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How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

charity.wtf

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Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#131

Post by Dalewyn »

calderwoodra wrote: post #121
Dalewyn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emojis and emoticons in any serious piece of communication are simply unprofessional and insincere. Do not use them, unless your intent is actually to piss your recipient off. Textbook example is the recent fiasco over at Linus Tech Tips, where they even used an emoji in an email to Billet Labs saying they "accidentally" auctioned off Billet's stuff. Anyone worth their paycheck doesn't use emojis in business communiq…

What's your opinion of slack? Seems to be the gold standard of team communication platforms (all other platforms follow their lead) and emojis are an integral part of it.

If it's just water cooler conversations, yeah whatever.

If it's actual business communications, no emojis.

What matters isn't the medium, it's the context concerning the communication.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#134

Post by coffeebeqn »

tayo42 wrote: post #44
ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

Surprised to see emoji. I feel like those almost always come across insincere when they're not expected. Idk why, maybe I'm the odd one.

I only use the eyes emoji to throw them off

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#135

Post by cf141q5325 »

gweinberg wrote: post #106

"That's not a character flaw or anything! You have every right to feel that way. I do think it is just categorically wrong, though." Do you have any idea how asinine that statement is? Let me translate it into English: "I respect your opinion, but actually I don't. You should communicate the way I prefer, not the way you prefer, because my feelings matter and yours don't". Don't tell me that's not what you said, beca…

Not sure why this is downvoted. Your assumption could be wrong and categorically ruling that out without giving any real reasons means you likely are. Either way its far from a respectful attitude and doing that on shaky grounds is even worse.

At best your opinion is incomplete. It overlooks that people often take faked niceties quite bad. Like the parent post. And are not free but require mental effort. With humans not really doing multi tasking. And while a positive attitude is healthier all around, we are talking work environment here. I shouldnt need to worry if somebody thinks a short and precise "Yes!" could be impolite or sarcastic. Its an accurate response and i shouldnt have to worry about babysitting your interpretation. Seeing as we are all working together give me the benefit of the doubt. Its as simple as that. And if you figure that to be misplaced, do inform me as i might be overlooking something. That wont be a difficult conversation, i will be grateful.

edit: I would also be really worried how likely difficult conversations will be in such an environment. No amount of sugarcoating makes you fine with me kicking your favorite feature. And it might need kicking, no matter how attached you are.

edit1: In case it helps, the reason people take fake niceties in the workplace so badly is because it selfishly increases the required effort from everyone else to meet the bar you already set rather high. When considering what is acceptable people now have to plan around you lying. Instead of cooperation you are getting managed because you require too much effort and dont say what you want for which reasons.

Downvotes make a lot of sense seeing as he responded to the wrong post (ketzo was the post referenced)

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#136

Post by Cushman »

leetcrew wrote: post #124
ketzo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, I agree -- no one is entitled to one communication style or another, and we should all respect each others' preferences. But the problem is that the flow between those personas is not bidirectional. Again, generalizing a lot here, but let's call them Cold and Warm personas. If a Cold receives a Warm message, generally speaking the worst they might feel is that the other person is being inauthentic. In m…

I don't agree. I am what you would call a Cold, but maybe just have slightly more social awareness than you're imagining. I can't just "filter out the niceties". I perceive them as setting the expectation that I will reciprocate similarly. I usually at least try to do so, but it not intuitive for me and requires a lot of energy. not a big deal either way, I can muster up a few friendly greetings on my way into the of…

> I perceive them as setting the expectation that I will reciprocate similarly.

You know, this might be challenging to hear... I think there is such an expectation. And along the lines of what 'ketzo said above, I kind of think it's a categorically good expectation.

The only thing you might be missing, not because you're not socially sensitive, but just because it's non-native communication to you, is that those people genuinely care. The expectation isn't that you'll respond with a cheery reply-- it's that you'll respond with care.

What I might put on the table for you is, what if you think about it as replying in kind, rather than in form? If someone says something cheerily nice to you, you don't have to say "omg thank you!! :D". You can just say "Thank you.", from the heart, however you say it when you really mean it.

And yeah, some people will still take that as you being unkind. And if you mean it, that means they're the socially insensitive ones. They're the ones who don't really care! You don't owe them anything more.

But... I think you might be surprised at how many people really are willing to meet you exactly where you are, as long as you really do care.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#137

Post by stevenhuang »

jtbayly wrote: post #88
gsuuon wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do this as well, maybe a bit _too_ much. After reading an article somewhere (I forget which) that had just an absolutely excessive amount of exclamations I've toned it back down a lot. But for the folks who don't ever use it -- try it out! It doesn't mean you're shouting, it maps to basically a slight increase in tone.

“try it out!” translates to an emphatic command, possibly shouted, to me.

Do you read fiction? I ask because if you interpret the above like this, I'd imagine you'd similarly misread or get confused often then.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#138

Post by stevenhuang »

shultays wrote: post #112
ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

! can easily mean sarcasm A: Hey, it looks like there is this and that issue that is caused by one of your submissions. Can you fix it? B: Sure A: Thanks! Was that thanks genuine? Or sarcastic because A spent half a day trying to figure out what is going on

If A is routinely known to be sarcastic, then yes. Otherwise there's no reason not to read it charitably and take it as a genuine thanks.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#139

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #59
mattxxx wrote: post #55

Note that this contrasts with BLUF, a good standard for direct, factual communication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication) In particular, the parts where you are adding buffers + prefaces ahead of the important content. That said, non-violent communication is super important, so learning to retract from more direct, factual styles in exchange for a style that make people feel understood and respected a…

BLUF ("bottom line up-front") might make a lot of sense in in-person communications, especially regimented ones like the US military (the example from the article). And it's valuable advice for long-form or durable writing. But the constant casual writing ("chat") that characterizes tech work is a different environment with different pitfalls, which message board nerds have known about and discussed for-ev-er. I don'…

[deleted]

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#140

Post by Teever »

mattxxx wrote: post #55

Note that this contrasts with BLUF, a good standard for direct, factual communication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication) In particular, the parts where you are adding buffers + prefaces ahead of the important content. That said, non-violent communication is super important, so learning to retract from more direct, factual styles in exchange for a style that make people feel understood and respected a…

Thank you! I've been looking for this term for a while ever since someone posted a blog post about examples of US military memo writing on HN a few years ago.

If anyone can remember that link and share it I would love that!

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