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Be Kind

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Re: Be Kind

#281

Post by jorgearturo »

mkramlich wrote: post #265
jorgearturo wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha that's hilarious, I don't think I have enough rep to make my voting count, but I nevertheless upvoted you just in case. And I should warn you! I WILL make a T-shirt and give you credit.

consider me forewarned. if in twenty years I'm retired living on a golden yacht sailing the icy seas of Europa I hope a non-trivial portion of my income is coming from the royalties on the sales of that T-shirt. and/or from the earnings on my book series The Dread Space Pirate Richard . (srsly) or... savings from my day job. a good strategy has several fallbacks. :-P

Oh hey, you wrote that? You might have mentioned it on another thread because I have it on my amazon wishlist already. xP

I've just promoted your book up in the long to-read list.

Re: Be Kind

#282

Post by pekk »

jasonwocky wrote: post #173

I dunno. I'm not a big fan of the "be kind" angle on things. Too often that translates to, "Withhold the feedback you have for fear that you'll upset the other person." Or, "Don't tell anyone that you think you have a better idea than the one someone else is championing." I generally think that people are "too kind" at work in a lot of ways, and it leads to a lot of grousing and internal stress on the part of the peo…

It would be useful if people carefully considered their real motivations for their feedback, and whether it was really all correct and relevant. Feedback which hasn't passed a strong internal filter for whether it is basically constructive, objective and well-informed isn't worth voicing and really should be withheld. So I like that you say "be thoughtful."

Re: Be Kind

#283

Post by mreiland »

ridgeguy wrote: post #229
hckr1292 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is confusing "kind" with "nice". If your audience can handle some directness, be direct. It's okay to say, "This is a horrible idea, and I can't believe we're considering this." That can be kind when you care about the person you're talking to. What's unkind is saying, "You're an idiot, and that's a ridiculous idea." Attacking people is not kind, but directness _can_ be kind. On the other hand, you deserve to be…

I don't understand the down votes you're getting. Your contribution to this discussion seems considered and worth considering.

He's getting downvotes because no one actually says "you're an idiot" in real life and that comparison has fuck all to do with the actual point anyone in this thread is coming close to.

Re: Be Kind

#284

Post by gnaritas »

serve_yay wrote: post #115
gnaritas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course it costs nothing to address people in a way that they feel comfortable with, so you should do it. It doesn't cost nothing, it's costs a lot of time and attention to find out what they're comfortable with and much attention to filter yourself to to fit that, so no you shouldn't just do it without a good reason.

OK, I guess it costs. But I say it's unwise to be miserly along such lines.

Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but you assume it's a choice and that's a mistake. You presume it's easy to know how people want to be treated, but there are a great many conditions that make reading other people difficult for entire classes of people. They aren't necessarily being miserly, they may be doing the best they can and that's all they've got. Those with Aspergers for example have to do with intellect what most people do instinctively socially speaking, and that's exhausting for them; they simply aren't wired to be social.

Re: Be Kind

#285

Post by pekk »

hckr1292 wrote: post #113
fweespeech wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's perfectly OK to disagree with someone; but please consider doing so in a respectful and thoughtful tone. The problem I've found is I literally get ignored and end up repeatedly dealing with the same mess until I stop being "kind" about it. I generally have to do literally 10x as much work to be "kind" than when I'm less generous about it. The problem with kindness is its frequently taken [in IT, in places I've…

This is confusing "kind" with "nice". If your audience can handle some directness, be direct. It's okay to say, "This is a horrible idea, and I can't believe we're considering this." That can be kind when you care about the person you're talking to. What's unkind is saying, "You're an idiot, and that's a ridiculous idea." Attacking people is not kind, but directness _can_ be kind. On the other hand, you deserve to be…

It depends. Saying "horrible idea" and "can't believe we're considering this" will be pointlessly hostile in many situations. Why not just be specific about the problem?

Re: Be Kind

#286

Post by mreiland »

npizzolato wrote: post #142
gnaritas wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, and cool story; however, what they're paid doesn't matter, it's a red herring. It's their JOB to deal with people and and it's not my job as a shopper to validate the emotions of the counter worker or my co-workers. Ring up my stuff, take my money, and let me leave. You're chastising him for his "attitude"; what attitude? He's correct and he didn't display any attitude other than simple honesty.

GP's attitude is the same attitude you have when you claim "it's their JOB to deal with people" and when you equate being nice to "[validating] the emotions of the counter worker". Sure, their job is to deal with shitty people with a smile, but it's also your job (as a nice, respectable member of society) to be a person who is pleasant to deal with.

They get paid to deal with customers. It's their job, end of story.

The reason people say it's exhausting to "be nice" constantly is specifically because of people like you. You've made up your mind on something that's completely outlandish and unfair, but you're going to attack him for being "unkind" because he doesn't agree with you.

Stop acting like that and maybe more of these "blunt" people would stop being so damned blunt to you.

Re: Be Kind

#288

Post by hellbanTHIS »

thisisboz wrote: post #110
fsk wrote: post #93

I had a completely different interpretation of the incident at Facebook. He had developed some key features that were now important. Instead of mentoring him to work better with others, his boss demoted him. The boss was giving someone else a favor, making them the lead of this now-important project, some up-and-coming hotshot. He made up an excuse about "bad attitude", while just using it as cover for backstabbing h…

I'm going to write a follow up about how I wasn't mad about the feedback as much as I was mad nobody had told me sooner. We were a young company and didn't really have a management or mentorship skillset yet. We would all develop that together in the ensuing years and this was a major part of my motivation for pushing for it.

Sounds like there weren't any grownups around, honestly. I'm also getting the feeling that it's a fire-happy kind of place, maybe I'm wrong but that could explain the note-passing childishness. Maybe they were afraid of getting canned if they talked back to you.

I don't know if this is a lesson about being nice or a lesson about dealing with different personality types, I guess it depends on how much of an asshole you actually were. Personally I'd prefer an environment where you call my work "shit" and I say you have your head up your ass, it saves time and it's better than passive-aggressive weirdness and underhandedness but not everybody is like that.

Any place where people are arbitrarily fired is going to be toxic though, the reaction from the CTO and a few other things I've heard about Facebook kind of makes me think that's what's going on.

Re: Be Kind

#289

Post by SCdF »

vijayr wrote: post #86
eclipxe wrote: post #14

The best manager I ever had (and continues to be my inspiration today) was also one of the kindest, genuine, and empowering people I've ever met. Not necessarily nice, but kind. The worst manager I ever had once told me "you're too kind to your team". He wore his ability to bring fear to a room like a badge of honor. I never worked harder and more passionately than under the first and I never felt more apathetic and…

Not disagreeing with you, but there are also leaders like Jobs, Gates, Ellison etc. How come they are able to get amazing results, while being really nasty to their people?

It's so unfortunate that being nasty works for those guys. I've seen so many people who effectively equate Apple's success to "the leader of Apple being an arsehole" and decide they too want to be Steve Jobs.

I am of the (entirely uneducated) opinion that Jobs wasn't successful because he was an arsehole, but that he could only get away with being an arsehole because he was so successful.

Re: Be Kind

#290

Post by nostalgiac »

applecore wrote: post #174
thisisboz wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Golden Rule (treating others as you want to be treated) isn't actually very good. I prefer the Platinum Rule (treat others as THEY want to be treated)

The Platinum Rule isn't very good either. My preference is the converse of the Golden Rule: DON'T treat others as you would have them NOT treat you.

How is the Platinum rule good? When would treating someone how they want to be treated go wrong?

Your converse golden rule suffers the same problems as the golden rule - everyone should be treated individually, treating others the same as you expect people to treat you will not always work out as intended.

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