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The Church of Interruption (2018)

sambleckley.com

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Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#41

Post by theonemind »

canadev wrote: post #31

An interesting article. Something interesting maybe none or few you will likely experience: Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous meetings, presumably any 12-step meeting. Say what you will about the 12 steps, and the belief of god that is associated with them. Feel free to disagree with the dogma. As a member I openly do that from time to time. The real beauty of these meetings is that when so…

This reminds me of the Infinite Jest bits about Boston AA. David Foster Wallace portrays these as some form of radical honesty and radical acceptance...with the possible exceptions of justifications, excuses, or dishonesty, which get met with concern.

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#42

Post by samvher »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #22

This article seems so gentle to me. I’m surprised American culture is so tolerant of people interrupting. I am from a country where the culture is a lot more formal and here interrupting is seen as extremely impolite and by the second time you do it everyone will probably think you act like a child and treat you like one.

I’m very curious which culture that is, if you wouldn’t mind sharing.

I tend to take some liberties when it comes to interrupting but am aware that it’s not always appreciated. Still I often find it crucial in order to keep information flowing at high rates. I try not to over or under do it but find it a delicate balance and am not sure I always get it right.

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#43

Post by samvher »

jackblemming wrote: post #18
robocat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your completely ignored their point and then responded violently towards awillen. There is more to polite conversation than just interruptions.

Perhaps I’ve seen too many quiet engineers rudely interrupted to be objective. Many of them happen to be women as well. The self proclaimed interrupters become surprisingly polite when speaking to the CEO. What an interesting phenomenon ;)

If anything I expect people higher up in the hierarchy to be less sensitive about being interrupted, and more on board with optimizing information flow. On the other hand, with people who are more junior/less confident you are more at risk of discouraging them from sharing useful information if you interrupt too often, so it can be counterproductive.

One thing that I find tends to help is interrupting with questions rather than statements as that sort of keeps the ball in the other person’s court.

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#44

Post by throwaway98797 »

osculum wrote: post #39
robmoore121 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE: "correct" In some Asian vernacular Englishes (e.g. Indian, Singaporean), this is means "yes, right" / "I agree". I used to experience your reaction to people saying "correct" to me while I talk (i.e. "fuck you") but since then, my understanding has increased, and I interpret it to mean "yes, right" / "I agree". Additionally, it may be that people who say this aren't native speakers of an Asian vernacular English,…

Non-native speaker here. Don't "correct" and "right" have the same meaning? Do most American/European native speakers feel so strongly about using "correct" in a conversation to show agreement?

correct can come of pretensions

that’s right is more friendly

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#45

Post by Panzer04 »

osculum wrote: post #39
robmoore121 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE: "correct" In some Asian vernacular Englishes (e.g. Indian, Singaporean), this is means "yes, right" / "I agree". I used to experience your reaction to people saying "correct" to me while I talk (i.e. "fuck you") but since then, my understanding has increased, and I interpret it to mean "yes, right" / "I agree". Additionally, it may be that people who say this aren't native speakers of an Asian vernacular English,…

Non-native speaker here. Don't "correct" and "right" have the same meaning? Do most American/European native speakers feel so strongly about using "correct" in a conversation to show agreement?

They have the same literal meaning, but "correct" is generally a pretty hard assertion of, well, correctness - If you say something, and someone else says "correct" in response, it can come across as demeaning, as if they are passing judgement on what you've said and found it sufficient (as elaborated on in the grandparent - the feeling is "what right do you have to decide the correctness of my comment?"). What if they were wrong, would you have said "incorrect"?

In comparison, saying something like "right", "yes", are acknowledgements that don't carry the same weight when it comes to judging the actual content of what someone has said.

Writing it out makes it sound like a strange response, but these things aren't always sensible. I would suspect it has roots in the typical contexts where you'll see "correct" being used - eg. tests and the like, where someone with authority (eg teacher/professor) is typically deciding on whether you're correct, as opposed to say, work, where generally these will be conversations between equals.

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#46

Post by darkerside »

jackblemming wrote: post #18
robocat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your completely ignored their point and then responded violently towards awillen. There is more to polite conversation than just interruptions.

Perhaps I’ve seen too many quiet engineers rudely interrupted to be objective. Many of them happen to be women as well. The self proclaimed interrupters become surprisingly polite when speaking to the CEO. What an interesting phenomenon ;)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to treat senior leaders differently from peers.

More on topic, if we're talking about a business context here, and I think we are, it's important to consider the actual implications. If the team that is willing to shove and be shoved is more effective than the other team, it seems reasonable to expect those who join the team to get their shoving gloves on, fast, if they want to contribute at a high level.

Lots of assumptions baked in there, and I'm not saying it's the only valid way to run a good business, by any stretch.

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#47

Post by sundarurfriend »

osculum wrote: post #39
robmoore121 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RE: "correct" In some Asian vernacular Englishes (e.g. Indian, Singaporean), this is means "yes, right" / "I agree". I used to experience your reaction to people saying "correct" to me while I talk (i.e. "fuck you") but since then, my understanding has increased, and I interpret it to mean "yes, right" / "I agree". Additionally, it may be that people who say this aren't native speakers of an Asian vernacular English,…

Non-native speaker here. Don't "correct" and "right" have the same meaning? Do most American/European native speakers feel so strongly about using "correct" in a conversation to show agreement?

It depends a lot on tone and body language, but "right" usually means "I agree with you" while "correct" can come off as them deigning to give their approval from a high place, like "I'm the one who actually has the knowledge, but you happen to be correct in this specific instance". But it's more about the person and their tone, the people who feel strongly about this are probably who have experienced it from someone insufferable who uses it as a power play. I.e. if you're not intentionally using it this way, you don't have much to worry about.

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#48

Post by wanderingstan »

avg_dev wrote: post #27
rollinDyno wrote: post #7

I have a friend who is a Barker, who I am always annoyed at because I am a Meek type and I more often than not cannot finish making my points to her. I do not feel that she listens to me. Why do I still like her? This article, to me, pairs very well with the other top post on HN right now [1]. Thanks to that article I learned that we feel more connected towards someone the quicker they reply to us [2]. There's no con…

Thanks very much for that PNAS article. If I may attempt a brief summary: listening (paying attention) matters.

That article makes me wonder if this is another reason video calls remain inferior for connecting with coworkers: It’s impossible to (appear to) respond quickly with even the slightest network lag.

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#49

Post by alehlopeh »

ggm wrote: post #24

Serial Offender, fallen off the wagon many times over the decades. I've seen some amazing pushback. A researcher who bellowed "I HAVE NOT FINISHED" so loud, it was like the MTV man-in-a-chair reaction from everyone else. I wasn't the guilty party that time but I could have been. It's often said people believe women do most interrupting when the stats are very good 75% or more in mixed dialogue, is men's speaking time…

This. is exactly how I feel about comments that start with or consist entirely of “This.”

Re: The Church of Interruption (2018)

#50

Post by scythe »

canadev wrote: post #31

An interesting article. Something interesting maybe none or few you will likely experience: Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous meetings, presumably any 12-step meeting. Say what you will about the 12 steps, and the belief of god that is associated with them. Feel free to disagree with the dogma. As a member I openly do that from time to time. The real beauty of these meetings is that when so…

>I do not believe in an all powerful and loving god

Correct me if I'm wrong, but AA just requires you to believe in some kind of higher power, does it not? Saint Anselm's interpretation of God is not required. I don't know if you could stretch it all the way to Einstein's God, but you could probably get away with Zeus.

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