3 ms·

> (I.e I find people in southern US will sugarcoat things differently but it's harder/easier to pickup depending on your familiarity with it). As a Southerner

> (I.e I find people in southern US will sugarcoat things differently but it's harder/easier to pickup depending on your familiarity with it). As a Southerner that's worked in tech for a long time, I would say the broad-stroke difference between the way Southern US and West Coast approach sugarcoating is that Southerners will try to avoid saying anything directly negative /about the person/ but will have no problem being directly negative about the problem. Outside of religious contexts or in less conservative / more blue-collar surroundings, even profanity is acceptable in professional settings in the South. E.g. rather than "Bill didn't maintain the hydraulics properly on this piece of equipment." it'd be "The fucking bucket is stuck again on the backhoe." Where everyone involves knows it was Bill's job, but nobody is going to call him out directly. Where, in West Coast settings, there's a sort of indirection that tries to (in my opinion) remove agency from the people involved entirely and sets the problem up as being inherently systemic. WRT to example above, e.g. "The maintenance process for heavy equipment should be revised to prevent future issues." when everybody involved presumably knows it's /a particular piece of equipment/ that's actually the problem, and one person failed to do their job, but nobody will say either of those things directly. The result, as I see it, is the Southern approach prevents /direct/ blame, but creates indirect blame/accountability for individuals, and focuses on specific/smaller problem areas. The West Coast approach avoids accountability (and agency) of the people involved entirely, but has the benefit of looking at problems more systemically (although sometimes that's a waste of time/effort).

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
> "The maintenance process for heavy equipment should be revised to prevent future issues." This is absolutely the diplomatic way to communicate and handle the situation on the West Coast, but interestingly, while we talk about the problem systemically, that's not necessarily what's actually happening. By putting in place a process-driven solution, Bill isn't directly blamed, but some of his autonomy is stripped away. Sometimes the proposed systematic solution isn't even ever implemented, because what's actually being communicated is just "Don't fuck this up again, Bill."
- tristor 5y ago
  > By putting in place a process-driven solution, Bill isn't directly blamed, but some of his autonomy is stripped away. This is key, but something that goes beyond communication styles. One reason I feel our society is dying in bureaucracy at every level is that larger organizations and more broad functions within industries always get standardized and then rigidly turned into processes, usually incrementally over time. Every time someone makes a mistake, we have a "this is why we can't have nice things" moment, but to some degree I bridle at this and feel it's inherently dehumanizing. Organizations and societies are made up of people, and people should be free to make mistakes, the structures in place merely need to prevent disastrous consequences, not /any/ consequences. Autonomy is a function of personal well-being and fulfillment, and it's literally dehumanizing to strip it away, even if "it's for a good cause". The net effect of all of this is why the US (and the West generally) can't successfully complete any major infrastructure projects on time and under budget for a reasonable price. These types of projects can happen pretty easily in the developing world (although the pendulum probably swings too far towards callousness to human life there).

rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago

> "The maintenance process for heavy equipment should be revised to prevent future issues." This is absolutely the diplomatic way to communicate and handle the situation on the West Coast, but interestingly, while we talk about the problem systemically, that's not necessarily what's actually happening. By putting in place a process-driven solution, Bill isn't directly blamed, but some of his autonomy is stripped away. Sometimes the proposed systematic solution isn't even ever implemented, because what's actually being communicated is just "Don't fuck this up again, Bill."

tristor 5y ago
> By putting in place a process-driven solution, Bill isn't directly blamed, but some of his autonomy is stripped away. This is key, but something that goes beyond communication styles. One reason I feel our society is dying in bureaucracy at every level is that larger organizations and more broad functions within industries always get standardized and then rigidly turned into processes, usually incrementally over time. Every time someone makes a mistake, we have a "this is why we can't have nice things" moment, but to some degree I bridle at this and feel it's inherently dehumanizing. Organizations and societies are made up of people, and people should be free to make mistakes, the structures in place merely need to prevent disastrous consequences, not /any/ consequences. Autonomy is a function of personal well-being and fulfillment, and it's literally dehumanizing to strip it away, even if "it's for a good cause". The net effect of all of this is why the US (and the West generally) can't successfully complete any major infrastructure projects on time and under budget for a reasonable price. These types of projects can happen pretty easily in the developing world (although the pendulum probably swings too far towards callousness to human life there).