3 ms·

Expecting to be in a job where there's never any conflict is a lot like expecting to be in a relationship without ever fighting.

by cletus 17y ago

cglee 17y ago
He didn't say that.
- cletus 17y ago
  Actually that's exactly what he said: > Seriously, if you're my boss and you yell at me, my resume is being updated that night and I'm going to shop it around. Yell at him once and he's gone. Note: I didn't say you will get yelled at a lot or even often but it will happen. If you pack your bags the first time you get yelled at well that's a pretty good argument that you should be yelled at sooner rather than later to see what you're made of. Consider it a filter.
  - prodigal_erik 17y ago
    He's not talking about conflict. He's talking about yelling, which is a monkey dominance game for someone who has lost interest in finding the right answer. It's just a hair below shoving on the "cannot control himself, belongs in a cage" scale of warning signs. What am I made of? I'm a human being, not a slave, so I demand zero tolerance for this in any workplace.
    - cletus 17y ago
      And the relationship analogy still applies: sure most (hopefully) conflict isn't settled more amicably but tempers do blow up and things get said in the heat of the moment. Expecting that to never happen makes you look thin-skinned, naive or both.
      - cglee 17y ago
        I think it can be expected in a professional setting in the US. Given your line of thinking, almost any behavior can be excused. I'll also add that it depends on the expectation of the job when you applied. Normal white collar work in the US usually doesn't entail being yelled at. Being a football player does. So does signing up to be a Marine.
      - khafra 17y ago
        I've been in a relationship for two years that hasn't involved any yelling. The year-long relationship I had before that didn't involve any yelling. The 1.5 year relationship before that was mostly long-distance, but didn't involve any yelling, either. The one before that had some yelling in it, and I found it unpleasant enough to avoid yell-prone relatioships from that point forward.
  - btilly 17y ago
    I'd be happy to be filtered out by that criterion if my employer thought that was an important filter to test for. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233385 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233385 for an admittedly biased description of the person you've just decided you didn't want in your organization. As for whether yelling happens, of course it does. But not bloody often in healthy organizations. I think I've been yelled at by 3 people in the workplace in the last decade. None of whom I reported to. One of whom apologized fairly rapidly. I accepted it - he had a lot of other stuff going on in his life. The others my manager arranged buffers with so I wouldn't need to have interactions. In the same period I've yelled at 2. Once at a social event when someone dumped water on me without checking whether I had electronics I cared about on my person. (As soon as the shock passed I apologized for yelling, and the other person apologized about my cellphone. Which luckily was not harmed.) The other case involved someone who physically hit me without provocation or warning. (He had mental problems which I had not known about.) If your average is significantly worse than that, I suspect you have an issue that is worth looking into.
etherael 17y ago
I think the point is more incendiary conflict, ad hominem, chest thumping than a lack of conflict. Conflict sharpens the mind, conflict examines all the avenues, but that conflict is measured and rational. If you devolve into a shouting match under any professional circumstances, you have failed. It doesn't matter which side of the table you're on.
btilly 17y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if I have more experience of conflict and relationships than you have. My experience tells me that it is possible to have conflict without yelling. And that yelling makes conflict more difficult to resolve. Which is important. If you're trying to achieve a shared goal, then the inevitable conflict needs to be resolved so you can return to what is important - the shared goal. My opinion on relationships is similar. I've been married for 20 years. And in that time I've learned the importance of finding ways to recognize conflict, de-escalate it, then re-engage and deal with the source of the conflict. Furthermore I firmly believe that if I hadn't learned that lesson, I wouldn't still be married 20 years in. For both cases, what are the key steps to turning theory into practice? Step 1 for both cases is realizing that you have a choice. Realizing that you do is the first step in making the choice you want. Step 2 is recognizing that while you're in the grip of strong emotion you don't have much control. That's why you need to develop the habit of disengaging when you go off the rails. And since the same holds for other people, choose to be around people who have learned that lesson as well. Step 3 is returning to the underlying issues and actually addressing them. If you don't do that, you'll find yourself back at step 2 repeatedly until you do. (Even so you'll wind up at step 2 from time to time. But with less frequency.)
JanezStupar 17y ago
There is a big difference between a heated debate between passionate enough individuals that grows into an yelling match, which then somebody tries to break ("Stop arguing!!") when both actors turn on the mediator ("WE'RE NOT ARGUING!!!"). Or on the other hand - a straightforward domination attempt - where individual A (with possibly higher socio-economic rank) approaches individual B and proceeds to tear them a new one without any forewarning. Case 1 - Good: indicates passion and willingness to break stalemate. Case 2 - Bad: me big gorilla approach. Personally when situation 2 arises, I kindly notify the would-be Alpha. Just like the parent. That nobody and really nobody yells at me and gets away with it. I'm prepared to go extraordinary lengths to satisfy people or to avoid mistakes or even make them up - just to avoid getting yelled at - so whenever situation 2 arises there are only 2 options: 1. Somebody needs somebody else to release their steam on. 2. Somebody wants to prove a point that I'm a looser without even giving me option of proving them wrong. In any case - yelling at (not with) people is bad, really really bad.

Expecting to be in a job where there's never any conflict is a lot like expecting to be in a relationship without ever fighting.

by cletus 17y ago

Expecting to be in a job where there's never any conflict is a lot like expecting to be in a relationship without ever fighting.

cglee 17y ago

He didn't say that.

cletus 17y ago
Actually that's exactly what he said: > Seriously, if you're my boss and you yell at me, my resume is being updated that night and I'm going to shop it around. Yell at him once and he's gone. Note: I didn't say you will get yelled at a lot or even often but it will happen. If you pack your bags the first time you get yelled at well that's a pretty good argument that you should be yelled at sooner rather than later to see what you're made of. Consider it a filter.
- prodigal_erik 17y ago
  He's not talking about conflict. He's talking about yelling, which is a monkey dominance game for someone who has lost interest in finding the right answer. It's just a hair below shoving on the "cannot control himself, belongs in a cage" scale of warning signs. What am I made of? I'm a human being, not a slave, so I demand zero tolerance for this in any workplace.
  - cletus 17y ago
    And the relationship analogy still applies: sure most (hopefully) conflict isn't settled more amicably but tempers do blow up and things get said in the heat of the moment. Expecting that to never happen makes you look thin-skinned, naive or both.
    - cglee 17y ago
      I think it can be expected in a professional setting in the US. Given your line of thinking, almost any behavior can be excused. I'll also add that it depends on the expectation of the job when you applied. Normal white collar work in the US usually doesn't entail being yelled at. Being a football player does. So does signing up to be a Marine.
    - khafra 17y ago
      I've been in a relationship for two years that hasn't involved any yelling. The year-long relationship I had before that didn't involve any yelling. The 1.5 year relationship before that was mostly long-distance, but didn't involve any yelling, either. The one before that had some yelling in it, and I found it unpleasant enough to avoid yell-prone relatioships from that point forward.
- btilly 17y ago
  I'd be happy to be filtered out by that criterion if my employer thought that was an important filter to test for. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233385 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1233385 for an admittedly biased description of the person you've just decided you didn't want in your organization. As for whether yelling happens, of course it does. But not bloody often in healthy organizations. I think I've been yelled at by 3 people in the workplace in the last decade. None of whom I reported to. One of whom apologized fairly rapidly. I accepted it - he had a lot of other stuff going on in his life. The others my manager arranged buffers with so I wouldn't need to have interactions. In the same period I've yelled at 2. Once at a social event when someone dumped water on me without checking whether I had electronics I cared about on my person. (As soon as the shock passed I apologized for yelling, and the other person apologized about my cellphone. Which luckily was not harmed.) The other case involved someone who physically hit me without provocation or warning. (He had mental problems which I had not known about.) If your average is significantly worse than that, I suspect you have an issue that is worth looking into.

etherael 17y ago

I think the point is more incendiary conflict, ad hominem, chest thumping than a lack of conflict. Conflict sharpens the mind, conflict examines all the avenues, but that conflict is measured and rational. If you devolve into a shouting match under any professional circumstances, you have failed. It doesn't matter which side of the table you're on.

btilly 17y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if I have more experience of conflict and relationships than you have. My experience tells me that it is possible to have conflict without yelling. And that yelling makes conflict more difficult to resolve. Which is important. If you're trying to achieve a shared goal, then the inevitable conflict needs to be resolved so you can return to what is important - the shared goal. My opinion on relationships is similar. I've been married for 20 years. And in that time I've learned the importance of finding ways to recognize conflict, de-escalate it, then re-engage and deal with the source of the conflict. Furthermore I firmly believe that if I hadn't learned that lesson, I wouldn't still be married 20 years in. For both cases, what are the key steps to turning theory into practice? Step 1 for both cases is realizing that you have a choice. Realizing that you do is the first step in making the choice you want. Step 2 is recognizing that while you're in the grip of strong emotion you don't have much control. That's why you need to develop the habit of disengaging when you go off the rails. And since the same holds for other people, choose to be around people who have learned that lesson as well. Step 3 is returning to the underlying issues and actually addressing them. If you don't do that, you'll find yourself back at step 2 repeatedly until you do. (Even so you'll wind up at step 2 from time to time. But with less frequency.)

JanezStupar 17y ago

There is a big difference between a heated debate between passionate enough individuals that grows into an yelling match, which then somebody tries to break ("Stop arguing!!") when both actors turn on the mediator ("WE'RE NOT ARGUING!!!"). Or on the other hand - a straightforward domination attempt - where individual A (with possibly higher socio-economic rank) approaches individual B and proceeds to tear them a new one without any forewarning. Case 1 - Good: indicates passion and willingness to break stalemate. Case 2 - Bad: me big gorilla approach. Personally when situation 2 arises, I kindly notify the would-be Alpha. Just like the parent. That nobody and really nobody yells at me and gets away with it. I'm prepared to go extraordinary lengths to satisfy people or to avoid mistakes or even make them up - just to avoid getting yelled at - so whenever situation 2 arises there are only 2 options: 1. Somebody needs somebody else to release their steam on. 2. Somebody wants to prove a point that I'm a looser without even giving me option of proving them wrong. In any case - yelling at (not with) people is bad, really really bad.