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Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

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Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#301

Post by vanderreeah »

will_pseudonym wrote: post #7
temp246810 wrote: post #4

I'm going through this change right now. Some words of hard earned "wisdom": make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too far out in the other direction. I went from being an accommodating person to an intense asshole - trying to dial it back now but it's hard, especially when you notice that people definitely respect you more for good or bad reasons when you're like that. Take it too far though, and it will of course go…

There's a great 5 minute clip of the clinical psychologist and professor Dr. Jordan B. Peterson talking about the dangers of being too agreeable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVMvQhxN_M8

If anyone reads this it will be downvoted but he is a transphobic asshole.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#302

Post by BrandonMarc »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #255
Bakary wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One method I found works disturbingly well is to have a busy life or cultivate the appearance of a busy life. It's counter-intuitive for some and obvious for others, but people will value you more if you are less available whereas they will treat your time with increasing contempt if you can be reached and interrupted easily. With this reputation in place, people are much less likely to try to trick you into doing wh…

This actually back-fired for a real-estate broker recently. One of his good friend's used another real estate agent to buy a house. The broker, upset that his friend had not contacted him, asked why? The response, "we thought you were too busy." This happened two weeks ago.

It was probably a "polite" lie.

When looking for a real-estate agent, one of the top pieces of advice is: DO NOT use a friend or family member. Just, don't. Nothing personal, it's just not how you go about looking for a quality real-estate agent ... even if they happen to be a great one.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#303

Post by coldtea »

skosch wrote: post #270
coldtea wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Counterpoint: when people do this to me, I instinctively assume that the true reason is laziness. What about the laziness of not handling the matter yourself? Talk about entitlement!

True! I regret the way I put that.

Heh, don't sweat it. Just driving the point you've made further (that such an assumption can backfire).

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#304

Post by Swizec »

lomnakkus wrote: post #177
Swizec wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unreliable is great! I don't want to be relied upon for things I don't want to do. Why would I want to come off as reliable for things I don't want to be doing in the first place? That's a great way to get to do even more of the things you don't want to do. Sounds terrible. Align your interests with mine, then we can talk about reliable. In the words of one Richard Feynman : http://www.deliberate.rest/?p=685 > So I h…

> Unreliable is great! Anecdote: It only goes so far. There are quite a lot of people who will be quite pissed off with you (passively) if you're unreliable. I mean, friends will tolerate it, but let me tell you, as someone who's quite "reliable" (punctual, do what I promise, etc.) it's quite stressful to have to rely on someone who isn't. So stressful, in fact, that I wouldn't actually interact very much with this p…

> ... has to do with this. Can you explain?

I think we might be talking about two different kinds of unreliable.

When you hire me to do a job, or I agree to build something for you, or something along those lines. When that happens, I will stop at nothing until it's done. I might be off in my estimate of how long it takes, and I might come back to you and suggest a revised plan if I think new information significantly changes the scope/cost of the project. But in the end, it will be done.

You can rely on me to take things to completion.

But you'd be a fool to rely on me to answer your email within 1 hour, or a day, sometimes at all. You wouldn't want to rely on me to pick up the phone when you call. And you definitely don't want to rely on me to make it to drinks or dinner exactly on time. Unless there's a very hard external deadline (like theatre tickets), I'm probably going to be a few minutes late.

And you wouldn't want to rely on me to, say, buy your airplane tickets. Or random little things like that. I'll get around to doing "Random low priority task" at some point maybe. Don't rely on me for those.

The whole point of this unreliableness is so that you won't even ask. If I say I'm gonna do it, I'll do it, probably riiiight before the external deadline. But I'd prefer you don't even ask. And you'll be much less stressed about it if you don't.

Hell, I hire a VA for stuff like that because even I don't want to rely on myself to do such things.

The lateness, that's a bad habit. It comes from losing track of time when I go into deep work mode. It happens a lot and very easily.

The dropping of small things I consider low priority and/or irrelevant. Well that's just prioritization, if I'm working on something I think is important and there's no time left over for your email or message or phone call or random little task. Tough. I have a laundry list of my own little tasks that I also didn't get to.

> Are you at "Feynman"-level?

Probably not, but the US government does say I am an alien with exceptional ability in the arts or the sciences so there's that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#305

Post by Tenhundfeld »

Bakary wrote: post #249
alecdibble wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your perspective, what specific traits or responses did you cultivate to give off the impression you mention? Which were most important for changing other people's perception of you?

A lot of it is hard to explain in a useful way because I learned it through imitating more charismatic people. I recommend applying this method yourself as there is likely no substitute. I would say the single most effective response was to change the way I responded to people via electronic means. You have to artificially delay and shorten your responses (whether through emails or text messages/chat apps) and intera…

>You have to artificially delay and shorten your responses

Delaying responses in a professional setting can hamper your actual productivity though – and appear inattentive or disrespectful, not busy.

For one, there is a general reciprocity of responsiveness, i.e., the faster you respond to them, the faster they'll respond to you. And of course, that's relative. They won't necessarily mimic your response time, but your time will affect where their responses are in their normal range of response time.

I've witnessed this firsthand numerous times. A colleague will complain Bob takes days to respond, whereas I typically get a response the same day – and the inverse too. It's not hard data, but the pattern seems true.

The other part is that I see no real benefit in delaying a response. I happen to be in a legitimately busy phase right now, but I still try to be fairly responsive. The nuance is that my quick responses are sometimes just me saying that I'll respond in depth by the end of the day/week/whatever and to please let me know if a response is needed sooner.

I can imagine scenarios where that's not appropriate, but in general, that approach makes more sense to me. It still communicates that you're busy but doesn't artificially delay things or unintentionally disrespect people.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#306

Post by groby_b »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #284
vldx wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting. Potentially, inserting the "because" keyword could enhance the effect. See [1] "The Mindlessness of Ostensibly Thoughtful Action: The Role of `Placebic` Information in Interpersonal Interaction". > Langer had people request to break in on a line of people waiting to use a busy copy machine on a college campus. The researchers had the people use three different, carefully worded requests to break…

I've read this research before. It's really very interesting, but I have to wonder where the line is. At what point is using this kind of method just clever, and at what point is it highly manipulative and antisocial?

That's an ethics call you have to make.

In the "no, but" approach, I see no harm in it - compliance does not result in a negative result for the other person. You're not going to do it anyway, but they're going to feel better about it than just a simple "no".

In "because I have to make copies"... your call. I wouldn't, because I'd consider this improving my result at the expense of yours.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#307

Post by lomnakkus »

Swizec wrote: post #304
lomnakkus wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unreliable is great! Anecdote: It only goes so far. There are quite a lot of people who will be quite pissed off with you (passively) if you're unreliable. I mean, friends will tolerate it, but let me tell you, as someone who's quite "reliable" (punctual, do what I promise, etc.) it's quite stressful to have to rely on someone who isn't. So stressful, in fact, that I wouldn't actually interact very much with this p…

> ... has to do with this. Can you explain? I think we might be talking about two different kinds of unreliable. When you hire me to do a job, or I agree to build something for you, or something along those lines. When that happens, I will stop at nothing until it's done. I might be off in my estimate of how long it takes, and I might come back to you and suggest a revised plan if I think new information significantl…

Oh, I see what you mean now. Thanks.

I definitely agree that there's a difference between "generally unreliable" and "unreliable until committed". Coincidentally the person from my anecdote is also "your type", but unfortunately it's really hard to tell from the outset if he's committed or not, so...

As long as people are very clear about when they're committed, I have absolutely no problem with "unreliable" people :).

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#308

Post by lomnakkus »

vivekd wrote: post #240
lomnakkus wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it definitely is situational. My point was merely that it's usually better to say "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't, I have to attend [implying dullness] a party with my parents that day" rather than "No, I don't want to go on a date with you". The key is that it allows BOTH parties to avoid an unpleasant interaction and to save face. (Assuming that they both take the hint, obviously.) It's basically plausible deniabilit…

>"No, I don't want to go on a date with you". The key is that it allows BOTH parties to avoid an unpleasant interaction and to save face. (Assuming that they both take the hint, obviously.) I think the key there is "assuming that they both take the hint. Which is that the other person needs to get the message that it's no, is it's not really allowing them to avoid unpleasant interactions, because they're still gettin…

Being a "logical" person, I think I basically agree with you, it's just that the "real world" (aka. majority of people) don't seem to work that way.

EDIT: There's also the whole "Oh, I've been rebuffed, but thank $DEITY that $OBJECT_OF_MY_DESIRE didn't really know what I was asking". That is, people think that they've got the "secret code" to get away with asking X (by saying "innocuous" Y) thinking that the other person doesn't realize what they're really being asked.

Of course there's the more transparent ones like "Do you want to come up to see my etchings?", but also the rather more ambiguous "Would you like to come up for some coffee?".

(There's a lot of instances of people just not getting the hint. For loads of examples see: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/6d53vz/ladies_wh...

... but that is kind of the reverse of what I'm talking about, I guess, so YMMV.)

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#309

Post by lomnakkus »

erkkie wrote: post #201
lomnakkus wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unreliable is great! Anecdote: It only goes so far. There are quite a lot of people who will be quite pissed off with you (passively) if you're unreliable. I mean, friends will tolerate it, but let me tell you, as someone who's quite "reliable" (punctual, do what I promise, etc.) it's quite stressful to have to rely on someone who isn't. So stressful, in fact, that I wouldn't actually interact very much with this p…

There's a difference in actually being unreliable (which I'm sure Feynman wasn't) vs projecting the negative of "I will help everyone every time". It boils down to finding enough courage to focus on your priorities in life and not feeling guilty about it. Respect yourself (your time) and people will respect you.

True, maybe we're just getting bogged down in wording.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#310

Post by Swizec »

lomnakkus wrote: post #307
Swizec wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... has to do with this. Can you explain? I think we might be talking about two different kinds of unreliable. When you hire me to do a job, or I agree to build something for you, or something along those lines. When that happens, I will stop at nothing until it's done. I might be off in my estimate of how long it takes, and I might come back to you and suggest a revised plan if I think new information significantl…

Oh, I see what you mean now. Thanks. I definitely agree that there's a difference between "generally unreliable" and "unreliable until committed". Coincidentally the person from my anecdote is also "your type", but unfortunately it's really hard to tell from the outset if he's committed or not, so... As long as people are very clear about when they're committed, I have absolutely no problem with "unreliable" people :…

> unfortunately it's really hard to tell from the outset if he's committed or not, so...

I think that stems from an "avoiding confrontation" place. I grew up with a mother that would take it very very poorly if I said "No" for things, so I got used to saying "yeah sure uh-huh" without even hearing what I'm agreeing to.

Sometimes I still do that. It's mostly frustrating for my girlfriend tho, doesn't happen in other contexts. She'll get upset about why I didn't do something I said I would and I won't even remember what she's talking about.

Potentially something similar exists for your friend person. There's a spectrum between "uh-huh" and "Yes, this is amazing, I'm starting right now"

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