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Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

improveyoursocialskills.com

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Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#391

Post by mnsc »

dspillett wrote: post #376
wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

> I’ve lost friends over this I've stopped helping, or even started avoiding, some "friends" because of this. Of course some tact is needed, and I've sometimes got that wrong. You have to properly listen before making suggestions, perhaps you need to ask questions first too to make sure you actually really understand, and definitely watch for signs (or explicit mentions) that advice/solutions are not wanted at this p…

> If someone I care about has a problem in front of me then yes I'll try help them solve it.

You should read about the triforce. http://thebetaman.com/2017/09/26/the-triforce-of-communicati...

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#392

Post by StuffedParrot »

magashna wrote: post #388
StuffedParrot wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ridiculous. R Kelly performed for years as a known pedophile with an adoring fan base. Cancel culture is mostly a myth. You’d have to do something pretty damn bad, way worse than “slighting”, for your behavior to go viral enough you’re “harassed day and night”. Social rejection is how you learn to be social, and it ain’t gonna ruin your life. It’s just painful.

Remember the NASA scientist who got so much shit for wearing a shirt?

No... nothing on google either.

Edit: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/nov/14/rosetta-come...

He wasn’t even fired. What is there to complain about? Cancel culture is a myth.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#393

Post by mcguire »

mcguire wrote: post #295
SkyBelow wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Most people don't want to talk code. Thus, given a demographic breakdown that relates neither positively nor negatively with talking code, one can assume the general pattern applies. Most old people don't want to talk code. Most young people don't want to talk code. Most left handed people don't want to talk code. None of these are discriminating. They are stating that a pattern true of the general population al…

Why did the original comment specifically mention "most young women" rather than "most people"?

[Edit] One of the neat things about formal reasoning is that it forces you to be explicit about your assumptions. In this case, the original comment seems to be making the assumption that most HN types are heterosexual males and homosexual women, single and with poor social skills.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#394

Post by refurb »

humanrebar wrote: post #339
refurb wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a coworker who was a social butterfly. Loved nothing more than talking to customers. She has a huge impact on the business. She had basically developed relationships with customers where she could pick up the phone and call the top physicians in the US and ask a favor - and they would always say yes. Was she good on the technical side? Not really, but she offered incredible value. Same thing with leadership. Ge…

> Get people to buy into your plans in a large organization is not easy. The trick is usually not to approach it that way. Learn about others' goals and help them out with a step or two in a way that also benefits the goals of others, perhaps your own even. Make sure everyone sees the success when it happens. Do that over and over and you have a form of leadership. "Visioncasting" and such can work too, but typically…

Agree. This type of leadership is not manipulation. It’s getting real buy in so people see the value in your plan.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#395

Post by arthurmerlin »

dspillett wrote: post #376
wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

> I’ve lost friends over this I've stopped helping, or even started avoiding, some "friends" because of this. Of course some tact is needed, and I've sometimes got that wrong. You have to properly listen before making suggestions, perhaps you need to ask questions first too to make sure you actually really understand, and definitely watch for signs (or explicit mentions) that advice/solutions are not wanted at this p…

What happens when people tell you about problems that require experts in a specific area to solve, and you are not an expert in that area? Do you still try to help?

Like I will tell my friends and family about problems I am having at work because they are my friends and family and I assume that they care about how my life is going. If they are able to provide solutions, I will not rule it out for them. But most likely they are not because they have different jobs. When people attempt to give advice on things they don't know about, I assume they are more interested in appearing smart than my well being.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#396

Post by RmDen »

manuel_w wrote: post #389
wallflower wrote: post #53

While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…

Yes. "Ein ungefragter Rat ist ein Schlag." Unfortunately, in english, it doesn't rhyme that nicely: "An undemanded advice is a punch." (I seriously doubt that "undemanded" is the best translation for "ungefragt", but you get the idea.) When feel like people would benefit from advice to the extent that not giving it would be unfriendly/selfish/whatever itself, I try to follow following guidelines: * Refraining from us…

I would probably use unasked instead of undemanded

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#397

Post by vezycash »

leggomylibro wrote: post #232
JimboOmega wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important that this applies to virtually any endeavor, from coding to being social or dating. You are going to be dumb, lame, awkward, etc at pretty much anything you haven't done before; the only path to not being that way is to just tough it through that awkward phase.

One problem is that you aren't allowed to make mistakes in social situations anymore without facing extreme consequences, and you're right that it isn't the sort of thing you can learn by reading about it. There's really no chance for young'uns to learn in this day and age. It's tough, and the worst part is that there's no way out or hope for things to improve. And you can't complain or seek help, or you get treated…

>One problem is that you aren't allowed to make mistakes in social situations anymore without facing extreme consequences

This is what happens when children aren't allowed time to play with fellow kids. They'll won't learn much needed social skills when the social/emotional cost is low.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#398

Post by collyw »

tekkk wrote: post #20
collyw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am coming to the conclusion that social skills are probably more valuable than coding skills. I don't think I am especially productive in my current job due to a lot of context switching, but I think they like me for my attitude.

If by valuable you mean they keep you employed despite not doing anything, sure. They are valuable for career progress and such, but when faced with real technical difficulties, you are not going to talk yourself out of it. Or maybe you can, delegate them to some poor bastard. What a wonderful world we are living in.

I didn't say that I did nothing, I just know that I have been more productive in previous jobs due to a number of factors. But hey perhaps you lack some social skills jumping to conclusions like that.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#399

Post by beat »

username90 wrote: post #7
beat wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social skills are a huge part of my own IT work. If you can use social skills effectively, you get to decide (to some degree) what you work on. If you don't, then someone else decides what you work on. As long as you're okay with that trade, there's nothing wrong with it.

No social skills needed, you just need to be honest. So say that you'll leave because the current work is boring/stressful and the will let you choose the project you want if you are any good. Also usually they want to put their best developers on the most interesting problems so they'd ask you to do it anyway.

Honestly? That's not how development works at all, in my experience. Best developers aren't isolated on "most interesting problems", but rather, are getting constantly sucked into war rooms and emergency calls. And when they are working on "interesting problems", they are constantly working, verbally and in writing, to convince reluctant management and other engineers to agree to their new, "interesting" approach to the problem in question. Those are massively social behaviors. "Being honest" is necessary but not sufficient. Understanding people's motivations, finding reasons for them to believe your idea is beneficial for them and their own interests, that's what gets you what you want.

Here's an example. I am trying to do important, interesting work, but I'm often interrupted, because I work in DevOps and wind up drawn into other people's problems. So on the whiteboard next to my desk, I wrote my two "Wildly Important Goals" (from the book Four Disciplines of Execution), and underneath that, the sentence "If something does not apply to these goals, why am I doing it?" This became quite the controversy, but it works! It has significantly reduced my interruptions. That's social skill in action.

Re: Basic Social Skills Guide (2012)

#400

Post by reificator »

Yessing wrote: post #366
arthurmerlin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for me, I would love advice that perfectly solves all my problems. But probably this advice doesn't exist, because if it did, I would have figured it out already. I often have conversations that go like this - Me: I have this problem that sucks. Other person: Have you tried A? Me: No, I thought about that already. A isn't a good idea because of B. Other person: Well, what about C? Me: No, I thought about tha…

- If I talk to someone about a problem and he gives me a suggestion. I know that he is trying to help. getting mad at him is unfair because he means well. In fact what's natural is to be happy that someone values me enough that he's spending effort to help me. - If someone talks to me about a problem that I can't solve. I'll try to help, if I don't know the answer. that's normal. I don't know everything. - If I try a…

> I don't understand why autistic people are assumed to be wrong/inferrior in scoial contexts even when their behaviour is the right thing to do.

The world would be a better place if you ever found an answer to that question.

It's not a fair comparison[0], but I tend to internally categorize people as logical or emotional. It usually helps keep things running more smoothly to treat the two groups how they prefer.

The trick is to not make the distinction a value judgement. I'm usually pretty good at that, but sometimes I slip up.

[0]: Because both groups display traits of the other, and it's not a hard line distinction. Ever seen someone on the spectrum throw a tantrum? It might (might) be logic that started it, but emotions take over nearly immediately.

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