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48 The PCB Design Magazine • October 2015 column by Tim Haag inTerCePT TeChnOlOgy TIM'S TAKEAWAYS Avoiding the Black Spot of Negative Expectations When I was a boy, our family didn't eat des- sert very much, so I wasn't very familiar with different flavors of cake. For me, cake was lim- ited to just two flavors: chocolate and lemon, which I was very content with. But what really puzzled me then was why anyone in the world would eat coffee cake. As a boy, I was disgusted by the bitter flavor of coffee, and therefore, cof- fee cake seemed to be a food that only an adult would be foolish enough to eat. Since I couldn't stand the taste of coffee, I never tried any cof- fee cake until years later, and I politely declined whenever it was offered. This preconception that coffee cake should be avoided at all costs stayed with me into my adult life. I didn't real- ize it, but the notion that coffee cake was evil was buried way down deep. My wife was confused about this, and finally one day she convinced me to try some coffee cake. "What in the world is this?" I thought at my first bite. Instead of the disgusting assault on my taste buds that I was expecting, I was completely overwhelmed by the sweet cinna- mon flavor. I was amazed that for years I had avoided something as wonderful as coffee cake simply because I had expected something bad. That's a simple and fun example, but nega- tive expectations can also have a dark side. And if not corrected, that negative expectation can potentially be very destructive, especially in a business relationship. Just a few months ago, my wife and I were on vacation and we drove past the restaurant we had visited on our hon- eymoon. Back then, we waited at our table for our order to be brought to us, but it never came. Three times the waitress came out and told us that they had lost our order and were still look- ing for it. Finally, after almost an hour without ever receiving our food or even someone offer- ing to re-take our order, we left. And when we drove by that restaurant 30 years later, we had no desire to try our luck again. This reminds me of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island," in which pirates are present- ed with a black spot on a piece of paper as a sign of guilt or judgement. We were ignored at that