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Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

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Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#71

Post by solidsnack9000 »

dkarl wrote: post #48

Traditionally, for a man among men, expressing confidence has always been safe. If a man expresses confidence in a situation where confidence is foolhardy, other men will interpret it as a performance of masculinity. I'm sure Rick understands this project is going to be a nightmare. I'm glad he's gung-ho about it. If you express fear, on the other hand, your fear will be scrutinized to determine whether it is well-fo…

Anyway, it's pretty disheartening to see an incident that is heavily colored by gender expectations related and acknowledged as such but then interpreted as a story about a one-dimensional spectrum from expressiveness to guardedness.

Maybe you have said it already in the above but to ask directly: do you think the author or their colleague would have treated Lisa’s remarks differently if she were a man?

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#72

Post by hartator »

trgv wrote: post #49
hartator wrote: post #19

> We worked with Lisa for 2 years and we produced our biggest successes with her. So, being honest paid off for her? Most successful CEOs are very open about everything, and don't keep secrets. Secrets and opacity are what destroy companies and relationships, not the reverse.

> So, being honest paid off for her? The article describes how her openness almost cost her the job offer. In the author's opinion, she made a mistake by being open about her insecurities in a job interview. I've worked with people who are probably too open about their insecurities. I think you can be open about what you don't know without saying things like "I don't know if I can do this job." Frankly, I don't reall…

I don’t know. It might be just me, but when hiring, I fall for honesty. Corporate talk fools no one.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#73

Post by jupiter90000 »

aetherson wrote: post #13

I'm 40, and some of my coworkers are like 25. I'm about two management levels above the basic engineers, but we're a small company and everyone knows everyone. So I'm having lunch with some of the engineers, and one of them shares out of the blue that she regrets getting a computer science degree at her (good) college, and thinks she should've gone into business instead. And my immediate thought is, "For god's sake,…

If they don't like computer science why do you think they'd want to advance a career related to computer science? Maybe speaking it out loud is helping them move towards fulfillment of what they'd really like. People are allowed to regret their career choices in front of people if they want to. It may have consequences, but that's their business.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#74

Post by scarface74 »

scarface74 wrote: post #61
crispyambulance wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is you can never _really_ know, in advance, who is going to be empathetic about expressions of doubt and who is going to silently and permanently pass judgement upon it. Saying that stuff to peers has little risk especially if the peers know each other. But aetherson has a supervisor role here and he is at least being honest to us that such a remark will condition his future opinion of the blabber-mouth. Th…

Your boss is not your friend, but your boss can be your mentor. I've had to form a level of trust with my boss because I really needed his advice as a first time tech lead. I knew the technology I was implementing pretty well but now knowing how to approach higher ups and people in other departments is just as important.

And adding on, I try to avoid it, but sometimes you have to tell your boss personal stuff. When I was looking for a house, I had all sorts of short notice appointments. If I didn't let him know, the first thought is that I was interviewing.

Also, I have "cold induced asthma". Whenever I catch a cold, my asthma flairs up and I'm heavily medicated. I had to explain why I spent so much time working from home.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#75

Post by neltnerb »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #36
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lack of confidence Hide your doubts, smile and act confident and you'll be OK most of the time... ..but when it fails it can lead to disasters, especially if entire teams are engaging in this behavior.

> when it fails it can lead to disasters do you have any examples of this?

If you're falling behind and are finding a problem is more complex than originally estimated, it is your job to express that doubt to your manager so that they can either get you more resources or otherwise... manage... the issue.

They have to make a lot of pieces fit together that all converge to a solution at the right time to keep everything overall moving, and can't do that without good information.

It's more important to the company that the project get done than that you did it all by yourself, and if you're afraid to disclose your barriers or doubts then it will fail spectacularly. You will look infinity times worse failing to meet a deadline without advance warning than if you go to your boss a month before and explain that the problem has unexpected issues and that you need help.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#76

Post by throwaway0255 »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #50
throwaway0255 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because we're yelled and beaten down for every expression of vulnerability growing up doesn't mean we have to perpetuate it into adulthood. Stop the cycle. This is like shaking your fist at gravity. Everyone's in competition all the time whether they like it or not, that's the universe we live in. Given a choice, you're going to advance the person who's glad they got into computer science, all things being equ…

Yeah, I've heard the recruiting pitch. I don't buy it. The universe is vast and indifferent to our puny existence. The belief in the necessity of hostile, anti-vulnerability, winner take all, exploitative competition is a human thing, not a universal truth.

I don't know about necessity, necessary or unnecessary. It's just a thing that is.

I'm not saying be hostile. Granting advancement to somebody who exposed weakness over someone who didn't, if all other things are equal, would be even more of an act of hostility. That's not fair to the other person at all.

And I'm not saying don't expose vulnerability. It's just, work isn't for that. We should all talk to friends and family about that (and I'm sure most of us do).

You see this as an imposition on the people exposing their vulnerability, but demanding that managers suspend reason and ignore relevant data in their decision making is an imposition on them, and it's also just a bad way to run a company.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#77

Post by DoreenMichele »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #71
dkarl wrote: post #48

Traditionally, for a man among men, expressing confidence has always been safe. If a man expresses confidence in a situation where confidence is foolhardy, other men will interpret it as a performance of masculinity. I'm sure Rick understands this project is going to be a nightmare. I'm glad he's gung-ho about it. If you express fear, on the other hand, your fear will be scrutinized to determine whether it is well-fo…

Anyway, it's pretty disheartening to see an incident that is heavily colored by gender expectations related and acknowledged as such but then interpreted as a story about a one-dimensional spectrum from expressiveness to guardedness. Maybe you have said it already in the above but to ask directly: do you think the author or their colleague would have treated Lisa’s remarks differently if she were a man?

FWIW:

Male characters in movies who show you their scars are seen correctly as bragging about what badasses they are. I am a woman inclined to do that and I have had to learn to stop it. It is consistently interpreted as "Oh, you poor, pathetic thing, so victimized by life! Clearly, you need to be rescued! (by which I mean treated like a doormat and taken advantage of)"

Outright bragging goes worse places. So the GP is correct that women have no good options for owning their competence or admitting that you build your chops by biting off more than you can chew and this project is an opportunity to grow, because it won't come easy.

We really don't have good paradigms for women to do that sort of thing. There are no standard ways to do it. Having to try to make up such paradigms as you go on top of handling a challenging job is a serious handicap.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#78

Post by crispyambulance »

scarface74 wrote: post #74
scarface74 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your boss is not your friend, but your boss can be your mentor. I've had to form a level of trust with my boss because I really needed his advice as a first time tech lead. I knew the technology I was implementing pretty well but now knowing how to approach higher ups and people in other departments is just as important.

And adding on, I try to avoid it, but sometimes you have to tell your boss personal stuff. When I was looking for a house, I had all sorts of short notice appointments. If I didn't let him know, the first thought is that I was interviewing. Also, I have "cold induced asthma". Whenever I catch a cold, my asthma flairs up and I'm heavily medicated. I had to explain why I spent so much time working from home.

I agree with your points. "Your boss is not your friend" just means that you can't talk to your boss just like you talk to a friend. But it can be easy to mistake one's boss as a friend, and that's where there's a risk of saying things that should not be said.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#79

Post by AnimalMuppet »

mc32 wrote: post #41
aetherson wrote: post #13

I'm 40, and some of my coworkers are like 25. I'm about two management levels above the basic engineers, but we're a small company and everyone knows everyone. So I'm having lunch with some of the engineers, and one of them shares out of the blue that she regrets getting a computer science degree at her (good) college, and thinks she should've gone into business instead. And my immediate thought is, "For god's sake,…

My take, is work with what people offer in an official capacity and ignore the informal communication because many people who have similar doubts and inner thoughts simply don't express them. So basically, you'd be "punishing" someone for being honest and potentially promoting someone who is better at "manoeuvering" through the corp labyrinth.

There's two sides to this.

From the boss's side, yes, punishing someone for honesty and promoting someone else for keeping their mouth shut on the same feelings is... suboptimal at best.

From the worker's side, though, you don't know how smart the boss is. You don't know whether they are a jerk or a compassionate human being. Don't give them ammunition to use against you. (If you know your boss well, and you know they won't use it against you, that's different. I've had bosses that I would absolutely trust with that kind of information. And, I've had bosses that I wasn't sure I could do that. And I've seen one that I absolutely know I couldn't trust with anything negative, but fortunately he was never my boss.)

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#80

Post by [deleted] »

losteric wrote: post #64
misterbowfinger wrote: post #56

I really do think about this a lot, but I disagree with what the author proposes which is basically lying or deceiving others: > Authenticity is rare, but people performing authenticity is common, and being good at that performance can build a fortune. Not just authenticity, of course. Being able to pretend that you are furious is a trick that all great sales people use. And being able to create the illusion of a sin…

Yes, you're describing discretion and reiterating the author. They never suggested lying, merely being mindful of the circumstances when disclosing truth.

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