You're thinking of someone and suddenly they phone you. You haven't spoken to them for six months and suddenly the phone rings and there they are. OK, I don't have a good explanation for that.

I do.

Our memories, as recent studies have conclusively shown (google "unreliable memories" -- links 2, 4, and 6 are particularly pertinent) are essentially totally unreliable.

Firstly, we "tag" all the times we remember someone and they do call, and we don't tag all the times we remember someone and they don't call. That's well known.

Secondly, and far more controversially, we actually go back into our memories, and edit them out so "cause" comes before "effect". So, with the passage of time, someone calling you out of the blue, having a great old chat, and a warm glow of friendship infusing the rest of the day, becomes "I had this strange feeling all day that X would call and what do you know..."

In film, fans making up explanations after the fact to explain away holes in the plot is called "retroactive continuity" or retcon. That's exactly what's going on when our brains -- cause and effect problem solving engines -- try to reinterpret coincidence to give "meaning" to it.

It's very disconcerting to understand that your "memories" are essentially made up by your brain from fragments and patterns, but that certainly seems on current information to be what's actually going on.

For me, as an atheist, it's even more disconcerting that many people seem to base their life belief systems on what, at the heart of it, are just warm retcon-ed coincidences.

Gotta disagree with you, I thought the linked article was a lousy mock-Socratic dialog that muddied the issues terribly. About as insightful as it got was the following excerpt:

[economists have] always said that there are winners and losers from trade, and that it's possible to compensate the losers and still leave the winners better off. Whether that happens or not is a political choice.

Bingo.

The benefits of globalisation are undeniably massive, and the decisions to leave the bulk of those benefits in the wrong hands have been entirely political (ie. we've demanded loudly at the ballot box that this be so), and nothing at all to do with "economists".

The capacity of the working classes to vote against their own best economic interests is (or should be) a constant source of astonishment.

You only get over that astonishment when you realize, as Bertrand Russell did, that people simply don't "band together to ward off a common danger".

What we want, and we say this loud and clear election after election, is quite simply to be better off than the next guy.

It's a crazy biz plan, but it gloms on to the fact that pets are the new black here in mainland China.

In 2000 it was having a PC at home (the beginning of the end for the internet "bar" in China's big eastern cities).

In 2002 it was the latest mobile phone that displayed your middle-class-rising cred.

In 2004 it was a car of your own.

In 2006 the rise of the pets began.

Each fad has gone hand-in-hand with a fresh crop of crazy biz-plans and dodgy characters on street corners and in little shops selling the fad item (or something that _looks_ like it) cheap.

Next year? Guess early and cash in!

Did the lad list you as a reference or merely write down the name of his supervisor in his previous position?

From your own recounting of the phone call, LW, you were merely listed as his supervisor.

Perhaps, even, during his filling in of the paperwork at the company that called you, he saw the box that said "Supervisor", and said "But I didn't really have one..." and the nice HR person told him "Just fill in the name of someone at the firm who you had a lot to do with."

Heck, he's going for a junior position there, too, and they're clearly not idiots -- they're at least calling the numbers given in the paperwork, and there are plenty of HR people who don't even go that far.

Now, perhaps you've never been cold called for this kind of thing before, and I certainly understand it can feel bad saying "nasty" things about people, but really the only possible way to answer the questions is with complete honestly.

"Would you describe him as a self-starter?" -- No. He had to be closely supervised.

"Did he communicate clearly?" -- Well, it was his first job and I don't think he had much experience when he started here, but he got a little better as he went along.

"Does he handle deadlines well?" -- Again, it was his first job, and he was never really placed "in charge" of anything so I can't really give you a good answer there.

See? Professional. Honest. And not mean!

I've been told plenty of "horror job interview / job search" stories in my time, but I've never yet heard the one about the HR person who is so unprofessional that they say "I didn't give you the job because your previous supervisor said you sucked!"

He'll get a phone call, more probably an email, and it will say "Thanks but no thanks." Think of all the job rejections you have gotten -- did anyone ever mention what they'd discussed with your previous boss (unless it was to say "Your previous boss gave you a glowing recommendation!")

Please stop using your Jump To Conclusions mat. You weren't his "reference" and you are in no "danger" whatsoever.