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I'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager (https://www.askamanager.org/ https://www.askamanager.org/), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both manager

I'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager (https://www.askamanager.org/ https://www.askamanager.org/), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both managers and employees will avoid awkward topics ranging from trivial ("your breath smells") to consequential ("you need to step up or you'll be fired!"), to the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly.

artsyca 7y ago
I had a manager like that dude he was house poor and had only one ratty Hilfiger sweater There's no way to relate to people like that and confrontation being avoided is the only way out
- JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
  Why is there no way to relate to people like that? Like, an individual you get a vibe from, I get it, but all people who are house poor should be avoided? I'm not sure I follow.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    Avoid confrontation, not people. Plus, a manager at a company presumably has money to buy a couple of sweaters, even if at Goodwill or equivalent.
    - artsyca 7y ago
      I'd have to agree that it's necessary to view the professional sphere in terms of investment and investment is not only financial it's also effort and agency If you're a professional you ought to have some sort of professional persona that's not so directly tied to your 35 year mortgage If all your money is tied up in interest payments to where you can't hardly afford a stitch of clothing what fault of it is mine who manages my money differently do I seriously have to see you wearing the same tired old outfit every day for a week and you're in a position to affect my career to boot?
      - JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
        You have no idea what people have going on though. There are so many reasons someone could be short on money that would be understandable if you knew. you simply can't make that judgement easily.
- mkagenius 7y ago
  Ed Sheeran mostly wears same red shirt
  - artsyca 7y ago
    People always come up with examples of eccentrics who dress like eccentrics I'm not interested in working with Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk or Einstein himself I'm interested in working with regular people who know how to shop for value and don't have to piss holding a cell phone or chew loudly with their mouths open The reason for this is I'm trying to achieve the enlightened state of higher consciousness that comes with practicing my art to its highest form of mastery and with it comes a certain social awareness that requires like-mannered colleagues to realize
  - filoleg 7y ago
    He almost definitely has many copies of that shirt and isn't just wearing the exact same shirt every day. Just like Zuckerberg, who was showing off his wardrobe consisting of a bunch of t-shirts that are exactly the same. No one should have issues with people dressing similarly every day. But wearing the exact same shirt literally every single day without washing it every day becomes noticeable really quickly for hygienic reasons, and that's the part that makes it problematic.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  I knew a guy like that and he had a very different attitude than most in this situation. The guy I knew was 100% aware of what he was doing. He said he's not poor at all, but chose to live poor to save his money and invest it instead. He said he was on track to retire at 30. The man had laser vision with his eye on the target, can't hate on him for that. He'll be the last one laughing with that "fuck you" money.
  - majos 7y ago
    But saving money on clothes and hygiene is crazily short-sighted. Bad clean clothes are maybe a couple hundred dollars a year, generously. I sincerely doubt that outweighs having your co-workers dread interacting with you.
    - hanniabu 7y ago
      All those little couple hundred dollars a year here and there add up. And some people just don't care to make friends with the people they work with.
    - zajio1am 7y ago
      It mostly saves time for washing clothes. Changing clothes weekly was societal norm before washing machines became common. With washing machines Jevons paradox takes effect - instead of just accepting more free personal time with less time taken by washing clothes, we ramped up societal expectations for clean clothes.
    - artsyca 7y ago
      Actually you can have the best of both worlds it's a failure of imagination
rcurry 7y ago
The worst one for me was the guy who didn’t wash his hands after using the restroom. One day, one of my team members told me about this, and I didn’t believe him, ha ha, so a few days later I’m in the restroom and this guy comes out of a stall and just walks out the door. So about a week later my guy who’d complained about it had some problem with one of our other systems, and who do they send over to help him out? You guessed it - Mr. Doesn’t Wash His Hands. So I watch this guy sit down at my team member’s keyboard and work on some stuff with him, then after he leaves my team member gives me this horrified look and gestures at his keyboard. I straight up just walked over to his cube, unplugged his keyboard and threw it in the trash and told him “Go tell IT you need a new keyboard.” It was easier to just throw away the keyboard than to have that conversation with someone. What grown adult needs to be told to wash their hands after they use the toilet? I later learned that almost everyone on the floor knew about this guy and they were all sickened being around him.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  You said stall so I am onboard with your disgust. This always reminds me about a Richard Feynman story where he'd stand in the bathroom and ridicule people who washed their hands after using the urinal, saying the urine was sterile anyway. I find that kind of hilarious. Colleagues complained all the time, like "well I was headed to lunch anyway and always wash my hands before lunch"
  - mikestew 7y ago
    Mr. Feyman’s mistake is assuming I’m trying to wash away urine. I touch stuff other than my dick throughout the day. Post-piss is as good a time as any. Not that I would have ever that I felt I owed such an asshole an explanation.
    - loopz 7y ago
      Piss starts smelling over time. You can drink it but don't pretend it's water. Various situations like sickness can contaminate and spread through urine. Some besserwissers just aren't.
mc3 7y ago
Genuine conversations are sometimes risky. Quitting once you have a job secured can be favorable to being fired, for example. Not having genuine conversations is part of the game unfortunately. Most orgs are political.
- loopz 7y ago
  Most people are sheep and it is unfortunate.
  - OceanSunfish 7y ago
    Sheep are rational agents when they are surrounded by wolves.
    - Supermancho 7y ago
      Being a wolf is preferable nonetheless.
      - makapuf 7y ago
        Depends if there are unguarded sheeps nearby, wolves are in extinction in some places, sheeps are not.
        Supermancho 7y ago
        what does that have to do with the topic (or this thread)?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - gambiting 7y ago
        wolves are actively hunted by far more dangerous predators though, especially if they are killing sheep.
Yessing 7y ago
"not offending others by asking sensitive questions/Avoiding awkward" is the polite thing to do. But a core part of being polite, is not hruting others through your actions directly or undirectly. ( or at least trying) In cases where not asking the question puts the other party in a disadvantage or at the risk thereof, I feel one shouldn't be allowed to claim that one was being polite or "doing the right thing". You were being either too shy, cowardly or selfish. This doesn't mean that you must ask such questions/ venture in those topics. But it certainly does mean, that those that don't, shouldn't be allowed to claim active virtues ( to others or to themselves). * Also, if one chooses to not inform the other party of the problem, I feel that one shouldn't make them suffer for that choice. Which means at the very least, not trashtalking them behind their backs for it. The first part is about being good, the second part is about not being actively evil.
- cgriswald 7y ago
  I’ve heard people talk about the “compassionate” thing to do and I’ve asked, “What exactly is compassionate about prolonging suffering?” Either they get it or they think I’m a brutish social nub.
- marcoperaza 7y ago
  >But a core part of being polite, is not hurting others through your actions directly or indirectly. ( or at least trying) The problem is wanting the notion of politeness to do too much work. Being polite, being nice, is just a moment to moment strategy for avoiding conflict. Unfortunately, niceness has become the most important virtue in American culture. Being good is much more profound, and niceness is just one of the many tools you can use to achieve it. Sometimes being good entails being harsh. Sometimes it means doing things that will upset others.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - StandardFuture 7y ago
    This hits at a fundamental point that has puzzled me about American culture for the longest time. A country that is so heavily steeped in protestant/purtanical Christian roots and yet does not even realize that one of the main components of that creed is NOT taking offense to things. In fact, taking offense to things is as sinful as actually offending someone. It's basically a philosophical method of being a little less self-centered. It also suggests that while objective offensiveness is possible (calling someone a harsh name, etc.), most of the time offense is taken rather than given. It is one of my favorite principles from a religion that most who practice said religion almost entirely ignore. Puzzling.
vitruvian987 7y ago
I once had a manager who smelled terrible, and this had a bad impact on work. People hated getting into meetings for feedback or addressing concerns.
arvinsim 7y ago
A part of it is certain power dynamics in play. See this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766903
closeparen 7y ago
After being on the disgusted end of one of these situations, I’ve learned to be more attuned to lighthearted teasing and other offhand remarks about my own behavior. People who care about you may be trying to help you understand that you’re violating norms, but feeling limited in how they can communicate it.
hrktb 7y ago
> the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. If you genuinely think the ones you saw could have been avoid just by a conversation, I’d wager the main issue was not an awkward situation but a crucial lack of trust, often coming from a toxic culture. I saw a lot of situations where something awkward was going in, ranging from bad hygiene to mild harassment. Dozens of people are witnessing the situation every single day, even if the manager doesn’t step in there’s a flurry of other people with enough power or influence to intervene. That often means that the situation goes on because nobody gives a crap, or the one in fault thinks (right or wrong) that nothing will happen if the warnings/requests are ignored. That’s just a crappy place to work either way. Quitting won’t be because of the awkward situation, but because it was a symptom of a deeper issue.
- anbotero 7y ago
  My experience has been people is afraid of asking, as the article puts it, “sensitive questions”. Afraid of the repercussions: Will they react aggressively/defensively and never talk to me again? Will they feel bad and have depression after that? Among other things. I say it because it happened at my previous company: After a new team member joined the company (he was like 6, 7 feet away from me), I from time to time started getting weird smells, but it was occasional and it’s not like I was out on a hunt for the origin of the smell. Eventually we had to work together and wow, the smell was really intense (not sure if only that day or what); I immediately told him about it (it was just the two of us). He started using deodorant (that was the reason) more often after that. Weeks after I was drinking with his team, and they started talking about him and how much he had improved his issue, and I asked them if they had told them. They said no, with the reasons I mentioned above. So, yes, people is different and you have to hopefully measure a bit what you say depending on the person in front of you, but if society wasn’t so sensitive these last years, it’d be easier for everyone to accept criticism so everyone improves. Also, if it’s something that directly affects me, there is NO way I’m not going to try and change/improve the situation.
  - hrktb 7y ago
    I hear you. Somewhere I wonder how long this kind of sensitive questions can stay unasked. There usually are repercussions, with concrete effects on work relationships and productivity (if there aren’t, why even bother ?). In your example, I’d guess people would delay talking to him and this would slow down communication. Keeping these kind of stuff silent usually don’t last long anyway, and it’s so much better to have early enough factual conversations, “we want you to fix X because otherwise it causes Y”, soon enough for the employee to have time left to digest the info and react on it.
vitro 7y ago
I once worked on a desk opposite a guy, who had often his finger in his nose, searching, finding and taking out.. you know. After weeks of hesitation, once I told him: "Please, if you need to do it, do it in the bathroom". He said "Ok" and that was it. It is a sensitive topic, just when writing this I have doubts whether to post this message or not. But those things are just here, and if you act out of kindness towards the person, seeing how may he/she suffer because of that and by having a discussion or drop a few sentences on the subject, you are actually helping the person as well. I guess it is better to try than to alienate that person in our mind and the longer it takes, the harder it is to start the discussion. Be rebel! Talk about those things! With kindness.
BiteCode_dev 7y ago
That's one consequence of the push for political correctness at all cost in our societies. We went too far in applying it, and yet the mindset of people haven't changed, only the surface for compliance. The result is that we have hyper hypocrisy instead of even a tiny amount of respect.
k_vi 7y ago
Something I realized taking a remote job for the first time, having genuine conversations was the default - my capacity for giving and taking hard criticisms is so much better. Some of it has also spilled into my personal life :)
tsukurimashou 7y ago
I tend to ask myself "does something really disturbs YOU", if the answer is yes, then I will talk about it because: 1. You cannot expect someone to realize something, no matter how obvious it is to you, you don't know how to person was raised and what experiences that person went through, thus you should never expect something obvious for yourself to be obvious for others as well 2. If something bothers me but I don't talk about it, I will resent the problematic person one way or another, and the problem will resurface one day or another (probably not in the way you would expect too).
- rhacker 7y ago
  We had some contractors in a Mexico office that would sometimes visit San Jose (CA). At a certain point, one of them decided to permanently relocate to the US. Most things were fine, but there was one social line he crossed that needed to be said. His computer desktop background was pretty much laden with boobs and asses. The background image was pretty much intensely horrible. Another co-worker and I just calmly explained to him that he can choose any background he wanted as long as it didn't potentially land him in trouble with sexual or racial discrimination issues. Definitely, in this case it was an easy conversation and he obviously fixed the issue immediately.
nkrisc 7y ago
> And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly. To be fair, I'd have done the same. That kind of behavior strikes me as a symptom of something else going on and I don't know if I'd want to put myself in their sights.
pitt1980 7y ago
There was a thread a few months ago on HN about non-violent communication https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21263894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21263894 which elicited a lot of comments about how much they disliked this type of conversation reading this comment makes we wonder if its not more a function of 'non-violent communication is a tool people use to bring up subjects they would otherwise avoid; there's basically no way to talk about a lot of these subjects in a manner that doesn't bother people; ->-> if these is something you're going to pay costs on if it doesn't get brought up, using the tool of non-violent communications is one way to handle these costs'
zajio1am 7y ago
> And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly. Well, i guess such conversation would not have a rational background, it would be just a power struggle whether one side could enforce its cultural norms on the other side. Using one's soft power to enforce specific goals or norms is risky and should be risky, not only because it could turn against the speaker, but also it could turn into oppression of those with less soft power. So perhaps it is best to reserve that to important issues, while handling trivial ones with tolerance.
- modriano 7y ago
  In the first (real) job I had after undergrad (physics and mechanical engineering, graduated in 2010 when the economy was a horrorshow), I was a shop supervisor in a factory. I was 23, working in the assembly department of a dirty factory, and I reasoned "appearance is shallow and not worth spending time and effort on, and this place is filthy anyway" (I'm kind of an aspie). A lot of the people working in assembly in that factory were old women, and I became friends with them. After a few months, one of them pulled me aside and she clearly had a question, but seemed nervous about asking it. I invited her to be candid, and she asked "uh, do you use soap when you shower?". She had correctly identified that I didn't use soap, and her question immediately made me realize that everyone who I managed noticed my hygiene and quietly endured it because they were uncomfortable speaking up about it. I was mortified that I had been presenting myself so poorly, blind to the impact on the people around me. I was (and remain) grateful that she worked up the courage to let me know that something I dismissed as beneath notice actually was noticed. I started taking better care of myself and being mindful of how I presented myself to the world, and I quickly noticed that people's facial expressions were different when I was around, and when I showed people how to do different assembly operations, they learned the first time (rather than producing a lot of waste before I had to show them again) as they weren't distracted by my hygiene. TLDR: One honest question immediately corrected incorrect beliefs that I held for years and that hindered my success.
  - watwut 7y ago

artsyca 7y ago

I had a manager like that dude he was house poor and had only one ratty Hilfiger sweater There's no way to relate to people like that and confrontation being avoided is the only way out

JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
Why is there no way to relate to people like that? Like, an individual you get a vibe from, I get it, but all people who are house poor should be avoided? I'm not sure I follow.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Avoid confrontation, not people. Plus, a manager at a company presumably has money to buy a couple of sweaters, even if at Goodwill or equivalent.
  - artsyca 7y ago
    I'd have to agree that it's necessary to view the professional sphere in terms of investment and investment is not only financial it's also effort and agency If you're a professional you ought to have some sort of professional persona that's not so directly tied to your 35 year mortgage If all your money is tied up in interest payments to where you can't hardly afford a stitch of clothing what fault of it is mine who manages my money differently do I seriously have to see you wearing the same tired old outfit every day for a week and you're in a position to affect my career to boot?
    - JauntyHatAngle 7y ago
      You have no idea what people have going on though. There are so many reasons someone could be short on money that would be understandable if you knew. you simply can't make that judgement easily.
mkagenius 7y ago
Ed Sheeran mostly wears same red shirt
- artsyca 7y ago
  People always come up with examples of eccentrics who dress like eccentrics I'm not interested in working with Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk or Einstein himself I'm interested in working with regular people who know how to shop for value and don't have to piss holding a cell phone or chew loudly with their mouths open The reason for this is I'm trying to achieve the enlightened state of higher consciousness that comes with practicing my art to its highest form of mastery and with it comes a certain social awareness that requires like-mannered colleagues to realize
- filoleg 7y ago
  He almost definitely has many copies of that shirt and isn't just wearing the exact same shirt every day. Just like Zuckerberg, who was showing off his wardrobe consisting of a bunch of t-shirts that are exactly the same. No one should have issues with people dressing similarly every day. But wearing the exact same shirt literally every single day without washing it every day becomes noticeable really quickly for hygienic reasons, and that's the part that makes it problematic.
hanniabu 7y ago
I knew a guy like that and he had a very different attitude than most in this situation. The guy I knew was 100% aware of what he was doing. He said he's not poor at all, but chose to live poor to save his money and invest it instead. He said he was on track to retire at 30. The man had laser vision with his eye on the target, can't hate on him for that. He'll be the last one laughing with that "fuck you" money.
- majos 7y ago
  But saving money on clothes and hygiene is crazily short-sighted. Bad clean clothes are maybe a couple hundred dollars a year, generously. I sincerely doubt that outweighs having your co-workers dread interacting with you.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    All those little couple hundred dollars a year here and there add up. And some people just don't care to make friends with the people they work with.
  - zajio1am 7y ago
    It mostly saves time for washing clothes. Changing clothes weekly was societal norm before washing machines became common. With washing machines Jevons paradox takes effect - instead of just accepting more free personal time with less time taken by washing clothes, we ramped up societal expectations for clean clothes.
  - artsyca 7y ago
    Actually you can have the best of both worlds it's a failure of imagination

rcurry 7y ago

The worst one for me was the guy who didn’t wash his hands after using the restroom. One day, one of my team members told me about this, and I didn’t believe him, ha ha, so a few days later I’m in the restroom and this guy comes out of a stall and just walks out the door. So about a week later my guy who’d complained about it had some problem with one of our other systems, and who do they send over to help him out? You guessed it - Mr. Doesn’t Wash His Hands. So I watch this guy sit down at my team member’s keyboard and work on some stuff with him, then after he leaves my team member gives me this horrified look and gestures at his keyboard. I straight up just walked over to his cube, unplugged his keyboard and threw it in the trash and told him “Go tell IT you need a new keyboard.” It was easier to just throw away the keyboard than to have that conversation with someone. What grown adult needs to be told to wash their hands after they use the toilet? I later learned that almost everyone on the floor knew about this guy and they were all sickened being around him.

acidburnNSA 7y ago
You said stall so I am onboard with your disgust. This always reminds me about a Richard Feynman story where he'd stand in the bathroom and ridicule people who washed their hands after using the urinal, saying the urine was sterile anyway. I find that kind of hilarious. Colleagues complained all the time, like "well I was headed to lunch anyway and always wash my hands before lunch"
- mikestew 7y ago
  Mr. Feyman’s mistake is assuming I’m trying to wash away urine. I touch stuff other than my dick throughout the day. Post-piss is as good a time as any. Not that I would have ever that I felt I owed such an asshole an explanation.
  - loopz 7y ago
    Piss starts smelling over time. You can drink it but don't pretend it's water. Various situations like sickness can contaminate and spread through urine. Some besserwissers just aren't.

mc3 7y ago

Genuine conversations are sometimes risky. Quitting once you have a job secured can be favorable to being fired, for example. Not having genuine conversations is part of the game unfortunately. Most orgs are political.

loopz 7y ago
Most people are sheep and it is unfortunate.
- OceanSunfish 7y ago
  Sheep are rational agents when they are surrounded by wolves.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    Being a wolf is preferable nonetheless.
    - makapuf 7y ago
      Depends if there are unguarded sheeps nearby, wolves are in extinction in some places, sheeps are not.
      - Supermancho 7y ago
        what does that have to do with the topic (or this thread)?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - gambiting 7y ago
      wolves are actively hunted by far more dangerous predators though, especially if they are killing sheep.

Yessing 7y ago

"not offending others by asking sensitive questions/Avoiding awkward" is the polite thing to do. But a core part of being polite, is not hruting others through your actions directly or undirectly. ( or at least trying) In cases where not asking the question puts the other party in a disadvantage or at the risk thereof, I feel one shouldn't be allowed to claim that one was being polite or "doing the right thing". You were being either too shy, cowardly or selfish. This doesn't mean that you must ask such questions/ venture in those topics. But it certainly does mean, that those that don't, shouldn't be allowed to claim active virtues ( to others or to themselves). * Also, if one chooses to not inform the other party of the problem, I feel that one shouldn't make them suffer for that choice. Which means at the very least, not trashtalking them behind their backs for it. The first part is about being good, the second part is about not being actively evil.

cgriswald 7y ago
I’ve heard people talk about the “compassionate” thing to do and I’ve asked, “What exactly is compassionate about prolonging suffering?” Either they get it or they think I’m a brutish social nub.
marcoperaza 7y ago
>But a core part of being polite, is not hurting others through your actions directly or indirectly. ( or at least trying) The problem is wanting the notion of politeness to do too much work. Being polite, being nice, is just a moment to moment strategy for avoiding conflict. Unfortunately, niceness has become the most important virtue in American culture. Being good is much more profound, and niceness is just one of the many tools you can use to achieve it. Sometimes being good entails being harsh. Sometimes it means doing things that will upset others.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- StandardFuture 7y ago
  This hits at a fundamental point that has puzzled me about American culture for the longest time. A country that is so heavily steeped in protestant/purtanical Christian roots and yet does not even realize that one of the main components of that creed is NOT taking offense to things. In fact, taking offense to things is as sinful as actually offending someone. It's basically a philosophical method of being a little less self-centered. It also suggests that while objective offensiveness is possible (calling someone a harsh name, etc.), most of the time offense is taken rather than given. It is one of my favorite principles from a religion that most who practice said religion almost entirely ignore. Puzzling.

vitruvian987 7y ago

I once had a manager who smelled terrible, and this had a bad impact on work. People hated getting into meetings for feedback or addressing concerns.

arvinsim 7y ago

A part of it is certain power dynamics in play. See this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766903

closeparen 7y ago

After being on the disgusted end of one of these situations, I’ve learned to be more attuned to lighthearted teasing and other offhand remarks about my own behavior. People who care about you may be trying to help you understand that you’re violating norms, but feeling limited in how they can communicate it.

hrktb 7y ago

> the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. If you genuinely think the ones you saw could have been avoid just by a conversation, I’d wager the main issue was not an awkward situation but a crucial lack of trust, often coming from a toxic culture. I saw a lot of situations where something awkward was going in, ranging from bad hygiene to mild harassment. Dozens of people are witnessing the situation every single day, even if the manager doesn’t step in there’s a flurry of other people with enough power or influence to intervene. That often means that the situation goes on because nobody gives a crap, or the one in fault thinks (right or wrong) that nothing will happen if the warnings/requests are ignored. That’s just a crappy place to work either way. Quitting won’t be because of the awkward situation, but because it was a symptom of a deeper issue.

anbotero 7y ago
My experience has been people is afraid of asking, as the article puts it, “sensitive questions”. Afraid of the repercussions: Will they react aggressively/defensively and never talk to me again? Will they feel bad and have depression after that? Among other things. I say it because it happened at my previous company: After a new team member joined the company (he was like 6, 7 feet away from me), I from time to time started getting weird smells, but it was occasional and it’s not like I was out on a hunt for the origin of the smell. Eventually we had to work together and wow, the smell was really intense (not sure if only that day or what); I immediately told him about it (it was just the two of us). He started using deodorant (that was the reason) more often after that. Weeks after I was drinking with his team, and they started talking about him and how much he had improved his issue, and I asked them if they had told them. They said no, with the reasons I mentioned above. So, yes, people is different and you have to hopefully measure a bit what you say depending on the person in front of you, but if society wasn’t so sensitive these last years, it’d be easier for everyone to accept criticism so everyone improves. Also, if it’s something that directly affects me, there is NO way I’m not going to try and change/improve the situation.
- hrktb 7y ago
  I hear you. Somewhere I wonder how long this kind of sensitive questions can stay unasked. There usually are repercussions, with concrete effects on work relationships and productivity (if there aren’t, why even bother ?). In your example, I’d guess people would delay talking to him and this would slow down communication. Keeping these kind of stuff silent usually don’t last long anyway, and it’s so much better to have early enough factual conversations, “we want you to fix X because otherwise it causes Y”, soon enough for the employee to have time left to digest the info and react on it.

vitro 7y ago

I once worked on a desk opposite a guy, who had often his finger in his nose, searching, finding and taking out.. you know. After weeks of hesitation, once I told him: "Please, if you need to do it, do it in the bathroom". He said "Ok" and that was it. It is a sensitive topic, just when writing this I have doubts whether to post this message or not. But those things are just here, and if you act out of kindness towards the person, seeing how may he/she suffer because of that and by having a discussion or drop a few sentences on the subject, you are actually helping the person as well. I guess it is better to try than to alienate that person in our mind and the longer it takes, the harder it is to start the discussion. Be rebel! Talk about those things! With kindness.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago

That's one consequence of the push for political correctness at all cost in our societies. We went too far in applying it, and yet the mindset of people haven't changed, only the surface for compliance. The result is that we have hyper hypocrisy instead of even a tiny amount of respect.

k_vi 7y ago

Something I realized taking a remote job for the first time, having genuine conversations was the default - my capacity for giving and taking hard criticisms is so much better. Some of it has also spilled into my personal life :)

tsukurimashou 7y ago

I tend to ask myself "does something really disturbs YOU", if the answer is yes, then I will talk about it because: 1. You cannot expect someone to realize something, no matter how obvious it is to you, you don't know how to person was raised and what experiences that person went through, thus you should never expect something obvious for yourself to be obvious for others as well 2. If something bothers me but I don't talk about it, I will resent the problematic person one way or another, and the problem will resurface one day or another (probably not in the way you would expect too).

rhacker 7y ago
We had some contractors in a Mexico office that would sometimes visit San Jose (CA). At a certain point, one of them decided to permanently relocate to the US. Most things were fine, but there was one social line he crossed that needed to be said. His computer desktop background was pretty much laden with boobs and asses. The background image was pretty much intensely horrible. Another co-worker and I just calmly explained to him that he can choose any background he wanted as long as it didn't potentially land him in trouble with sexual or racial discrimination issues. Definitely, in this case it was an easy conversation and he obviously fixed the issue immediately.

nkrisc 7y ago

> And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly. To be fair, I'd have done the same. That kind of behavior strikes me as a symptom of something else going on and I don't know if I'd want to put myself in their sights.

pitt1980 7y ago

There was a thread a few months ago on HN about non-violent communication https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21263894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21263894 which elicited a lot of comments about how much they disliked this type of conversation reading this comment makes we wonder if its not more a function of 'non-violent communication is a tool people use to bring up subjects they would otherwise avoid; there's basically no way to talk about a lot of these subjects in a manner that doesn't bother people; ->-> if these is something you're going to pay costs on if it doesn't get brought up, using the tool of non-violent communications is one way to handle these costs'

zajio1am 7y ago

> And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly. Well, i guess such conversation would not have a rational background, it would be just a power struggle whether one side could enforce its cultural norms on the other side. Using one's soft power to enforce specific goals or norms is risky and should be risky, not only because it could turn against the speaker, but also it could turn into oppression of those with less soft power. So perhaps it is best to reserve that to important issues, while handling trivial ones with tolerance.

modriano 7y ago
In the first (real) job I had after undergrad (physics and mechanical engineering, graduated in 2010 when the economy was a horrorshow), I was a shop supervisor in a factory. I was 23, working in the assembly department of a dirty factory, and I reasoned "appearance is shallow and not worth spending time and effort on, and this place is filthy anyway" (I'm kind of an aspie). A lot of the people working in assembly in that factory were old women, and I became friends with them. After a few months, one of them pulled me aside and she clearly had a question, but seemed nervous about asking it. I invited her to be candid, and she asked "uh, do you use soap when you shower?". She had correctly identified that I didn't use soap, and her question immediately made me realize that everyone who I managed noticed my hygiene and quietly endured it because they were uncomfortable speaking up about it. I was mortified that I had been presenting myself so poorly, blind to the impact on the people around me. I was (and remain) grateful that she worked up the courage to let me know that something I dismissed as beneath notice actually was noticed. I started taking better care of myself and being mindful of how I presented myself to the world, and I quickly noticed that people's facial expressions were different when I was around, and when I showed people how to do different assembly operations, they learned the first time (rather than producing a lot of waste before I had to show them again) as they weren't distracted by my hygiene. TLDR: One honest question immediately corrected incorrect beliefs that I held for years and that hindered my success.
- watwut 7y ago