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The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

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Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#211

Post by ineedasername »

vanniv wrote: post #189
homonculus1 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 awkwardnes…

Thanks for being the only person to assume that I am an outlier in some way other than by being an asshole! I don't know why everyone assumes that "different" has to be "asshole" If anything, "asshole-ish" would be a part of "self" that is allowed to be expressed at work, so long as it is in limited doses

Sure, readers don't have to interpret what you said as "being himself must mean being an asshole," but when you say that being yourself would get you fired, some flavor of "asshole" is probably high any anyone's list for the type of attitude/personality that would cause such an extreme reaction. Can you expand on what sort of being-your-self attributes are not professionally disruptive, but would still get you fired?

I mean, I can think of plenty of hobbies/cultural differences/etc., that could make things awkward between colleagues, but not much that would get you fired. "Wow, Bob likes to go Skiing in a Furry costume while voting Republican and being an Atheist. We can't have that, let's fire Bob." doesn't seem all that likely of a reaction.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#212

Post by ineedasername »

vanniv wrote: post #191
_y5hn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this depend on decency of the people?

We gave up decency for an insistence of uniformity of thought a little while ago

I think people conflate "decency" with "don't ruffle any feathers", and that led to some uniformity of thought. But in my experience, when done tactfully, feathers can be ruffled in a way that breaks that uniformity. It just takes a bit more tact and thoughtfulness than blurting out, "That's an awful idea" etc.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#213

Post by _y5hn »

kqr wrote: post #67
_y5hn wrote: 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 was rather shooting for most people being decent, when you get to know them better, if given any chance of that of course.

As for actual assholes, one shouldn't assume they want best for the team, or anyone else for that matter. Some people shine best when slinging turds making everyone else look bad. They are usually minority though and managable.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#214

Post by mc3 »

Supermancho wrote: post #171
gambiting wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wolves are actively hunted by far more dangerous predators though, especially if they are killing sheep.

not in corporate america. i think you missed the metaphor. you arent alone.

The sheep metaphor broke down about 10 comments ago.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#215

Post by ineedasername »

scarejunba wrote: post #104
asveikau wrote: post #12

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.

This advice is, in my experience, a low quality action item. I saw incredible progress in my life when I modeled the interactions. You can model interactions as information exchange, etc. and you can also model out the increased value of maintaining repeated interactions. It’s just another way of learning a skill: good human interactions. Be yourself / don’t model / etc. works for those who are able to take this anal…

And the thing about "children learning language" is that all sorts of bad habits are often picked up that don't conform to standard grammar, not to mention following rules without really understanding why they're there or what they do.

Social rules are even less concrete, meaning that learning the amorphous set of unwritten rules, guidelines, best practices, etc.,through analysis more than osmosis may let you know when it's okay to bend or break one.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#216

Post by asdf21 »

ineedasername wrote: post #211
vanniv wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for being the only person to assume that I am an outlier in some way other than by being an asshole! I don't know why everyone assumes that "different" has to be "asshole" If anything, "asshole-ish" would be a part of "self" that is allowed to be expressed at work, so long as it is in limited doses

Sure, readers don't have to interpret what you said as "being himself must mean being an asshole," but when you say that being yourself would get you fired, some flavor of "asshole" is probably high any anyone's list for the type of attitude/personality that would cause such an extreme reaction. Can you expand on what sort of being-your-self attributes are not professionally disruptive, but would still get you fired?…

He's Republican / Libertarian and his worldview is grounded in economic and biological realities, which will absolutely get you run out of many (perhaps most) SV tech companies... for example, James Damore.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#217

Post by asveikau »

asdf21 wrote: post #216
ineedasername wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, readers don't have to interpret what you said as "being himself must mean being an asshole," but when you say that being yourself would get you fired, some flavor of "asshole" is probably high any anyone's list for the type of attitude/personality that would cause such an extreme reaction. Can you expand on what sort of being-your-self attributes are not professionally disruptive, but would still get you fired?…

He's Republican / Libertarian and his worldview is grounded in economic and biological realities, which will absolutely get you run out of many (perhaps most) SV tech companies... for example, James Damore.

I'm sorry to break it to you, but James D'amore was being an asshole.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#218

Post by watwut »

modriano wrote: post #181
zajio1am wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly. Well, i guess such conversation would not have a rational background, it would be just a power struggle whether one side could enforce its cultural norms on the other side. Using one's soft power t…

In the first (real) job I had after undergrad (physics and mechanical engineering, graduated in 2010 when the economy was a horrorshow), I was a shop supervisor in a factory. I was 23, working in the assembly department of a dirty factory, and I reasoned "appearance is shallow and not worth spending time and effort on, and this place is filthy anyway" (I'm kind of an aspie). A lot of the people working in assembly in…

Honestly, it was not honest question. It was extremely carefully worded question, prepared in advance that hinted that you smell without telling it. She was not curious whether you use soap, she was in the process of informing you that you should. And she took a lot of care to be as gentle with it as possible.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#219

Post by hrktb »

anbotero wrote: post #210
hrktb wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. If you genuinely think the ones you saw could have been avoid just by a conversation, I’d wager the main issue was not an awkward situation but a crucial lack of trust, often coming from a toxic culture. I saw a lot of situations where something awkward was going in, ranging from bad hygiene to mild hara…

My experience has been people is afraid of asking, as the article puts it, “sensitive questions”. Afraid of the repercussions: Will they react aggressively/defensively and never talk to me again? Will they feel bad and have depression after that? Among other things. I say it because it happened at my previous company: After a new team member joined the company (he was like 6, 7 feet away from me), I from time to time…

I hear you. Somewhere I wonder how long this kind of sensitive questions can stay unasked.

There usually are repercussions, with concrete effects on work relationships and productivity (if there aren’t, why even bother ?). In your example, I’d guess people would delay talking to him and this would slow down communication. Keeping these kind of stuff silent usually don’t last long anyway, and it’s so much better to have early enough factual conversations, “we want you to fix X because otherwise it causes Y”, soon enough for the employee to have time left to digest the info and react on it.

Re: The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions

#220

Post by ineedasername »

asdf21 wrote: post #216
ineedasername wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, readers don't have to interpret what you said as "being himself must mean being an asshole," but when you say that being yourself would get you fired, some flavor of "asshole" is probably high any anyone's list for the type of attitude/personality that would cause such an extreme reaction. Can you expand on what sort of being-your-self attributes are not professionally disruptive, but would still get you fired?…

He's Republican / Libertarian and his worldview is grounded in economic and biological realities, which will absolutely get you run out of many (perhaps most) SV tech companies... for example, James Damore.

Again, you describe things that might be awkward, and even then it's only awkward if the people make them so. It's not at all fraught with "you're fired" potential if everyone remains calm and professional about such differences. Not only that, but you're think it ng entirely too narrow if "being yourself" only means expressing political and cultural beliefs.

Otherwise, I work in an environment in an industry that is much further "to the left" than SV Tech: academe. You may not believe it, but despite the cliche ostracism of "OMG that's a ::hushed tones:: conservative", it is quite easy to be one without self censoring. You simply refrain from injecting situations with those views when they're not called for, and if they are or you decide to do so during non-work times (breaks or side conversations) you be respectful of the other opinion. In short, don't be an asshole.

I get along with plenty of people all along the political spectrum at work, because we have an environment of respect and professionalism.

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