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> What's odd is that at some point, I managed to stumble onto the Google spreadsheet (yep) they were using to track feedback for the process. There were dozens

by ken 6y ago

> What's odd is that at some point, I managed to stumble onto the Google spreadsheet (yep) they were using to track feedback for the process. There were dozens of entries, and they were all gushing about it, like oh it was so good, and so fun! Please do more! > Part of me wonders if this is genuine, like these people actually enjoyed being gaslit 100%, yes. I once took a class from someone who was, let's say, not my favorite professor. He was one of those young "fun" types. Despite being a science/engineering class in a department with a reputation for being rather tough (with the previous instructor, just retired), it was not particularly deep or rigorous. All the other students loved him because he was "cool". At one point, we had to do a standardized Scantron survey about the course and the professor. I looked at each question and answered truthfully: "Did the professor provide a syllabus?" Easy: no. "Did the professor make it clear how you would be graded?" Haha, definite no. And so on. Normally that's the end of it, but the next week, he was chatting with some students before class about the survey. "I think someone answered all the questions backwards just to mess with me or something. Funny!" "Yeah, that's weird, dude!" Apparently when you're giving feedback on a popular leader, the correct response is to ignore the questions and simply give them the maximum score in every category. And when you're a popular leader reading feedback, if there's any responses that don't match this, you can safely ignore them.

amiantos 6y ago
People forget to address power dynamics. New hires at a company are often grateful to have a job and nervous to make a good first impression. If you immediately ask for feedback from these people they are going to do everything they can to show that they’re (insert all the positive adjectives you can here) so that they get to keep their job and impress anyone who may be watching. On top of that, this effect continues indefinitely for some people, who never stop feeling so grateful for having a job at all (or they’re just that type of person, or they’re playing a game) that they have to be super effusive indefinitely over every little thing. Some people also just like to be butt kissers. People like Rachel (and myself) who speak up from the very start and never stop speaking up are unfortunately very rare. Employers who can recognize how valuable we are, are luckily not that rare, so long as the truth-teller can maintain their composure.

by ken 6y ago

amiantos 6y ago

People forget to address power dynamics. New hires at a company are often grateful to have a job and nervous to make a good first impression. If you immediately ask for feedback from these people they are going to do everything they can to show that they’re (insert all the positive adjectives you can here) so that they get to keep their job and impress anyone who may be watching. On top of that, this effect continues indefinitely for some people, who never stop feeling so grateful for having a job at all (or they’re just that type of person, or they’re playing a game) that they have to be super effusive indefinitely over every little thing. Some people also just like to be butt kissers. People like Rachel (and myself) who speak up from the very start and never stop speaking up are unfortunately very rare. Employers who can recognize how valuable we are, are luckily not that rare, so long as the truth-teller can maintain their composure.