You can come up with any hypotheses you wish, but the only one that is worth its salt is that your new employee likes to salt his food. Maybe he knows that what he ordered is often bland, or perhaps he has even been to this restaurant before and knows that his order needs a little spicing up. Either way, drawing conclusions based on this type of limited data is little more than a snap judgment and stereotyping.
At the same time, there are some single incidents, actions, or comments that can give you broader insight into someone else. For example, if you were at lunch with this same employee and he made a bigoted comment, you could probably come up with some fairly accurate descriptors about his personality and how he would react to various situations in the future.
If you really want to know if your new employee has a tendency to rely on old habitual strategies, take a look at the way he approaches new assignments. You can learn far more by observing how he handles his job responsibilities rather than how he handles a salt shaker.
| 
