13 ms·

It pays to be grumpy and bad-tempered (2016)

86 points by Hnaomyiph 6y ago

mrnobody_67 6y ago
Awesome, glad to hear i don't have to change.
- vmchale 6y ago
  That's the spirit!
peteradio 6y ago
Causality is reversed. Being rich or at least comfortably wealthy allows you to act as you wish. How about we do a twins study on this, coaching one to be an unmitigated dick while coaching the other to be kind. Does anyone really think the dick twin will get ahead on average?
- portroyal 6y ago
  Yes? DickTwin's coaching should essentially guarantee this to be true. Maybe rename it to Psychopathy Training. edit: that said, not all dicks are charming; so it's clearly not 100% success rate.
ldd 6y ago
I understand that, in some sense, this may be true. But notice that it doesn't say that not being grumpy is a recipe for failure. I personally prefer to be good-tempered and not grumpy, and I am rarely in a bad mood. I call this dog philosophy. It probably means that I won't have all the success and greatness and stuff that others have, but overall, I am much more content seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses. My dog seems to agree.
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  Evolution came up with a range of tools that each work best in different situations. If you're never kind, collaboration and group effort become hard. People don't want to join you. You will miss opportunities to strengthen your group. In the long run, your line will lose out. If you're never "grumpy" or bad tempered or forceful, you'll just get obliterated eventually by some great force randomly sweeping the neighborhood. Do not think it never happens. Sometimes the best response is force. And then there's everything else in between. It's a range, and all components are there for a reason - they performed well in the evolutionary past, so they got included in the toolkit. Use it, and use it wisely. The optimum is not a narrow point - it's a wide range of diverse responses. Width is crucial.
- ryandvm 6y ago
  Heh. I've used a very similar "live like a dog" philosophy myself to try to emulate the best traits of canine personality. Dogs are loyal and eager to please, they don't dwell on the past, they don't hold grudges, they aren't retributive. That said, you have to be careful not to take it too seriously. Dogs are terrible philanthropists, they suck at planning, they aren't rational, they hate to share, etc.
  - netcan 6y ago
    Reading your comment, I realized how squarely I fall into the grumpy group. Grudgingly agreed to the first part, the second part made me giggle.
  - glial 6y ago
    Love it, and maybe you have heard of Diogenes and the Cynics (literally 'dog-like'). "There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named. First because of the indifference of their way of life, for they make a cult of indifference and, like dogs, eat and make love in public, go barefoot, and sleep in tubs and at crossroads. The second reason is that the dog is a shameless animal, and they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it. The third reason is that the dog is a good guard, and they guard the tenets of their philosophy. The fourth reason is that the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. So do they recognize as friends those who are suited to philosophy, and receive them kindly, while those unfitted they drive away, like dogs, by barking at them."[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes#Diogenes_as_dogged_or_dog-like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes#Diogenes_as_dogged_or...
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Even the 'best traits of canine personality'... aren't even true in a general sense. That's more of a human conception of the end result of natural tendencies, training, anthropomorphism, and how dogs are portrayed in the media. > Dogs are loyal and eager to please... I foster, train, and board dogs. Trust me when I say this idea that dogs are 'loyal and eager to please' is very specific to certain breeds (e.g. Goldens). Most breeds only become 'loyal and eager to please' if their owner is clearly in charge. I generally foster huskies. They've all been either from a puppy mill or have been feral (so in either case they have no real human interaction before I get them) and they don't really have any interest in what I want at all until they've been with me and trained for awhile. > they don't dwell on the past... Dogs don't not dwell on the past, either. They're more or less completely unaware of it. However they experienced an event doesn't become a memory that they later recall. However they interpreted those events at the time had its influence on their future behavior and they can never go back and re-examine that event. They do have a sense of time, but it's not like ours. It's based on smell. "That girl dog I like was here, but the scent has faded, so she was here, but she's not now."
- elliekelly 6y ago
  I have a friend who has an analogous “goldfish philosophy” for giving grumpy people the benefit of the doubt: when someone acts like a jerk he says “maybe their goldfish died this morning” and then forgets the incident as fast a goldfish would. You never know who’s having a bad day and he genuinely doesn’t take it personally. Of course sometimes he jokes that a person is a “goldfish serial killer” which means they’re a confirmed jerk.
- mattnewton 6y ago
  I would feel deeply insulted if someone compared me to a dog because of complacency, but to each their own. Whatever works for you, though I can't say I understand. I will say I find less grumpy people easier to work with and I try to be pleasant to everyone I work with as a result; it's just the dog messaging I find confusing.
FanaHOVA 6y ago
This is the traditional Give and Take dilemma. Givers are just as likely to be successful, if not more. This is a good summary, in case you want to skip Adam Grant's book [0] [0]: https://www.lemonade.com/blog/psychology-givers-takers-matchers-2/ https://www.lemonade.com/blog/psychology-givers-takers-match...
- hinkley 6y ago
  I don't think that's quite true. Optimists are predisposed to fall into the echo chamber trap. They don't have the muscles to question the status quo routinely. Everything is awesome, why change it? They may be more charitable overall, but glaringly deficient where empathy demands action.
daenz 6y ago
What a toxic message to push out to readers, especially in times of crisis.
- joshu 6y ago
  (2016)
  - dang 6y ago
    Added. Thanks.
- puranjay 6y ago
  If you're not a grumpy person by nature, I doubt an article is going to convince you to start being grumpy. Not that it's even possible to change your innate nature. I'm grumpy by nature and every attempt to be more positive and carefree has been disastrous and miserable. Maybe it works the same way if you wanted to be grumpy
nine_k 6y ago
Indeed, to strive to (even more of) perfection, you need to be discontent with the current state of things. That is, you have to be discontent with things like 99% of the time. Because of this, you'll feel compelled to improve them. But the price of it would be being less than happy most of the time.
- zzzcpan 6y ago
  Wouldn't that make you more happy, not less? Always figuring out how to improve things and having endless possibilities to improve them is almost a definition of fun.
vsareto 6y ago
>if I hear that idea again, I’m gonna have to kill myself If he said that to me, I'd just repeat the idea. Snark generally counters grumpy people and brilliant jerks.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Good way to filter the drama queens. Productive pessimists tend to value or at least tolerate snark, the drama queen will just make everything about them and nobody gets anything done.
klyrs 6y ago
> Hugh Grant apparently hates every film he’s been in, even though they’ve made him $80m Hey, we've got the first part in common. Why can't I afford a house. (this is a sarcastic, er, ill-tempered, remark on correlation vs causation)
puranjay 6y ago
> Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is famed for his angry outbursts and insults (such as “I’m sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?”) yet they haven’t stopped him building a $300 billion company. That's how you know the article was written in 2016! (Amazon's market cap is now $1.5T)
js2 6y ago
A friend once said to me: “Some people say the glass is half full, some that it’s half empty. You say: ‘this water sucks.’” :-)
chahex 6y ago
I got fired two times being frumpy angry with my team mates/lead/manager and I thought I could have changed the general hypocrisy in my last job. Instead I spent three years set myself straight with someone even more frustrated than me. I wasn’t authentic but now I’ve learnt to accept myself as i am. However if I wanted to throw an object or hit something really hard in fury now I will stop for a fraction of second to think if it worth(as I’m more sensitive to my heart feeling even in a rage, where I tended to ignore in my past hypocritical self). I once destroyed the phone when I got frustrated with my ex.
- chahex 6y ago
  I realized now, that when you are in rage there’s still ration trying to speak not to over exaggerate or burning too much of the bridge — but someone not trained to respect self/heart feeling will tend to ignore that little sound...
- mamon 6y ago
  My experience is the opposite: in one of my previous jobs, due to some circumstances that I will skip here, I became not only grumpy but outright rude. I would literaly insult people, calling them stupid during daily Scrum meetings, never did anyone any favor before loudly complaining "can't you just do that yourself?" first, and so on, and so on. Guess what? it actually made my life easier, took some workload off me and earned me some respect (or maybe just fear, but who cares?) among my coworkers. I think it also was a factor for me getting a significant salary raise :)
12xo 6y ago
Pollyanna's are the most annoying and fake people around. I'd rather be with Grumpy people who are factual, realistic and capable, than the "its always a beautiful day" Pollyanna crowd...
- finaliteration 6y ago
  > I'd rather be with Grumpy people who are factual, realistic and capable It's possible to be positive and also be factual, realistic, and capable. Being positive doesn't mean ignoring reality and glossing over everything negative. I'm a fairly positive person, but I definitely still have conversations where I say, "Yeah, this totally sucks, I'm not happy with it, and I think it needs to be fixed". Approaching things in a positive, friendly, and collaborative manner has always served me and my teams far better than being grumpy and pessimistic about everything.
  - chahex 6y ago
    Yes. Can’t you be both grumpy and positive ? You are not satisfied with reality then you are positive because you are seeking change. However forced positivity needs attention. When you are in a bad situation and feeling stressed out is it more important to keep a smiling, or admit that you are stressed out and focus on solution ?
  - 12xo 6y ago
    I dont think you know who / what a Pollyanna is...
awillen 6y ago
Of course this message is brought to you by the British...
Barrin92 6y ago
This whole fake positivity thing is very US centric I feel. I remember that Walmart tried to expand here to Germany and failed, and one of the reasons I heard was that the culture of constantly smiling cashiers actually freaked customers out, and employees were stressed by 'company chants' in the morning, which I didn't even knew existed. Many of the things mentioned in the article I don't find at all surprising. When in challenging or sad situations it's only reasonable to be grumpy, or pessimistic or what have you. Negative emotions or feelings are part of our natural range and appropriate depending on the cirumstances. Forced positivy to me always has something ghoulish, Truman-show like. One particular thing that I've noticed about very optimistic people is that they (not always) but sometimes tend to have an overly inflated sense of agency even in situations where they are objectively not in control. When something goes wrong in these cases people like that tend to blame themselves more than appropriate. I think this can be the source of a lot of frustration.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I understand how forced positivity might seem fake, but studies have shown that forcing a smile or forcing a group activity, can actually improve people's moods (both the giver and the recipient). It is a cultural shift though that seems alien initially, but then you really get used to it, and it really does make people feel better when they encounter it literally at every store. Positivity also disarms people and makes them more likely to purchase goods.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    I'm from SF and spent a lot of time in Berlin. My observation was that when you go into a shop in SF, you'll get greeted to a lesser degree, but more cheerfully. In Berlin, you were greeted almost every single time, but more perfunctorily. In that regard, I preferred the Berlin approach, even though it required me to respond more often. But I could simple acknowledge the greeting and keep going. It was more intrusive, but less demanding.
    - FlyingSnake 6y ago
MrZongle2 6y ago
Just keep in mind: sometimes there's a fine line between being grumpy and being an asshole.
- chahex 6y ago
  The word has a strong emotional direction and.. can we say it’s judgemental.. however I do agree there is a line of over exaggeration. It is not a physical line but heart knows when you crossed it
tathougies 6y ago
What's not mentioned in the article is that grumpiness is also associated with self-criticism. Look, I am a grumpy and cynical person in general. I play the piano as a hobby. I've played for almost 25 years at this point. Many people compliment me on my playing, and objectively, perhaps they're right. However, when I hear myself, I can't stand it. It drives me up the wall, and as I play, in my mind, I still sound like the five year old whose parents just enrolled him in piano lessons. It sounds bad to me continuously, but others seem to like it (and I've also won awards and such, so i know it's not just poor taste on my listener's parts). But really, this kind of unfulfilable self-expectation leads to more practice, more doing, and more motivation. It's hard to motivate yourself when you think you're already the best at what you do (or are happy with however good you are right now). When you cannot stand the way you sound on the piano though, and you keep practicing to reach a the metaphorical carrot, then you naturally get better.
rjohnk 6y ago
In a previous job, some coworkers and my boss perceived me as being grumpy. Resting B*tch Face, more reserved, generally didn't partipate in break time video game sessions. In reality I just wanted to get my work done and go home to the family. It was one of (though not the reason) I was let go from that position. I've tried to learn from that experience, but still struggle with fitting in with those who think work is social hour and seem to get ahead by schmoozing and not head-down work. I know it's a balance, but it seems rigged for the outwardly social.
- lsavage 6y ago
  Yeah I totally understand that. I think it's important to remember that people are social creatures generally speaking. So what one may view as schmoozing, others may see as simply being social and relating to each other. People enjoy feeling good and liked.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    I got off on the wrong foot with a coworker. The first time I needed to talk to him was because his code wasn't working, he tried to blame user error, it did not go well. It took me months at the coffee machine talking about anything he wanted to talk about before he warmed up. Now he's often the first to say 'hi' when I enter a meeting room or support an idea I presented, instead of avoiding me.
user00012-ab 6y ago
Sometimes I wonder if I live in a reality where everything is just created with a GPT-2 algorithm.
dijit 6y ago
I have suffered no increase in success as my encroaching grumpiness begins to prevail ever more successfully. Dutifully, I declare the opposite. Life was better when I was more open, more friendly, more curious- opportunities sprouted from seemingly nothing. Now I'm a bit long in the tooth and I've had many harrowing experiences in trying to fight the large bureaucratic machine that is my organisation and have been left curt and bitter. Now there are no opportunities, no "connections forged" and certainly not any career progression. I do not recommend succumbing to grumpiness, nor bad temperament.. The only thing that matters is that you're genuine, and if you feel yourself getting to be like me, take a step back and consider what the cause is. There is no happiness here.
- chchchngs 6y ago
  Perhaps you should just switch jobs? After 20 years myself, this stuff feels so rote, offices are just gonna use what Google/AWS peddle... the world you knew is gone. You didn’t “get grumpy”. You didn’t move on.
  - dijit 6y ago
    Thanks for the advice, I have switched jobs and I will be starting in the new job in 3 weeks. I am excited and feel my curiosity burning excitedly. But as for bureaucracy... it wasn't that we were trying to follow Google/Amazon. It was typical large company ego-stroking. People who are in positions of power and sit on ivory towers and give commands with no input possible. Of course the stuff like OKRs came in- but these are peripheral things, not core to the function of the job.
- spottybanana 6y ago
  The article points out that being grumpy brings success, which probably doesn't correlate with happiness.
0xCMP 6y ago
From the comments here I'm pretty sure "grumpy" and "bad tempered" are being used to describe far too many things and some of them are pretty bad. Getting in to a rage and throwing things or just being vitriolic is not grumpy or bad tempered. You can be grumpy with how things are and state your mind firmly and easily be categorized as such. I wouldn't think that's a wrong category either, but it's absolutely different from disagreeing with others and then throwing things.
- chahex 6y ago
  > Getting in to a rage and throwing things or just being vitriolic is not grumpy or bad tempered. It is true these behaviors are not desirable and can cause stress with all participants. But they happen likely as too much had been oppressed and it was just too strong to hold any longer. When you are angry you might do something violent. Continue to oppress with force without fixing the real issue will lead to more escalations..
tqi 6y ago
Wow 2016 was a different time. A lot of the controversy around the CEO of Away revolved around behavior that could be categorized as "Grumpy" or "Bad-Tempered" [1]. I guess it only pays to be "Grumpy" if you're a white man, or if the media attitude toward your industry is positive. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20995453/away-luggage-ceo-steph-korey-toxic-work-environment-travel-inclusion https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20995453/away-luggage-ceo...
- ponker 6y ago
  The Away's CEO behavior sounds exactly like Steve Jobs' legendary quality-obsessive behavior, except that he would fire the responsible persons without giving them a second chance.
fzeroracer 6y ago
There's a difference between being grumpy and being an abusive asshole. Unfortunately, this article seems to conflate the two and seems to be rationalizing bullshit behavior from CEOs as being indicative of success rather than being too-big-to-fail. I've worked with plenty of grumpy people that had a no-nonsense attitude but never let it get in the way of being genuinely helpful or used it to put down people. I've also worked with assholes that were bad at their jobs and pretended that their no-nonsense attitude was helpful when it was not. It's a very fine line to walk.
- chahex 6y ago
  An asshole behavior is not asshole behavior if you can accept. That is a judgement the observer has to make
  - finaliteration 6y ago
    I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, here. Are you saying that, if someone is acting like an asshole, those around them should just accept it? What if everyone they work with judges their behavior to be that of an asshole? Does that make others wrong and the asshole right? Having worked with (and for) a few assholes in my day, I can say that most of the time they aren't as smart, helpful, or clever as they believe themselves to be. Most of the time they add friction to a work environment and make other people around them miserable, and eventually those other people quit.
    - chahex 6y ago
      Thank you for your reply. I meant that grumpy/angry is an objective emotional state it doesn’t need judgement based on our opinions. “Asshole” on the other hand is a subjective feeling. And actually thinking again of your comment now I think you were referring to people who likes to complain but failed to point out the problem and couldn’t find out a solution..
otterley 6y ago
(2016)
- dang 6y ago
  Added. Thanks.
voydik 6y ago
This is the most HN post ever.
deeblering4 6y ago
Didn’t Bezos just have a high profile and very expensive divorce? Weird. I guess being grumpy and bad tempered can cause problems in work and personal relationships too.
- bob1029 6y ago
  Isn't Bezos still the most wealthy person on earth, even after said divorce?
  - spottybanana 6y ago
    To me it sounds like people somehow assume that wealth, success, happiness are about the same thing, which necessarily isn't the case. You can be wealthy and still miserable, successful without being wealthy, etc. I didn't really read the whole article but I got the understanding that they were mostly talking about entrepreneurial-style success.
  - TheGrassyKnoll 6y ago
    Yeah, but we're here enjoying HN, and he's 'working'. So who's got the better lifestyle ?
    - bob1029 6y ago
      Some people actually enjoy their work.
Plough_Jogger 6y ago
I've observed that grumpiness in a business setting is often a learned behavior of individuals who are too frequently distracted from their work by colleagues. Constantly responding to questions with a gruff demeanor eventually decreases the number of interruptions and becomes self-reinforcing.
dang 6y ago
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12263794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12263794
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>Being bad-tempered and pessimistic helps you to earn more, live longer and enjoy a healthier marriage but evidently it didn't help Hugh Grant stay with Elizabeth Hurley so how good could it really be?
brlewis 6y ago
This article is a load of malarkey. Being grumpy and bad-tempered are predispositions toward having negative emotions in more situations than most people would. There are two classes of evidence in the article. The first is evidence that negative emotions are useful in certain situations. One does not need to be grumpy and bad-tempered to recognize such situations and act appropriately. The second is anecdotes where successful people had emotional outbursts. I assert that the outbursts did not cause the success. Passion caused both the outbursts and the success, separately. Thus there's correlation between outbursts and success but not causation.

86 points by Hnaomyiph 6y ago

mrnobody_67 6y ago

Awesome, glad to hear i don't have to change.

vmchale 6y ago
That's the spirit!

peteradio 6y ago

Causality is reversed. Being rich or at least comfortably wealthy allows you to act as you wish. How about we do a twins study on this, coaching one to be an unmitigated dick while coaching the other to be kind. Does anyone really think the dick twin will get ahead on average?

portroyal 6y ago
Yes? DickTwin's coaching should essentially guarantee this to be true. Maybe rename it to Psychopathy Training. edit: that said, not all dicks are charming; so it's clearly not 100% success rate.

ldd 6y ago

I understand that, in some sense, this may be true. But notice that it doesn't say that not being grumpy is a recipe for failure. I personally prefer to be good-tempered and not grumpy, and I am rarely in a bad mood. I call this dog philosophy. It probably means that I won't have all the success and greatness and stuff that others have, but overall, I am much more content seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses. My dog seems to agree.

Florin_Andrei 6y ago
Evolution came up with a range of tools that each work best in different situations. If you're never kind, collaboration and group effort become hard. People don't want to join you. You will miss opportunities to strengthen your group. In the long run, your line will lose out. If you're never "grumpy" or bad tempered or forceful, you'll just get obliterated eventually by some great force randomly sweeping the neighborhood. Do not think it never happens. Sometimes the best response is force. And then there's everything else in between. It's a range, and all components are there for a reason - they performed well in the evolutionary past, so they got included in the toolkit. Use it, and use it wisely. The optimum is not a narrow point - it's a wide range of diverse responses. Width is crucial.
ryandvm 6y ago
Heh. I've used a very similar "live like a dog" philosophy myself to try to emulate the best traits of canine personality. Dogs are loyal and eager to please, they don't dwell on the past, they don't hold grudges, they aren't retributive. That said, you have to be careful not to take it too seriously. Dogs are terrible philanthropists, they suck at planning, they aren't rational, they hate to share, etc.
- netcan 6y ago
  Reading your comment, I realized how squarely I fall into the grumpy group. Grudgingly agreed to the first part, the second part made me giggle.
- glial 6y ago
  Love it, and maybe you have heard of Diogenes and the Cynics (literally 'dog-like'). "There are four reasons why the Cynics are so named. First because of the indifference of their way of life, for they make a cult of indifference and, like dogs, eat and make love in public, go barefoot, and sleep in tubs and at crossroads. The second reason is that the dog is a shameless animal, and they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it. The third reason is that the dog is a good guard, and they guard the tenets of their philosophy. The fourth reason is that the dog is a discriminating animal which can distinguish between its friends and enemies. So do they recognize as friends those who are suited to philosophy, and receive them kindly, while those unfitted they drive away, like dogs, by barking at them."[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes#Diogenes_as_dogged_or_dog-like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes#Diogenes_as_dogged_or...
- cgriswald 6y ago
  Even the 'best traits of canine personality'... aren't even true in a general sense. That's more of a human conception of the end result of natural tendencies, training, anthropomorphism, and how dogs are portrayed in the media. > Dogs are loyal and eager to please... I foster, train, and board dogs. Trust me when I say this idea that dogs are 'loyal and eager to please' is very specific to certain breeds (e.g. Goldens). Most breeds only become 'loyal and eager to please' if their owner is clearly in charge. I generally foster huskies. They've all been either from a puppy mill or have been feral (so in either case they have no real human interaction before I get them) and they don't really have any interest in what I want at all until they've been with me and trained for awhile. > they don't dwell on the past... Dogs don't not dwell on the past, either. They're more or less completely unaware of it. However they experienced an event doesn't become a memory that they later recall. However they interpreted those events at the time had its influence on their future behavior and they can never go back and re-examine that event. They do have a sense of time, but it's not like ours. It's based on smell. "That girl dog I like was here, but the scent has faded, so she was here, but she's not now."
elliekelly 6y ago
I have a friend who has an analogous “goldfish philosophy” for giving grumpy people the benefit of the doubt: when someone acts like a jerk he says “maybe their goldfish died this morning” and then forgets the incident as fast a goldfish would. You never know who’s having a bad day and he genuinely doesn’t take it personally. Of course sometimes he jokes that a person is a “goldfish serial killer” which means they’re a confirmed jerk.
mattnewton 6y ago
I would feel deeply insulted if someone compared me to a dog because of complacency, but to each their own. Whatever works for you, though I can't say I understand. I will say I find less grumpy people easier to work with and I try to be pleasant to everyone I work with as a result; it's just the dog messaging I find confusing.

FanaHOVA 6y ago

This is the traditional Give and Take dilemma. Givers are just as likely to be successful, if not more. This is a good summary, in case you want to skip Adam Grant's book [0] [0]: https://www.lemonade.com/blog/psychology-givers-takers-matchers-2/ https://www.lemonade.com/blog/psychology-givers-takers-match...

hinkley 6y ago
I don't think that's quite true. Optimists are predisposed to fall into the echo chamber trap. They don't have the muscles to question the status quo routinely. Everything is awesome, why change it? They may be more charitable overall, but glaringly deficient where empathy demands action.

daenz 6y ago

What a toxic message to push out to readers, especially in times of crisis.

joshu 6y ago
(2016)
- dang 6y ago
  Added. Thanks.
puranjay 6y ago
If you're not a grumpy person by nature, I doubt an article is going to convince you to start being grumpy. Not that it's even possible to change your innate nature. I'm grumpy by nature and every attempt to be more positive and carefree has been disastrous and miserable. Maybe it works the same way if you wanted to be grumpy

nine_k 6y ago

Indeed, to strive to (even more of) perfection, you need to be discontent with the current state of things. That is, you have to be discontent with things like 99% of the time. Because of this, you'll feel compelled to improve them. But the price of it would be being less than happy most of the time.

zzzcpan 6y ago
Wouldn't that make you more happy, not less? Always figuring out how to improve things and having endless possibilities to improve them is almost a definition of fun.

vsareto 6y ago

>if I hear that idea again, I’m gonna have to kill myself If he said that to me, I'd just repeat the idea. Snark generally counters grumpy people and brilliant jerks.

hinkley 6y ago
Good way to filter the drama queens. Productive pessimists tend to value or at least tolerate snark, the drama queen will just make everything about them and nobody gets anything done.

klyrs 6y ago

> Hugh Grant apparently hates every film he’s been in, even though they’ve made him $80m Hey, we've got the first part in common. Why can't I afford a house. (this is a sarcastic, er, ill-tempered, remark on correlation vs causation)

puranjay 6y ago

> Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is famed for his angry outbursts and insults (such as “I’m sorry, did I take my stupid pills today?”) yet they haven’t stopped him building a $300 billion company. That's how you know the article was written in 2016! (Amazon's market cap is now $1.5T)

js2 6y ago

A friend once said to me: “Some people say the glass is half full, some that it’s half empty. You say: ‘this water sucks.’” :-)

chahex 6y ago

I got fired two times being frumpy angry with my team mates/lead/manager and I thought I could have changed the general hypocrisy in my last job. Instead I spent three years set myself straight with someone even more frustrated than me. I wasn’t authentic but now I’ve learnt to accept myself as i am. However if I wanted to throw an object or hit something really hard in fury now I will stop for a fraction of second to think if it worth(as I’m more sensitive to my heart feeling even in a rage, where I tended to ignore in my past hypocritical self). I once destroyed the phone when I got frustrated with my ex.

chahex 6y ago
I realized now, that when you are in rage there’s still ration trying to speak not to over exaggerate or burning too much of the bridge — but someone not trained to respect self/heart feeling will tend to ignore that little sound...
mamon 6y ago
My experience is the opposite: in one of my previous jobs, due to some circumstances that I will skip here, I became not only grumpy but outright rude. I would literaly insult people, calling them stupid during daily Scrum meetings, never did anyone any favor before loudly complaining "can't you just do that yourself?" first, and so on, and so on. Guess what? it actually made my life easier, took some workload off me and earned me some respect (or maybe just fear, but who cares?) among my coworkers. I think it also was a factor for me getting a significant salary raise :)

12xo 6y ago

Pollyanna's are the most annoying and fake people around. I'd rather be with Grumpy people who are factual, realistic and capable, than the "its always a beautiful day" Pollyanna crowd...

finaliteration 6y ago
> I'd rather be with Grumpy people who are factual, realistic and capable It's possible to be positive and also be factual, realistic, and capable. Being positive doesn't mean ignoring reality and glossing over everything negative. I'm a fairly positive person, but I definitely still have conversations where I say, "Yeah, this totally sucks, I'm not happy with it, and I think it needs to be fixed". Approaching things in a positive, friendly, and collaborative manner has always served me and my teams far better than being grumpy and pessimistic about everything.
- chahex 6y ago
  Yes. Can’t you be both grumpy and positive ? You are not satisfied with reality then you are positive because you are seeking change. However forced positivity needs attention. When you are in a bad situation and feeling stressed out is it more important to keep a smiling, or admit that you are stressed out and focus on solution ?
- 12xo 6y ago
  I dont think you know who / what a Pollyanna is...

awillen 6y ago

Of course this message is brought to you by the British...

Barrin92 6y ago

This whole fake positivity thing is very US centric I feel. I remember that Walmart tried to expand here to Germany and failed, and one of the reasons I heard was that the culture of constantly smiling cashiers actually freaked customers out, and employees were stressed by 'company chants' in the morning, which I didn't even knew existed. Many of the things mentioned in the article I don't find at all surprising. When in challenging or sad situations it's only reasonable to be grumpy, or pessimistic or what have you. Negative emotions or feelings are part of our natural range and appropriate depending on the cirumstances. Forced positivy to me always has something ghoulish, Truman-show like. One particular thing that I've noticed about very optimistic people is that they (not always) but sometimes tend to have an overly inflated sense of agency even in situations where they are objectively not in control. When something goes wrong in these cases people like that tend to blame themselves more than appropriate. I think this can be the source of a lot of frustration.

koheripbal 6y ago
I understand how forced positivity might seem fake, but studies have shown that forcing a smile or forcing a group activity, can actually improve people's moods (both the giver and the recipient). It is a cultural shift though that seems alien initially, but then you really get used to it, and it really does make people feel better when they encounter it literally at every store. Positivity also disarms people and makes them more likely to purchase goods.
- jasonv 6y ago
  I'm from SF and spent a lot of time in Berlin. My observation was that when you go into a shop in SF, you'll get greeted to a lesser degree, but more cheerfully. In Berlin, you were greeted almost every single time, but more perfunctorily. In that regard, I preferred the Berlin approach, even though it required me to respond more often. But I could simple acknowledge the greeting and keep going. It was more intrusive, but less demanding.
  - FlyingSnake 6y ago

MrZongle2 6y ago

Just keep in mind: sometimes there's a fine line between being grumpy and being an asshole.

chahex 6y ago
The word has a strong emotional direction and.. can we say it’s judgemental.. however I do agree there is a line of over exaggeration. It is not a physical line but heart knows when you crossed it

tathougies 6y ago

What's not mentioned in the article is that grumpiness is also associated with self-criticism. Look, I am a grumpy and cynical person in general. I play the piano as a hobby. I've played for almost 25 years at this point. Many people compliment me on my playing, and objectively, perhaps they're right. However, when I hear myself, I can't stand it. It drives me up the wall, and as I play, in my mind, I still sound like the five year old whose parents just enrolled him in piano lessons. It sounds bad to me continuously, but others seem to like it (and I've also won awards and such, so i know it's not just poor taste on my listener's parts). But really, this kind of unfulfilable self-expectation leads to more practice, more doing, and more motivation. It's hard to motivate yourself when you think you're already the best at what you do (or are happy with however good you are right now). When you cannot stand the way you sound on the piano though, and you keep practicing to reach a the metaphorical carrot, then you naturally get better.

rjohnk 6y ago

In a previous job, some coworkers and my boss perceived me as being grumpy. Resting B*tch Face, more reserved, generally didn't partipate in break time video game sessions. In reality I just wanted to get my work done and go home to the family. It was one of (though not the reason) I was let go from that position. I've tried to learn from that experience, but still struggle with fitting in with those who think work is social hour and seem to get ahead by schmoozing and not head-down work. I know it's a balance, but it seems rigged for the outwardly social.

lsavage 6y ago
Yeah I totally understand that. I think it's important to remember that people are social creatures generally speaking. So what one may view as schmoozing, others may see as simply being social and relating to each other. People enjoy feeling good and liked.
- hinkley 6y ago
  I got off on the wrong foot with a coworker. The first time I needed to talk to him was because his code wasn't working, he tried to blame user error, it did not go well. It took me months at the coffee machine talking about anything he wanted to talk about before he warmed up. Now he's often the first to say 'hi' when I enter a meeting room or support an idea I presented, instead of avoiding me.

user00012-ab 6y ago

Sometimes I wonder if I live in a reality where everything is just created with a GPT-2 algorithm.

dijit 6y ago

I have suffered no increase in success as my encroaching grumpiness begins to prevail ever more successfully. Dutifully, I declare the opposite. Life was better when I was more open, more friendly, more curious- opportunities sprouted from seemingly nothing. Now I'm a bit long in the tooth and I've had many harrowing experiences in trying to fight the large bureaucratic machine that is my organisation and have been left curt and bitter. Now there are no opportunities, no "connections forged" and certainly not any career progression. I do not recommend succumbing to grumpiness, nor bad temperament.. The only thing that matters is that you're genuine, and if you feel yourself getting to be like me, take a step back and consider what the cause is. There is no happiness here.

chchchngs 6y ago
Perhaps you should just switch jobs? After 20 years myself, this stuff feels so rote, offices are just gonna use what Google/AWS peddle... the world you knew is gone. You didn’t “get grumpy”. You didn’t move on.
- dijit 6y ago
  Thanks for the advice, I have switched jobs and I will be starting in the new job in 3 weeks. I am excited and feel my curiosity burning excitedly. But as for bureaucracy... it wasn't that we were trying to follow Google/Amazon. It was typical large company ego-stroking. People who are in positions of power and sit on ivory towers and give commands with no input possible. Of course the stuff like OKRs came in- but these are peripheral things, not core to the function of the job.
spottybanana 6y ago
The article points out that being grumpy brings success, which probably doesn't correlate with happiness.

0xCMP 6y ago

From the comments here I'm pretty sure "grumpy" and "bad tempered" are being used to describe far too many things and some of them are pretty bad. Getting in to a rage and throwing things or just being vitriolic is not grumpy or bad tempered. You can be grumpy with how things are and state your mind firmly and easily be categorized as such. I wouldn't think that's a wrong category either, but it's absolutely different from disagreeing with others and then throwing things.

chahex 6y ago
> Getting in to a rage and throwing things or just being vitriolic is not grumpy or bad tempered. It is true these behaviors are not desirable and can cause stress with all participants. But they happen likely as too much had been oppressed and it was just too strong to hold any longer. When you are angry you might do something violent. Continue to oppress with force without fixing the real issue will lead to more escalations..

tqi 6y ago

Wow 2016 was a different time. A lot of the controversy around the CEO of Away revolved around behavior that could be categorized as "Grumpy" or "Bad-Tempered" [1]. I guess it only pays to be "Grumpy" if you're a white man, or if the media attitude toward your industry is positive. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20995453/away-luggage-ceo-steph-korey-toxic-work-environment-travel-inclusion https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20995453/away-luggage-ceo...

ponker 6y ago
The Away's CEO behavior sounds exactly like Steve Jobs' legendary quality-obsessive behavior, except that he would fire the responsible persons without giving them a second chance.

fzeroracer 6y ago

There's a difference between being grumpy and being an abusive asshole. Unfortunately, this article seems to conflate the two and seems to be rationalizing bullshit behavior from CEOs as being indicative of success rather than being too-big-to-fail. I've worked with plenty of grumpy people that had a no-nonsense attitude but never let it get in the way of being genuinely helpful or used it to put down people. I've also worked with assholes that were bad at their jobs and pretended that their no-nonsense attitude was helpful when it was not. It's a very fine line to walk.

chahex 6y ago
An asshole behavior is not asshole behavior if you can accept. That is a judgement the observer has to make
- finaliteration 6y ago
  I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, here. Are you saying that, if someone is acting like an asshole, those around them should just accept it? What if everyone they work with judges their behavior to be that of an asshole? Does that make others wrong and the asshole right? Having worked with (and for) a few assholes in my day, I can say that most of the time they aren't as smart, helpful, or clever as they believe themselves to be. Most of the time they add friction to a work environment and make other people around them miserable, and eventually those other people quit.
  - chahex 6y ago
    Thank you for your reply. I meant that grumpy/angry is an objective emotional state it doesn’t need judgement based on our opinions. “Asshole” on the other hand is a subjective feeling. And actually thinking again of your comment now I think you were referring to people who likes to complain but failed to point out the problem and couldn’t find out a solution..

otterley 6y ago

(2016)

dang 6y ago
Added. Thanks.

voydik 6y ago

This is the most HN post ever.

deeblering4 6y ago

Didn’t Bezos just have a high profile and very expensive divorce? Weird. I guess being grumpy and bad tempered can cause problems in work and personal relationships too.

bob1029 6y ago
Isn't Bezos still the most wealthy person on earth, even after said divorce?
- spottybanana 6y ago
  To me it sounds like people somehow assume that wealth, success, happiness are about the same thing, which necessarily isn't the case. You can be wealthy and still miserable, successful without being wealthy, etc. I didn't really read the whole article but I got the understanding that they were mostly talking about entrepreneurial-style success.
- TheGrassyKnoll 6y ago
  Yeah, but we're here enjoying HN, and he's 'working'. So who's got the better lifestyle ?
  - bob1029 6y ago
    Some people actually enjoy their work.

Plough_Jogger 6y ago

I've observed that grumpiness in a business setting is often a learned behavior of individuals who are too frequently distracted from their work by colleagues. Constantly responding to questions with a gruff demeanor eventually decreases the number of interruptions and becomes self-reinforcing.

dang 6y ago

Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12263794 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12263794

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

>Being bad-tempered and pessimistic helps you to earn more, live longer and enjoy a healthier marriage but evidently it didn't help Hugh Grant stay with Elizabeth Hurley so how good could it really be?

brlewis 6y ago

This article is a load of malarkey. Being grumpy and bad-tempered are predispositions toward having negative emotions in more situations than most people would. There are two classes of evidence in the article. The first is evidence that negative emotions are useful in certain situations. One does not need to be grumpy and bad-tempered to recognize such situations and act appropriately. The second is anecdotes where successful people had emotional outbursts. I assert that the outbursts did not cause the success. Passion caused both the outbursts and the success, separately. Thus there's correlation between outbursts and success but not causation.