3 ms·

> they’re asking for people to take positions and have opinions. Yes only positions and opinions that make them look good. For example, in a tech all hands. "

> they’re asking for people to take positions and have opinions. Yes only positions and opinions that make them look good. For example, in a tech all hands. "Ask" questions like these 1. How did the upper management react to cost savings from initiative X. 2. How did vendor feel about us canceling their contract by building a cheaper home grown system that is saving us X million $ every year. 3. What is the strategy for filling out open positions faster. ( we are doing so good that we have way too many open positions) 4. "joke questions" , did CEO actually finish 50 pies in pie eating contest at the management retreat ,like he claims he did. also, consultants rarely get invited to these all hands in the first place.

izacus 7y ago
And what exactly did you / would you think to accomplish with these questions? Besides attempting to publicly humiliate people who're paying you and stroking your own ego? "Questions" like these put other people on defensive (which means they won't listen to you anymore) and mark you out as an a*hole (which means they won't listen to you at all). It's counterproductive. I'm always baffled how engineers don't get that: they can understand that you need to write "printf()" and not "abort()" to achieve printout, but can't understand simple rules on how to achieve results when interacting with other people?
- dominotw 7y ago
  > attempting to publicly humiliate people who're paying you No it's the opposite. How does highlighting millions of cost savings from CTO's initiative humiliate him? I am confused how you got that impression from my comment. what did i miss.
  - jt2190 7y ago
    Not the commenter, and I understood what you were getting at, however, your original post doesn’t specify who is being asked the questions. It’s implied you’re asking the CTO, but it’s never clearly stated. That said, this is a good reminder for everyone to “read generously”: If you read something that seems absurd, take a minute to make sure you’re not just misunderstanding the post. Posts often gloss over context, and so you should try to rebuild that context.
  - izacus 7y ago
    Many of those questions could be percieved as hostile when asked on all-hands and non-hostile when asked in smaller setting. But perhaps your all-hands are smaller than mine. But I concede that I have read the post in a non generous way and I apologise to the author.
- chimpburger 7y ago
  Total reading comprehension failure.

izacus 7y ago

And what exactly did you / would you think to accomplish with these questions? Besides attempting to publicly humiliate people who're paying you and stroking your own ego? "Questions" like these put other people on defensive (which means they won't listen to you anymore) and mark you out as an a*hole (which means they won't listen to you at all). It's counterproductive. I'm always baffled how engineers don't get that: they can understand that you need to write "printf()" and not "abort()" to achieve printout, but can't understand simple rules on how to achieve results when interacting with other people?

dominotw 7y ago
> attempting to publicly humiliate people who're paying you No it's the opposite. How does highlighting millions of cost savings from CTO's initiative humiliate him? I am confused how you got that impression from my comment. what did i miss.
- jt2190 7y ago
  Not the commenter, and I understood what you were getting at, however, your original post doesn’t specify who is being asked the questions. It’s implied you’re asking the CTO, but it’s never clearly stated. That said, this is a good reminder for everyone to “read generously”: If you read something that seems absurd, take a minute to make sure you’re not just misunderstanding the post. Posts often gloss over context, and so you should try to rebuild that context.
- izacus 7y ago
  Many of those questions could be percieved as hostile when asked on all-hands and non-hostile when asked in smaller setting. But perhaps your all-hands are smaller than mine. But I concede that I have read the post in a non generous way and I apologise to the author.
chimpburger 7y ago
Total reading comprehension failure.