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How to grow professional relationships

tej.as

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Re: How to grow professional relationships

#111

Post by tejaskumar_ »

sfink wrote: post #88
jameshush wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add to this: If you want to practice following up but are afraid of "bugging" someone, start by wishing 1-3 people happy birthday every day. I put every person I know birthday on one giant Google calendar and wish people happy every day. It's a super easy way to at least say "hi" to someone once a year.

I tried this, but it didn't work very well for me. Maybe I was just catching people at a bad time? They'd always brush me off with some version of "uh, it isn't my birthday" "you've said that to me every day for a week, please stop" "stay away from me". What could I be doing wrong? Am I just choosing the wrong people to try to befriend?

I think you might be choosing the wrong people. :grimacing:

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#113

Post by tejaskumar_ »

askafriend wrote: post #84
that_guy_iain wrote: post #59

I find this quite funny, I've worked with this author at a company and the stories of his behaviour to other coworkers there make my WTF collection. So to find him talking about growing professional relationships either means he's made massive strides in his behaviour or it's a lot of nonsense. This is the one I always tell people when I explain how WTF IT can be, I wasn't there for it, but it was retold with the aut…

> A female coworker joined and on her first day he went up to her and said "You know you're a slut, right?" Insane behavior. I'd have to think there's an underlying medical/mental condition here.

While I wouldn't put it past myself to have done something like that as a young fool, please do keep in mind the author of the comment didn't even see this happen.

And yes, there are plenty medical and mental conditions there that I've spoken about at length, for example in https://www.youtube.com/live/B8e1r2L7iq8?si=pLccCEZ4nfABcs8z...

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#114

Post by tejaskumar_ »

throwaway134543 wrote: post #95
that_guy_iain wrote: post #59

I find this quite funny, I've worked with this author at a company and the stories of his behaviour to other coworkers there make my WTF collection. So to find him talking about growing professional relationships either means he's made massive strides in his behaviour or it's a lot of nonsense. This is the one I always tell people when I explain how WTF IT can be, I wasn't there for it, but it was retold with the aut…

To clarify: you're saying the author (Tejas) himself walked up to a woman on her first day and called her a slut?

For what it's worth, I don't remember doing this but it's also not impossible given I was fairly foolish earlier in my career.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#115

Post by tejaskumar_ »

trogdor wrote: post #96
tejaskumar_ wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iain, nice to hear from you after all these years! I still say the weirdest shit ever, but now more in line with my value of honoring people above all else. I indeed, by the grace of God, have made massive strides in my behavior thanks to friends like Gabe Greenberg from G2i.co (where I worked some time ago) and others. I also talk about our shared company where we worked together and the toxic environment in this po…

Your response to Iain suggests that his account of your interaction with a new female colleague (“You know you're a slut, right?") is generally accurate. Do you really think of that as “saying the weirdest shit ever”? Most people I know would call it overt sexual harassment. I’m struggling to understand how you could have thought that was acceptable conduct. What am I missing?

I don't remember his account ever happening, but I do see a younger version of me doing nonsense like that. I've done similar nonsense if I'm being fully honest.

I also would call that overt sexual harassment and it is totally not OK. Unfortunately, the culture of the organization at the time made it seem OK to where I felt comfortable doing such nonsense. In fact, I have done similar nonsense to get approval from the coworkers there when I otherwise would not have.

I knew it wasn't acceptable in the grand scheme of things, but my team accepting and approving of it (with laughter) was why I did many stupid things earlier in my career.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#116

Post by tejaskumar_ »

anthonyc wrote: post #101
trogdor wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response to Iain suggests that his account of your interaction with a new female colleague (“You know you're a slut, right?") is generally accurate. Do you really think of that as “saying the weirdest shit ever”? Most people I know would call it overt sexual harassment. I’m struggling to understand how you could have thought that was acceptable conduct. What am I missing?

I hate to pile on, but I listened to the podcast OP linked above. It doesn't make the situation sound any better. It is worse, actually. OP is tone deaf going on this podcast talking about the toxic, racist, misogynistic culture with seemingly no awareness of his contribution to it.

Thank you for this callout. I will re-listen, reflect, and grow from this. I will be better.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#117

Post by tejaskumar_ »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #103
anthonyc wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to pile on, but I listened to the podcast OP linked above. It doesn't make the situation sound any better. It is worse, actually. OP is tone deaf going on this podcast talking about the toxic, racist, misogynistic culture with seemingly no awareness of his contribution to it.

I think his experience of racism and "shitboy" may have desensitised him to the whole thing. He was there for years before I joined and honestly, it was meant to be better then and had a bunch of work on the culture but it was still pretty shitty. I remember once I semi-joked "You guys talk about a culture problem in IT, it sounds like you have a Tejas problem" and he generally looked like he felt bad about it.

I did feel bad about it. I'm glad you said that, and I'm thankful for how it made me feel. It is exactly that feeling that continued to inspire growth and change. No doubt, I feel it again as people continue to pile on here. This is really good, because it will inspire even more growth, and more positive change.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#118

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

askafriend wrote: post #80
dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #68

Nearly every professional 'relationship' I've had has been transient after you stop working with them, with people completely failing to reciprocate even after multiple attempts to reach out. From talking to people I know that this experience is not unique to me, this appears to be the norm, may be it's the industry I work in : software development.

Allow me to be crude for a second: half the people in software are likely autistic so I'm not surprised they struggle with building or maintaining relationships.

Yes, I did figure that out, they are idiot savants of sorts.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#119

Post by Aurornis »

ghaff wrote: post #82
tejaskumar_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha, what a lovely story! Really shows what happens when we engage as _people_, not _opportunities_.

This is a lot of the misunderstanding around "networking" you see in discussions. A lot of tech people see it as an unwelcome task/burden. Whereas, it should be generally viewed as a pleasurable opportunity to just get to know people who may (or may not) be useful at some point in the future.

I think this happens because networking is always proposed as a way out of a bad career situation. Someone complains online about lack of opportunities then commenters come along to parrot networking as a solution. It sounds like a task you do for career gain.

I have another theory that this creates a lot of rebound anger at the idea of networking. When I was doing mentoring (external to my company, people I didn't work with) I spent a depressing amount of time convincing young engineers that it was a bad idea to burn bridges as they left a company. Way too many people are enamored with the idea of ghosting their job or telling off their coworkers on the way out the door. It takes some convincing to get them to realize that leaving a bad impression on an entire office of people is the fastest way to poison their potential network. Nobody will want to refer you for future jobs if you're a jerk in your final days.

Re: How to grow professional relationships

#120

Post by Aeolun »

bityard wrote: post #99
blitzar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bit strange when you only hear from people once every few years, just as they need an intro or career advice or whatever This might out me as a psycopath, however, cut to the f'ing chase. If it is a transactional conversation don't insult my intelligence by pretending that it isn't. Obvioulsy this can create a problem as I tend towards "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". If something is within my m…

I get it, as engineers we value efficiency and truth above almost everything else. But most people are not like us. They want to be appreciated, acknowledged, and seen above almost everything else. If you call up an old acquaintance and start the conversation by asking if they know of any job openings, you will be seen as someone who only values what they can DO for you, instead of who are they ARE to you. Nobody lik…

You don't even have to pretend that the ask is not the main reason you called. Of course you call me because you need something, I do this too.

But if you called, and you are not even slightly interested in catching up, that just makes you a rude ass.

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