Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The underappreciated power of common courtesy

helloarchenemy.tumblr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 63 posts

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#31

Post by toki5 »

Mz wrote: post #21
toki5 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being successful and being nice shouldn't be the same effort -- they are two efforts, unrelated, that sometimes incidentally intertwine, hopefully for the better. You should be courteous and respectful of human beings -- if you feel that this very concept is somehow detracting from your life in a meaningful way, I suspect that you're misattributing your lack of success. But it's hard to speak on it without any real s…

I probably can't give you specific examples that would make sense to you without seriously shooting myself in the foot. Suffice it to say that getting condescending pats on the head on hn is a personal frustration for me and that folks here who like to see themselves as helpful and often do help others have a track record of crapping on me personally. And it would be really stupid to name names and give links to actu…

I grok frustration, anger -- nobody is perfect. Nobody is nice all the time. But reading something like this (from your blog):

>Just when I was about ready to go on a real tear and swear off niceness forever, the guy in line ahead of me at lunch behaved like just enough of an overprivileged dick that my relatively better mannered behavior resulted in the girl loading up my plate. I had trouble finishing it. So I think I will continue to be polite to folks who handle my food.

... rubs me the wrong way.

>I am nice because I believe in it as an ethic, not merely a manipulative thing to do.

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#32

Post by toki5 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #28
mistermann wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I place a high value on treating others with respect, helping without expecting anything in return > I can't figure out how to get taken seriously and turn all this supposed good karma to financial benefit in a business way. Based on my very limited data, you sound like an arrogant self-entitled child with a huge ego, low self-esteem, and a chip on your shoulder. Accomplish something legitimate, and you'll stop nee…

>>Based on my very limited data, you sound like an arrogant self-entitled child with a huge ego, low self-esteem, and a chip on your shoulder. Wow. Don't you think that you are judging her a bit too harshly, especially since (like you admit) you have very limited data? And then people wonder why there are so few women in tech. People like you are part of the reason.

What part of what mistermann said had anything to do with Mz being a woman?

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#33

Post by ErrantX »

It depresses me how negative out society can sometimes be, and lack of common courtesy is one of the biggest culprits.

I was always brought up to be polite, even to people who didn't deserve it - and especially to people who you didn't know well enough to form an opinion. The number of people who reject this approach and just act like everyone else is crap is sad.

My experience of this was, following graduation from university, going to the job centre. I was looking for a mundane job for a year to earn some travelling money. My "advisor" treated me like an idiot, and a failure - constantly asking why I was "incapable of finding a graduate job". The idea that I didn't actually want a "career" quite then seemed beyond her.

What a weird situation; I was a pretty smart guy, with a very strong engineering degree, being treated like an idiot by someone with very weak academic credentials. I didn't care what she was qualified in (she made a point of having the certificate on her wall, I think it was a foundation course in arts) so long as she was competent at her job; but ''by her own value system'' I was several steps above her on the ladder, even jobless.

She made a point of being a jerk about my unusual choice, rather than simple getting over her disdain and helping me out!

In the end I walked out on the principle of it. Being treated like crap is demoralising.

That was an important life lesson, and ever since I've made extra effort to treat people as human beings.

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#34

Post by Mz »

snowwrestler wrote: post #30
Mz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could agree with you whole-heartedly but I cannot. I place a high value on treating others with respect, helping without expecting anything in return, etc. For some things, yes, I see clear evidence of "good karma" coming back to me. For other things, I feel like my life is a case of "no good deed goes unpunished." I am pretty angry and bitter about it. I feel like I must be doing something wrong somewhere,…

> I place a high value on treating others with respect, helping without expecting anything in return, etc. Really, only the former is common courtesy. The latter is something else--generosity. That can also pay off, but it can also bite. If a person is too generous, then they can get taken advantage of. To illustrate with an example: let's say I pitch a client to build a web site for them. They come back and say that…

Thank you. That's actually helpful.

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#35

Post by Mz »

toki5 wrote: post #31
Mz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably can't give you specific examples that would make sense to you without seriously shooting myself in the foot. Suffice it to say that getting condescending pats on the head on hn is a personal frustration for me and that folks here who like to see themselves as helpful and often do help others have a track record of crapping on me personally. And it would be really stupid to name names and give links to actu…

I grok frustration, anger -- nobody is perfect. Nobody is nice all the time. But reading something like this (from your blog): >Just when I was about ready to go on a real tear and swear off niceness forever, the guy in line ahead of me at lunch behaved like just enough of an overprivileged dick that my relatively better mannered behavior resulted in the girl loading up my plate. I had trouble finishing it. So I thin…

My blog is intended as a safe place to express my personal frustrations with a very difficult life. It seems to be socially Verboten to speak of it anywhere else. I am not trying to make a good impression with it.

I find it ironic and rather ugly that the whole point other people are making is that being courteous pays off in a business way but when I state I am not seeing that I get attacked as not being genuinely polite for the right reasons (i.e. I am failing to genuinely expect nothing in return when these articles and discussions of them focus on the business benefits of so called common courtesy). I suspect part of the problem is that I do genuinely expect nothing in return and that often seems to be exactly what I get.

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#36

Post by sneak »

Anechoic wrote: post #16

My common courtesy wake-up call: MIT mechanical engineering students often had to go through the course "secretary" to see their faculty advisers of high-level MechE professors. At the time, the course secretary was a middle-aged women with a desk outside of the MechE administrative offices. When you walked into the office, you spoke with her and she would send you to the appropriate faculty office. Whenever any of m…

It sort of sucks that your TL;DR is "you never know what people might be able to do for you, so be nice".

Just fucking be nice to people. It's not always about what they can do for you.

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#37

Post by Mz »

alecdibble wrote: post #29
Mz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could agree with you whole-heartedly but I cannot. I place a high value on treating others with respect, helping without expecting anything in return, etc. For some things, yes, I see clear evidence of "good karma" coming back to me. For other things, I feel like my life is a case of "no good deed goes unpunished." I am pretty angry and bitter about it. I feel like I must be doing something wrong somewhere,…

It sounds like you have trouble being assertive. At the end of the day, you have to fight for your own interests. Assertiveness is the fine line between courtesy and self-preservation. Being assertive means you MUST stand up for yourself to protect others' interest from overriding your own. It's a tough duality that most people aren't naturally good at. Generally, though, standing up for yourself in a non-aggressive…

Thanks. I actually have rather good boundries. I think my problem is a good deal more complicated than that. Given the ugly tone and assumptions of some of the replies, I strongly suspect that trying to explain further would be a bad idea.

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#38

Post by davidroberts »

mistermann wrote: post #23
Mz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could agree with you whole-heartedly but I cannot. I place a high value on treating others with respect, helping without expecting anything in return, etc. For some things, yes, I see clear evidence of "good karma" coming back to me. For other things, I feel like my life is a case of "no good deed goes unpunished." I am pretty angry and bitter about it. I feel like I must be doing something wrong somewhere,…

> I place a high value on treating others with respect, helping without expecting anything in return > I can't figure out how to get taken seriously and turn all this supposed good karma to financial benefit in a business way. Based on my very limited data, you sound like an arrogant self-entitled child with a huge ego, low self-esteem, and a chip on your shoulder. Accomplish something legitimate, and you'll stop nee…

That wasn't a very courteous reply...

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#39

Post by tomjen3 »

Anechoic wrote: post #16

My common courtesy wake-up call: MIT mechanical engineering students often had to go through the course "secretary" to see their faculty advisers of high-level MechE professors. At the time, the course secretary was a middle-aged women with a desk outside of the MechE administrative offices. When you walked into the office, you spoke with her and she would send you to the appropriate faculty office. Whenever any of m…

In general secretaries have way more power than one would normally think.

Re: The underappreciated power of common courtesy

#40

Post by mistermann »

Mz wrote: post #27
mistermann wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I place a high value on treating others with respect, helping without expecting anything in return > I can't figure out how to get taken seriously and turn all this supposed good karma to financial benefit in a business way. Based on my very limited data, you sound like an arrogant self-entitled child with a huge ego, low self-esteem, and a chip on your shoulder. Accomplish something legitimate, and you'll stop nee…

You have misjudged me. But thank you for taking the time and risk to give me some feedback.

Very possibly, but I'm being completely honest with no ill intent when I say perhaps you're also misjudging yourself.

Again, perhaps my perception is wrong, but I find it very difficult to believe the person you describe yourself as would write the words you have written here.

I haven't even read your history so I fully acknowledge this is speculation. I'm just saying, I haven't met many people who can't think of several ways their thinking has changed over the years, on a constant basis. This is often referred to as wisdom or humility. But occasionally you meet the odd person who seems to have known it all their entire life. Hopefully you don't fall into the latter group.

Post reply on HN