And I was told startups look for passion. So sorry. I found it both annoying and silly. Silly, because the founder hadn't sounded any more excited than me and passion is such a vague term for him to look for.

The irony is i can and have gotten extremely excited (mostly when i am not recalling anything similar) in the past, but found that it is a disappointment almost always. So nowadays, i try to recall similar things and try to see the differences.

> My lack of excitement was interpreted as a lack of passion. And I was told startups look for passion. So sorry. I found it both annoying and silly.

I was just told the same thing at a big company. I'm sorry, but I thought I was hired to develop good software, not be on a cheerleading squad. My mistake.

I was once asked in a consulting interview why my responses to an optimization case study were so dispassionate and rational. I didn't get an offer but one of the interviewers later thanked me for not leaving straightaway.

Edit: He had used 'baritone and coldly logical', I think.

"i can and have gotten extremely excited (mostly when i am not recalling anything similar) in the past, but found that it is a disappointment almost always" same for me, but this "feelings" stops me from getting things done. I always try something new, and then lost the "excitement"...

I have the same problem when people ask for my favorite something-or-other. For some reason I just don't rank things that way, and I'm not quite sure why.

Yeah, really it's impossible. I think you would find those that can do this easily put a lot less thought into it and just come out with something. A lot of the time there isn't even a best or favourite rather a whole collection of unique experiences.

Yea, just come up with something that can be grouped to be among your favorites or something that simply makes for interesting conversation.

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