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The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

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Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#151
post #67
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this depend on decency of the people?

No. Being an asshole -- regardless of reason -- is terrible for the team, no matter how decent they are. Making an effort to conform to social norms of politeness goes a long, long way. Don't get me wrong; feel free to upset people, but they should be upset about the factual content of the message, not the delivery!

I don't know why you assume being an asshole is the trait your GP doesn't want to reveal. Any number of innocuous interests could hurt your reputation in different circles: hunting, being gay, watching anime, practicing (a different/any/no) religion.

"What did you do this weekend" is a loaded question if you're a cultural outlier at your workplace. Even decent people often have personal biases that lead to awkwardness and friction.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#152
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst one for me was the guy who didn’t wash his hands after using the restroom. One day, one of my team members told me about this, and I didn’t believe him, ha ha, so a few days later I’m in the restroom and this guy comes out of a stall and just walks out the door. So about a week later my guy who’d complained about it had some problem with one of our other systems, and who do they send over to help him out? Y…

You said stall so I am onboard with your disgust. This always reminds me about a Richard Feynman story where he'd stand in the bathroom and ridicule people who washed their hands after using the urinal, saying the urine was sterile anyway. I find that kind of hilarious. Colleagues complained all the time, like "well I was headed to lunch anyway and always wash my hands before lunch"

Unless they pissed directly on own hands while not touching penis, Feynman was just dumb asshole thinking how smart he is.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#153

My wife was* one of those rare people who just went ahead and asked people whatever was on her mind. This had a curious effect as I often internally winced and thought "you did not just say that". Sometimes I had the impulse to apologize for her or put in a joke to soften the blow. However, curiously, generally people didn't seem to mind or sometimes registered very mild embarrassment. In very rare cases they just av…

That’s a great story and I’m like your wife in that aspect, but just intentionally. Either way you’re lucky to have someone like that around, it can teach you a lot.

I’ve experienced very deep, fulfilling connections with strangers (friend of a friend level) and still haven’t found anyone being embarrassed by these questions, but of course nobody else needs to be around as it can quickly be embarrassing. It can also be softened with an honest “if you don’t want to answer I can totally understand” and move on with something else but almost always received a somewhat interesting response. In return, deep/very personal questions are sent my way and I’ve answered them all with the best of my knowledge.

I can see how many people are afraid of having real talk (specially introverts, as I was) because it can show your weaknesses, suffering and your potentially “wrong” ideas/thoughts. Truth is, everybody has their fair share of bs going on and being over polite and wasting time in meaningless small talk doesn’t IMHO benefit anybody, and you miss very interesting mindsets and experiences that can make your life much better.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is being easily offended a subculture? Boy did I miss that memo, but it makes sense!

Well, it depends on how you define "easily". And any culture that agrees a thing is offensive will probably not feel the offense is taken too easily, because by definition it's the norm. I mean, I was chastised for taking a picture with a Buddha even while I did my best to be polite (I knew taking photos was OK but you had to make sure you weren't standing higher than the Buddha, etc.) - to me it seems kind of arbitr…

Is refill the pot of coffee if you empty it another casualty of technology? I don't think I've worked anywhere in more than a decade that did not have big automate coffee maker that allowed you to choose between a dozen passable options.

In that situation you never refill the pot if you empty it, you empty the grinds or pour in more beans if the the machine asks.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't talking about soap. I never use it or shampoo either. My theory is that by washing away all the oils from your skin, you just encourage your body to produce oil faster. That's why you soap users get all goopy at the end of the day and your clothes smell. I can wear my clothes for at least 48 hours before they start to smell. But anyway, even just water can dry out my hands, and I don't want to use any creams…

why would you favour naturally oily hands over clean hands? you are sacrificing everybody's hygiene for your own comfort. what do you do around babies and the elderly? despite your superior body chemistry, do you not wash your clothes in soap? would you refuse antiseptic treatment, or condone a team of surgeons with your unhygienic practice to save your life? there is a reason humans harness sanitation: it saves and…

> why would you favour naturally oily hands over clean hands?

At the end of the day, with your accelerated oil producing hands, that became that way because you are constantly stripping them of it, your hands are much more goopy than mine.

> you are sacrificing everybody's hygiene for your own comfort. what do you do around babies and the elderly?

I don't even think about it. Despite your implication of calamity, nothing happens. (Besides, babies are a lot dirtier than me, drooling and sticking everything in their mouths)

> despite your superior body chemistry, do you not wash your clothes in soap?

Clothes are another matter, they aren't living organisms with evolved mechanisms to survive in a natural environment full of all kinds of microorganisms that could kill you. You need to wash clothes just as you need to take care of any artificial tool.

Naturally, we don't need soap. This is a classic marketing technique, create a problem, “hygiene”, then push a solution, buy my soap. Only the soap creates more problems, but nevermind that. Oh if you're really suffering, buy my hand cream.

> would you refuse antiseptic treatment, or condone a team of surgeons with your unhygienic practice to save your life?

Would you take blood pressure medication when you didn't need it? How about put a cast on your arm for a week after lifting a heavy object just in case the bones are slightly weakened? Just because medicine can cure a problem doesn't mean you should use it all the time.

> there is a reason humans harness sanitation: it saves and prolongs lives

An enormous oversimplification. Obviously it saves lives, but if we lived in a world where we never came in contact with any microorganism that might kill us, our defense systems would be weakened to a point where if we were ever exposed to one, we'd all die.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#156

I'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager ( https://www.askamanager.org/ ), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both managers and employees will avoid awkward topics ranging from trivial ("your breath smells") to consequential ("you need to step up or you'll be fired!"), to the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. And I'm guilty of this…

There was a thread a few months ago on HN about non-violent communication

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21263894

which elicited a lot of comments about how much they disliked this type of conversation

reading this comment makes we wonder if its not more a function of 'non-violent communication is a tool people use to bring up subjects they would otherwise avoid; there's basically no way to talk about a lot of these subjects in a manner that doesn't bother people; ->-> if these is something you're going to pay costs on if it doesn't get brought up, using the tool of non-violent communications is one way to handle these costs'

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#157
post #2

The author misses the point. People are avoiding sensitive questions not because it impacts opinion on average, but because of the rare outliers that ruin it for everybody. It takes just a single asshole reporting you to HR to ruin your life.

And certain "sensitive" questions are just straight up illegal to ask in an interview / the workplace, and there are tons that are in a gray area depending on context:

- Do you have any medical conditions / health issues?

- Do you plan on having more children?

- What religion are you?

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#158
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some personal advice: stop viewing your interactions in this transactional way and just be yourself. Stop giving a shit who reveals what and the perceived balance or imbalance of the same. Be kind and be generous.

If I were to "just be myself" at work, I would be fired very quickly -- because my self is outside the narrow little band of what is "approved of" in my workplace. Every conversation of a sensitive nature is an opportunity for disaster if not treated with the utmost care not to be "found out"

"Just be yourself."

"Hmm, Ok well, I hate and resent all of you, but I absolutely rely on the paycheck from this scammy, terrible company."

"Uh, nevermind, stop being yourself."

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#159
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a manager like that dude he was house poor and had only one ratty Hilfiger sweater There's no way to relate to people like that and confrontation being avoided is the only way out

I knew a guy like that and he had a very different attitude than most in this situation. The guy I knew was 100% aware of what he was doing. He said he's not poor at all, but chose to live poor to save his money and invest it instead. He said he was on track to retire at 30. The man had laser vision with his eye on the target, can't hate on him for that. He'll be the last one laughing with that "fuck you" money.

But saving money on clothes and hygiene is crazily short-sighted. Bad clean clothes are maybe a couple hundred dollars a year, generously. I sincerely doubt that outweighs having your co-workers dread interacting with you.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#160
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a core part of being polite, is not hruting others through your actions directly or undirectly. ( or at least trying) The problem is that in some cultures it's perfectly fine to talk about things that in other cultures it's not. The solution to that is to give people a benefit of a doubt and not assume they are trying to be hurtful, even if your first response is to be hurt. We don't seem to be great at that wh…

Not to mention the thousands of little subcultures that exist. I've seen people offended by others leaving notes that seemed polite to me - "please refill coffee pot if it's empty" as passive-aggressive, etc.

And according to a recent internet trend, apparently "OK" is passive-aggressive to. Go figure.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/okay-ok-k-workplace-language_...

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