He has a cat. What does that say about him?
Man and cat. This is not the “Mark” referred to in the post. Photo by Sophie.
Keeping a cat and doing it well is a positive sign in respect of a person’s character. I recently employed, on a short-term contract, a software engineer to do some very technical coding stuff to speed up the site’s loading time. His name is Mark Kaplun. He is an Israeli living in Israel.
He has a girlfriend and I discovered that she brought to the relationship a couple of cats. I spoke to Mark using Skype to get a feel for what he was thinking so that I could make a judgement on whether to employ him or not as I had never met him before. I did not know anything about him other than that he was a software engineer.
While we were talking he laughed and mentioned that a kitten was in the way of him operating his computer properly. I said, “You have a cat?” He said, “Yes”. So I responded by saying that if someone cares for a cat it is a helpful sign to me that he is OK and trustworthy. It was a moment that confirmed for me that we should proceed. It felt right for me. My judgement was proved correct, by the way. Mark is a very good coder and he is trustworthy.
If I have to employ a software engineer to change the code that runs PoC, the website, and do things that may harm the site, I have to give him access to very sensitive parts of the site. In order to do that I have to trust him. How do you tell whether you can trust someone you have never met before?
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Well, as I said, you get a feel for a person’s character when you talk to them. I could not see Mark because his webcam was not turned on but a person can still learn quite a lot from many elements of a conversation.
The clincher was that fact he had a cat. I think if a man likes cats and cares for a cat it is a very good indicator that you can trust him. I am sticking to men in this discussion because for some strange reason I don’t think that the same test applies to women. Am I incorrect in that thought?
This is probably because it is more unusual for men to like and keep cats so that if it does happen it becomes a sign. It is significant. Whereas a higher percentage of women like cats and therefore it is not unusual. It is not a standout indicator of anything in particular.
Can you say for sure that a man who keeps a cat and does a good job of caring for his cat, is trustworthy? No, of course not. You can’t guarantee that until you know the person better. However, if a person is a good cat caretaker he must have a tenderness towards animals and an awareness. A person who is tender and kind towards animals is more likely to have an open mind and a giving heart. It is more likely that he will be a genuine person and it follows from that it is more likely that he will be trustworthy. The test is whether the person is genuine or a fake. The former indicates trustworthiness while the latter is much harder to trust.
This is not to say that a person without a cat is untrustworthy. That would be a silly idea. It is that keeping a cat is a positive sign. You could not say the same about keeping a dog, incidentally.
I think you can trust people who love cats, more than you can trust someone who doesn’t and I think you chose well with Mark because if he wasn’t a kind man he would have shooed the kitten away from his computer. Only a true cat lover puts his cat first, doesn’t disturb the cat if he can help it, sits on the floor if the cats have the seats (yes we do lol) lies precariously on the edge of the bed if the cat is happily asleep in the middle. Mark sounds like a man who would do those things. You can’t know for sure of course because look how our ex ex neighbour fooled so many people! When it came to her being found out that she was a conwoman she abandoned her cats to save her own skin. It’s made us very wary of trusting anyone we don’t know, but you can’t go through life being suspicious of everyone, can you. You have to take a chance on people and hope you are right to do so.
Oops forget to say! I’m glad you found someone as nice as Mark to do your computer work he looks like someone who is very easy to get along with and wow what a beautiful cat!
Mark is a good software programmer. Leah, the picture is not of Mark! Don’t worry. It is just there for illustrative purposes! Take care.
Firstly it’s very hard these days to find a person to do website work. We have had a bad time of it at my work – still waiting for our new site to be ready – I am learning how to admin it. It’s built and run in Joomla.
Secondly – it’s hard to find a person who is good at it. It’s funny because most Israeli men are incredibly macho – in part because of the mandatory 3 years military service. So it’s a little unusual to hear this sort of thing.
Lucky for you it has all worked out anyway. Alot of website developers don’t listen to the client enough and end up doing unexpected things.
Hi Marc. I find this engineer on http://www.odesk.com.
When I started, I was in the dark completely and took risks. You have to take risks in life to progress. Mark Kaplun is good. Above all, you can trust him. That is huge if you are working at a distance and not meeting.
You know the answer to that, don’t you? Your intuition, we all trust, I hope, in light of your good judgement calls in the past. As for your rhetorical question, imho, men who take to cats without worries about what others think of them, are no different than women who take to cats. We as gender are no different from each other in this regard. 🙂 I don’t mean to sound silly here, but we can be one gender when it comes to sensitivity and compassion towards animals, yes? 🙂
No, I mean, in light of your intuition and sound judgement, which we all have come to trust b/c of your love for all creatures, great and small. [ok, am finally going to lie down on my couch and shut down. apologies for liking to stay so long on this site 🙂 delete this.]
Don’t be silly Caroline. Have some mulled wine or Pimms and a quality mince pie (mincemeat pie). Take care.
Yes, well said Caroline. It is gender neutral – compassion towards animals. Are there less men who have compassion towards animals than women? I sense that there are.
If I am correct it goes back to caveman – the era of hunter gatherer. Men are basically hunters. We have failed to completely shed that ancient role. You cannot have compassion if you want to kill animals for whatever reason.
I’ve always said you have to be somewhat sensitive to take care of a cat and be good at it because cats are quite complex in some respects. To me if you have compasssion in your soul especially towards animals then you can’t be all bad, that said I know of an elderly couple who have a cat who they adore yet they themselves are manipulative and malicious towards people and yes I know this for a fact I’ve had first had dealings with them 🙂 so sad to say it doesn’t always follow.
That said if I had to choose to be close to someone who had a cat and someone who didn’t I would choose the cat person every time.
Yes, well put Leah. Compassion comes into caring for a cat.
Interesting idea that a person can behave well towards a cat and badly towards a person. That is true too. I think it is an extreme situation, though, where a person has developed over time and into geriatric age a strong dislike of people because of his/her experiences over a long time.
Thanks Michael as for the elderly couple thats how it would seem on face value but lets just say ‘its complicated’ 🙂