181–190 of 461 posts
Joking about firing people never brought anything good; firing people when needed, that is essential for organizations. There is a lengthy explanation in this: "Why our generals were more successful in World War II than in Korea, Vietnam or Iraq/Afghanistan" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxZWxxZ2JGE)
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Yep. And it only gets worse as your scope grows. There comes a point where you'll say something like "Huh, that looks interesting, I wonder what would happen if X", just because you still have some engineering thinking left in you, and three weeks later you'll get word that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X. If you ever wondered why manager emails to a large team always look super-formal? We've touche…
> There comes a point where you'll say something like "Huh, that looks interesting, I wonder what would happen if X", just because you still have some engineering thinking left in you, and three weeks later you'll get word that somebody spun up a working group to investigate X. This is somewhat avoidable. You can communicate this to your team. You can make it clear you invite feedback and corrections, and demonstrati…
Similarly, marriage protip: Don't joke about divorces. Even if you think your partner can handle it. Mine can and we still don't do it, as policy. It's a known policy, too; we mentioned it to each other before (briefly, a long time ago, not as some big event). This is certainly far from "the one key to a happy marriage!", but it's a brick in the house. It generally fits into the larger social IQ element of thinking a…
Me and my wife joke about getting divorced all the time, and we've been happily married for 15 years. Maybe that joke wouldn't be appropriate for your marriage, but I'm not really into people giving absolute truths about other peoples lives and pretending like they're gospel. Every relationship is different, and there will be different relationship norms for everyone. It's one thing to tell people that you should act…
It would probably be fine.
Of course, it's all a threshold game; if you're strong in other places you can get away with things that are technically a net negative, but you've got the buffer to deal with it. Every marriage if not every relationship does that since none are perfect.
But why blow the buffer on something so trivially stupid?
It also isn't really about "marriage strength", either, it's about basic human psychology. If you're talking about it, you're thinking about it. If you're thinking a little bit about it, your subconscious is chewing on it more than you realize. The most important message discipline is with your own subconscious. Don't feed it prompts you shouldn't. Even if you "get away with it", it's not free.
This is along the lines of "Ha, taking half the day off, are we?" when somebody leaves a little bit earlier than usual. It sounds like (just) a bad joke, but it has severe consequences for your working relationship. I get that it's tempting to make jokes when you start managing for your old team members. Just accept the fact that you've switched positions and that your relationship will change. It will only make it m…
One of the few memories I have of my old job was my grandmanager saying "leaving early today?" As I passed them in the hall at 5pm.
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At my current position it's quite usual for my manager to ask why I'm still at the office when it's 3:30PM on a friday. One of the reasons I'm still working where I am.
If I were manager I would not even imply that I’m time aware either way, unless there is an ongoing issue (someone staying too late often), (or someone who is not putting in an effort). Otherwise why even bring up your consciousness of time? It signals you’re tracking it one way or another. Edit: for addressing burnout, overwork, etc., for me personally I would start with bringing up the issue in team meetings. Do we…
Likewise with vacations.
While we're on this topic, managers don't invite your direct reports for one-on-one meeting out of the blue with no agenda. I've heard multiple people tell me they assume they're about to be fired.
That said, it is a "management smell" when someone who is fired is surprised about it. There should definitely be preceding feedback to the employee that things are not working well and an opportunity to improve them first.
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> ignorance rather than (intentional) cruelty Yes, and that ignorance is a _privelege_ of power. Most employees don't think they can risk-free joke about firing their boss.
>Yes, and that ignorance is a _privelege_ of power. No it's not. There we go. My statement has as much evidentiary support as yours. Have you ever thought about the usefulness and evidentiary support of using this weird leftist nomenclature to reframe traditionally understood concepts? Like what value did you bring by reframing 'ignorance' as 'privilege' - but 'privilege' not in the sense of the dictionary definition…
Who has more reason to worry, a manager making a joke about firing someone, or an employee making a joke about forming a union with their coworkers? There's a reason that one of these two groups needed to be given legal protection for their joke.
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"Punching up" is a rather new guideline of comedy touted within specific groups and hardly an agreed upon "basic rule". While standards have changed over the years and deplatforming happens much faster now, unless you want to invalidate entire careers or widely renown material, "punching down" can and always will have the potential to be funny.
I noticed that. Who was that comic, who got Netflix special and made some sensitive jokes and the only complaint I heard was 'well, I guess some find it funny, but he really is punching down'.