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Toxic positivity does more harm than good

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Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#21

Post by pietrovismara »

PointyFluff wrote: post #12
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #8

I've felt a lot of "false" positivity espoused by project managers, especially those in charge of agile ceremonies. Examples: "I'm really {proud,impressed} of all of you for your output this sprint", "You guys are {killing,crushing,owning} it", "You all should be very proud of what you guys did", etc. These aren't given after periods of crunch time, they're literally every week to the point where it feels so contrive…

They should just dole out cryptocurrency every time they say that. The words would have meaning again.

Put your money where your mouth is, or something like that

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#22

Post by Trasmatta »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #17
Trasmatta wrote: post #5

This has kind of been a problem at my workplace. Everything from the company's marketing material to its recruiting practices exudes an almost overwhelming amount of positivity. They put a huge emphasis on hiring "the nicest people in the world". Disagreements or arguments at the company are almost non-existent, because everyone tries their hardest to be positive and nice at all times. Every other sentence in Slack e…

It's hilarious during interviews when everyone says "I've never worked at a company like this", "I've never worked with a team like this, truly the best"...I roll my eyes...

I've worked at multiple companies where the interviewers will say stuff like "we have the best engineering team in the world!", and then you get hired and look at their codebase...

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#23

Post by beefman »

fastball wrote: post #2

I think Toxic Positivity is a bit of a misnomer, I'd probably call it "False Positivity". It's not some subset of real positivity that is toxic, it's just... not actual positivity. It's an act.

It's more than just phony positivity. It includes supression of criticism.

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#25

Post by malingo »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #8

I've felt a lot of "false" positivity espoused by project managers, especially those in charge of agile ceremonies. Examples: "I'm really {proud,impressed} of all of you for your output this sprint", "You guys are {killing,crushing,owning} it", "You all should be very proud of what you guys did", etc. These aren't given after periods of crunch time, they're literally every week to the point where it feels so contrive…

Do you mean "espoused" instead of "eschewed"?

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#26

Post by jcelerier »

Trasmatta wrote: post #5

This has kind of been a problem at my workplace. Everything from the company's marketing material to its recruiting practices exudes an almost overwhelming amount of positivity. They put a huge emphasis on hiring "the nicest people in the world". Disagreements or arguments at the company are almost non-existent, because everyone tries their hardest to be positive and nice at all times. Every other sentence in Slack e…

> Everything from the company's marketing material to its recruiting practices exudes an almost overwhelming amount of positivity.

I don't know if it's because I'm french but that kind of thing makes me throw up in my mouth and is a super big turn-off. Some things sucks, it's fine, accept it and move on or try to make them better through actions. Words don't make things better.

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#27

Post by bickeringyokel »

I'm sure this is a problem in companies large enough to have a sizable HR department, but don't most of us work with a bunch of cretin engineers that always think everything anyone else does is wrong and a sales team that is never satisfied with the thing they asked for?

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#28

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

lrossi wrote: post #14

The article is mentioning Instagram as an amplifier of this need to fake being happy. But I think Facebook is responsible for it as well. I was once talking to a colleague who was showing me some old vacation pictures. Some tropical area. I commented that they were looking amazing. He said that actually there was a pile of garbage next to them, but they only put the good looking photos on Facebook. Everybody wants to…

It certainly hasn't made dating any more easier. Online dating is filled with sugar babies, catfishes, or doctored up photos beyond belief. Also it instigates a relationship to be solely through text. I mean jesus dating is about vetting and days or weeks of texting before actually meeting one another nowadays. Nobody wants to do anything physically anymore unless they've actually met you. It's to the point that it's almost a waste of time. COVID restrictions certainly haven't helped either.

I wonder if US culture will ever revert. I think it's gone down a very dangerous path for the middle class. It will be only a matter of a few decades before we adopt the Japanese strategy of paying women to retire and have families instead of advancing their careers because of major population decline.

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#29

Post by hntrader »

Trasmatta wrote: post #5

This has kind of been a problem at my workplace. Everything from the company's marketing material to its recruiting practices exudes an almost overwhelming amount of positivity. They put a huge emphasis on hiring "the nicest people in the world". Disagreements or arguments at the company are almost non-existent, because everyone tries their hardest to be positive and nice at all times. Every other sentence in Slack e…

> I will gladly take it over a workplace with toxic negativity

Agree, having a colleague with a negative disposition (< 3rd percentile of general population) is in my view much, much worse than colleagues that exude the normal amount of fake positivity, even though the latter is annoying and draining and is more deceitful than the former.

Re: Toxic positivity does more harm than good

#30

Post by [deleted] »

arkitaip wrote: post #20
haunter wrote: post #11

Prime example is the current Cosmo row about putting obese models on cover ("This is healthy") while Covid is rampaging in the US and killing obese people https://www.rt.com/news/511466-cosmo-fat-healthy-covid-cover...

That's a terrible example and your biases are showing.

[deleted]
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