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

Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

smashcompany.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 161 posts

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#111

Post by DoreenMichele »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #110
DoreenMichele wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW: Male characters in movies who show you their scars are seen correctly as bragging about what badasses they are. I am a woman inclined to do that and I have had to learn to stop it. It is consistently interpreted as "Oh, you poor, pathetic thing, so victimized by life! Clearly, you need to be rescued! (by which I mean treated like a doormat and taken advantage of)" Outright bragging goes worse places. So the GP…

That is different from what is described in the original article, though, where “Lisa” really does speak in a way that communicates fear and a sense of trepidation.

Is it? If it is, why am I so frequently interpreted as playing the victim card when I am displaying my badass scars? Or even simply telling it like it is about my actual life experiences?

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#112

Post by 111_1_111 »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #18
curyous wrote: post #7

If you make yourself vulnerable, a competitor can exploit it.

Your competitors will find things to exploit anyway. Opening yourself up will attract people who'll help when things get tough.

That's like saying a basketball team shouldn't play defense because the other team will score even if they do play defense.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#113

Post by greenrd »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #71
dkarl wrote: post #48

Traditionally, for a man among men, expressing confidence has always been safe. If a man expresses confidence in a situation where confidence is foolhardy, other men will interpret it as a performance of masculinity. I'm sure Rick understands this project is going to be a nightmare. I'm glad he's gung-ho about it. If you express fear, on the other hand, your fear will be scrutinized to determine whether it is well-fo…

Anyway, it's pretty disheartening to see an incident that is heavily colored by gender expectations related and acknowledged as such but then interpreted as a story about a one-dimensional spectrum from expressiveness to guardedness. Maybe you have said it already in the above but to ask directly: do you think the author or their colleague would have treated Lisa’s remarks differently if she were a man?

Reality check here: I think if she were a man - and not a boy fresh out of school, mind - she wouldn't have been hired in the first place. And yet here we are, seriously arguing about whether her naivety and immaturity should have been enabled and encouraged. There's no question: it shouldn't. That is not how you talk in an interview.

Not even if your interviewer is a woman.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#114

Post by peoplewindow »

harlanji wrote: post #52
rainbowmverse wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good group project with people who are mature enough to handle someone's expression of vulnerability without judgement might be what keeps them in the class. If you reject someone over an expression of doubt, it was never about the doubt.

The one grayed down comment. I agree whole heartedly.

It's by a shadowbanned account. You'd need to have showdead on to see it.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#115

Post by greenrd »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #111
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is different from what is described in the original article, though, where “Lisa” really does speak in a way that communicates fear and a sense of trepidation.

Is it? If it is, why am I so frequently interpreted as playing the victim card when I am displaying my badass scars? Or even simply telling it like it is about my actual life experiences?

Maybe it's the way you tell them. With engineers, a little explicitness goes a long way, and will generally be accepted - unless you're being patronising and telling them something they already know. So try saying "I'm not saying this to gain any sympathy or anything like that, but I had a similar experience, which was... and what it taught me / how it made me stronger was..." I mean that's kind of a stilted template, but you get the general idea.

Now, this might lead to a bunfight about whether those situations were similar, in your colleagues' opinions - but then at least you'd have brought out into the open where your colleagues weren't thinking along the same lines as you - which might not always be what you expected!

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#116

Post by dang »

lkrubner wrote: post #12
sergers wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am 31, moved into a new team 1.5 years ago. I am married 7 years, no kids... and have carried a hefty mortgage for 8 years. My other team mates are 38-55. Have kids, some even grandkids. While I can relate to alot of things, I can't stand their constant discussions about their kids and other family stuff... I just can't relate.(edit: not that I can't relate really, I just can't stand their constant distractions wit…

Why is this comment getting downvoted? A person says they don't discuss family matters at work -- is that actually something that should be downvoted?

I appreciate that you've written some good articles recently, and as you may know, we've boosted them onto HN's front page (as described at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380 and links back from there). But could you please not post crappy comments like this? You're an experienced enough HN user to know that (a) you're outright breaking the site rules; and (b) such comments usually end up worse than useless because the downvotes they complain about soon get canceled out by upvotes—as happened above. In most cases, silently upvoting the downvoted comment yourself is enough to fix the problem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#117

Post by peoplewindow »

neltnerb wrote: post #69
throwaway0255 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because we're yelled and beaten down for every expression of vulnerability growing up doesn't mean we have to perpetuate it into adulthood. Stop the cycle. This is like shaking your fist at gravity. Everyone's in competition all the time whether they like it or not, that's the universe we live in. Given a choice, you're going to advance the person who's glad they got into computer science, all things being equ…

I admit I am slightly confused, I would take that comment as an indicator that I should give her more opportunities to sit in on how business decisions are made since she may be far more valuable as a computer-savvy business person. I suppose if she was very negative about the actual work of computer programming I'd be biased against trusting her with long-term projects since she might abandon them. So I suppose it c…

She obviously is more interested in business, but that's a terrible way to communicate it. That has to be the least business savvy way to express interest in a transfer imaginable.

Thoughts I'd have if I heard that:

1) So when we asked her why she wanted to work here and she told us she would find the work interesting, she was lying?

2) Is her current work any good? It can't be if she's demotivated.

3) If I invite her to a business meeting, is she going to say something similarly thoughtless? Maybe she blurts out that she thinks the customer's request is stupid, or something similar? Seeing as she just said in front of her manager that she regrets her entire career choice, which should have been just an obviously bad idea, can I trust her basic judgement in other areas?

4) Apropos 3, if she shows such a lack of social awareness surely keeping her away from the business side and in front of a computer is for the best.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#118

Post by greenrd »

white-flame wrote: post #38
orev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very naive though. Eventually there will be someone around who is politically motivated or otherwise adversarial, and then your safe space is gone and everyone who exposed themselves remains exposed. No matter how much we want the new-agey stuff to work, it just doesn't because it requires everyone to play by its rules, which doesn't happen in reality.

The things that are exposed should still be work-related. Be honest about why deadlines were missed, what failures were in designs, etc, and basically work against just everybody putting on a "Yes everything is great!" facade. That facade breeds distrust and low morale. Even if things aren't going great, being honest about it keeps motivation up better than the alternative.

Do retrospectives at regular intervals and encourage everyone in the team to bring up (almost) any issues, large or small, in those meetings, and discuss them, with a solution-focused outlook - what can we actually try in order to address this problem?

An essential feature of retrospectives is that upper management, and internal/external customers, are not invited - and do not get to see the raw whiteboard, but only - if they see anything from it - a sanitised summary that's relevant - and diplomatic - for them. This all helps to encourage openness.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#119

Post by dang »

OnlyRepliesToBS wrote: post #26
xutopia wrote: post #9

There is a backlash to this ancient mode of thinking. It's called Conscious Leadership and it's predicated on the idea that vulnerability brings better results and that you need a safe environment for the dynamic to flourish. Some of it sounds very new-agey but from what I've read and experienced it has really good fundamentals.

Extract all value, then discard.

Special-purpose accounts aren't allowed here. HN is for thoughtful conversation, which takes place between individuals, not abstractions.

Re: Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much

#120

Post by mulmen »

bootsz wrote: post #94
mulmen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a toxic generalization and is unfair to anyone who put in the work to earn and then take advantage of a business degree. Are you honestly arguing that the entire discipline of marketing is worthless? What about project management? Process improvement? Human resources? It's flat wrong to say a business degree is "worthless". I have an undergraduate business degree and I have done very well with it. Your mistak…

Worthless is not a fair adjective, I have rephrased. But I still maintain that (outside of Accounting) I would not personally recommend a young person to get their undergraduate degree in business assuming it will be their sole undergraduate degree . Business is a great add-on to a specialty in something else, though. Thus the popularity of people going from science/engineering undergrad to an MBA later on. What was…

My major is irrelevant to this conversation because I have classmates with successful and fulfilling careers in all the disciplines offered by my business school. Their business degrees (and mine) are their primary degree and are worth more than they cost.

I think you do a disservice to young people by giving them absolute advice like that. Business school does not work for everyone, that does not make it worthless or only good as a supplement.

My degree opened doors to a career that I would not have with any other degree. That doesn't mean everyone should do it but a lot of people can. It certainly means that your absolute statements are incorrect.

Post reply on HN