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What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)

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Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)

#21

These were popular at my workplace maybe seven years ago, and while I was into the idea at first, IMO it was impractical most of the time. Turns out it's a pretty unreasonable burden to place on people that they should read and follow instructions in a document in order to communicate with someone and to personalize their work approach for every person they interact with. The main context these make sense in is when…

I find that I never know what to write about myself in these. I had to make one for work also a few years ago for similar reasons to you. But when I would read it I could see it represented a part of me, but it's hard to say "talk to me like this" because it depends on what the subject is and who the person is. I found it was interesting to do as a team building exercise because we all did them together and read them to each other as teams but I never found myself or others getting back to it. And at some point I would've preferred if the document disappeared because years later some new joiners would read it and think something I wrote in 15mins in a workshop 6 years ago still represented who I was at the present time.

Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)

#22
This looks to me as the idiocy of the pronouns, on steroids.

They both are based on the wrong assumption that people have to ask your opinion before contacting you, while communication has always been based on shared standards.

Normality exists. It's not something to tend to, but it exists and must be recognized and respected, and everybody is expected to do their share in conforming to normality.

Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)

#24

These were popular at my workplace maybe seven years ago, and while I was into the idea at first, IMO it was impractical most of the time. Turns out it's a pretty unreasonable burden to place on people that they should read and follow instructions in a document in order to communicate with someone and to personalize their work approach for every person they interact with. The main context these make sense in is when…

Some modern-day teams will do a simplified team building exercise where they determine what "colour" people are, idk which one it is exactly, might be Hartman Personality Profile

Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)

#26
Anything other than "I am responsive to all communication at all times and happy to switch focus to whatever you need me to do at a moment's notice, boss" is going to come back and bite you in the ass, isn't it.

The way to deal with unwanted interruptions is to ignore them and then later claim you were so busy you didn't notice. No downside to that. (Headphones help with this if they've forced you back into an office.)

Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)

#27
It feels clear from the subtext that the value in such a thing would be in communicating where you are generally weak, ie, I don't take criticism well, or I can be pedantic and sometimes all you need to do is ACK my feedback, etc. The examples lack any sort of vulnerability though, they don't introduce any genuine flaws (some of the 'how best to work with me' tips would simply be construed as straightforward praise coming from anyone else).

Its just such a weird intersection. First, you need people that are aware of their interpersonal pain points and for those problems to be deep rooted enough that an onboarding doc makes sense. Then, you need those same people to accept being emotionally vulnerable in a space others are going to use for blatant self promotion - in this case just being ignorant of your own flaws counts because you will write some dumb shit like 'I am data driven show me the facts' but in reality you will base decisions on your gut and a spreadsheet you threw together.

Re: What Is a Personal User Manual? (2022)

#28
I wonder in what type of bubble this was created and seen as a good idea.

It seems like something that enables and promotes mental illness and would actually be counterproductive to uniting people towards a common goal, and rather would develop pettiness and fiefdoms.

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