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How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

charity.wtf

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Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#141

Post by pxc »

shultays wrote: post #112
ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

! can easily mean sarcasm A: Hey, it looks like there is this and that issue that is caused by one of your submissions. Can you fix it? B: Sure A: Thanks! Was that thanks genuine? Or sarcastic because A spent half a day trying to figure out what is going on

I'd never read that as sarcastic.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#143

Post by doix »

ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

> I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points!

Ha, I've got a funny anecdote about exclamation marks. My now girlfriend (she wasn't at the time) asked me once why I was always yelling in text.

I had to ask her what she meant, and she said I used exclamations so much she thought I was always angry.

So I guess becareful with using them too often, it could be taken the wrong way also :).

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#144

Post by m463 »

davesque wrote: post #96

Something I think is missing from this list: make a sacrifice for the sake of the other person. If trust has been damaged, it might take more than just talk to repair it. You may need to give the other person part of what they want as a gesture of good will. I've seen this go a long way in certain situations. Of course, this comes with some caveats. For example, if there's a power imbalance in a damaged relationship,…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#145

Post by charles_f »

Interesting one.

Fun stuff: I initially thought it would talk about a more technical aspect of trust and communication (e.g how do you have two services chat when you don't trust transport), and was expecting something like Byzantine faults or two generals problem, and such topics.

But that made me wonder, are there any algorithms and techniques from the computer science world, related to communication in low trust, that could be retrofitted into the real world? Stuff like shared secrets, ACKs and such?

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#146

Post by pxc »

nickjj wrote: post #120
tayo42 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised to see emoji. I feel like those almost always come across insincere when they're not expected. Idk why, maybe I'm the odd one.

You're right about the "unexpected" part. I think it really depends on the context and the person. Both factors play a big role here. Imagine being in a spot to review a new hire's PR and you've barely interacted with them before this encounter. A reply of "Your method technically works but next time try xyz instead. It's more efficient. ;)" is extremely hostile in my mind. That phrasing is already over the top horre…

> Hey, I ran your solution and it's working nicely. Thanks a lot! By the way, recently I've been working on profiling our code so performance is on the top of my mind. I ran the profiler against this PR and noticed a dip in performance in one of the functions. Do you want to hop on a call sometime to explore a few ways we can refactor xyz function? Really curious to hear what you think and after thinking about this for a while I have an idea or 2.

But that's making a PR comment into a meeting, which is something I'd kinda dread and want to avoid.

That said, I agree that this

> Your method technically works but next time try xyz instead. It's more efficient. ;)

is awful. But it's not just the use of an emoticon. It's that it's the wrong emoticon.

> this works, but xyz would be better (more efficient) :)

Would be a bit ambiguous in tone, but I think at least invites an optimistic reading as well.

For me I'd rather the niceties in a PR (as well as proposals to meet) live in a comment at the beginning or end of a PR. Individuak requests for specific changes within a PR review should be clear and simple, not bogged down in formal crap or fluff, imo.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#147

Post by xboxnolifes »

ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

A manager of mine in the past used exclamation marks and emojis a lot. I never grew to trust the "friendliness" of it. The use of emojis and exclamations over the trivialist things made very interaction feel forced.

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#148

Post by User23 »

ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

Wow ur totally rite! <3 <3 ^_^!!!

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#149

Post by [deleted] »

Dalewyn wrote: post #70
TylerE wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the occasional emoji is ok, especially in chat, but excess, especially multiples of the same emoji in a row are just childish.

Emojis and emoticons in any serious piece of communication are simply unprofessional and insincere. Do not use them, unless your intent is actually to piss your recipient off. Textbook example is the recent fiasco over at Linus Tech Tips, where they even used an emoji in an email to Billet Labs saying they "accidentally" auctioned off Billet's stuff. Anyone worth their paycheck doesn't use emojis in business communiq…

[deleted]

Re: How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole

#150

Post by lostlogin »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #147
ketzo wrote: post #18

> TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY. > Say "please" and "thank you"... use emojis... I'll add to this one -- use exclamation points! It's actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are. In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic. That's not a charact…

A manager of mine in the past used exclamation marks and emojis a lot. I never grew to trust the "friendliness" of it. The use of emojis and exclamations over the trivialist things made very interaction feel forced.

When the topic is serious, use of exclamation points, ellipses, emoji or caps makes it seem like the other party doesn’t take the situation seriously.
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