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I'll share my reason. It's phony as hell. If someone is legitimately angry or disappointed with my performance, just say it. Don't construct a "compliment sandw

I'll share my reason. It's phony as hell. If someone is legitimately angry or disappointed with my performance, just say it. Don't construct a "compliment sandwich" and patronize me with that.

jasonlotito 3y ago
Considering this is about how you communicate with others, you are saying people should consider the way you want to be communicated with, but you should be able to ignore how others want to be communicated with? That just makes you a disappointing, inefficient hypocrite.
- function_seven 3y ago
  No, I didn't say any of that. I would like people to be straight with me. I try to be straight with them. Golden Rule and all of that, right?
  - gretch 3y ago
    > I would like people to be straight with me But you understand that people can genuinely like you right? Perhaps that person is trying to not throw the baby out with the bath water. “Hey I’m glad you patched the bug, but can you give the SREs a heads up next time? They p0’ed on an expected traffic spike” The person is actually happy with you for fixing a bug. They don’t want to you take away that in the future, to not take initiative and fix bugs.
    - qwytw 3y ago
      "Hey I’m glad you patched the bug, but.." To me that just sounds passive aggressive and sort of like "you should mind your own business". I'd feel better you if someone just told me: "I saw you patched a bug, could you do X" or even just "can you give the SREs a heads up next time?" alone. Then again I'm used to a culture where any praise is ussually implicit and criticism tends to be quite explicit so it's easy to interpret words like "glad" etc. as insincere by default without even wanting too..
      - anon84873628 3y ago
        Because the example is oversimplified for the sake of HN commentary. In the real world it goes more like this: "Hey, I saw you patched that bug that was causing traffics spikes. That's awesome work and I appreciate your proactivity! The Ops team thought we had to work late tonight to implement mitigations for the problem. In fact, it looks like we had a communication breakdown and they didn't realize you had fixed the issue until 6 hours later. In the future do you think you could let them know when this sort of problem is fixed, just to make sure we're all on the same page? We'll have to look at a solution for automated alerts too -- maybe an integration with the ticket system or build system. Do you have any ideas for that so we don't have to rely on manual communication? We're moving so fast that it's hard for everyone to keep up! Thanks again for the great work."
    - function_seven 3y ago
      > But you understand that people can genuinely like you right? Yeah, I do. And when I get genuine compliments, I like them! But it's obvious when someone consistently prefaces their statements with "softening" compliments. When they're "deploying" a "communications strategy." Talk to me like a real person, please. It will make it easier for those compliments to land when recipients know they're real. But if you're the type to always lead with one, then they're all worthless. You're just a happy-talker. Your praise is empty.
      - trifurcate 3y ago
        I always have doubts about others' work and suggestions on how they could do it better. To avoid constantly dominating others, I either have to shut my mouth or try to be more accommodating in how I deliver my feedback. I do a mix of both, but if you tell me to be straight with you, then I'll be straight with you. Especially in large corporate organizations where there are vast differences in how people communicate and take input, and you talk to too many people in a given day to really get close with any of them, it requires a handshake to know that I can always indicate my roughly unfiltered technical opinion to you and that you'll take it in stride, and if you feel strongly about it, you'll have the confidence to shoot my idea down without me having to give you an opening by posing my suggestion as a question.
        thegrimmest 3y ago
        This should just be the default. Many organizations do in fact write this down in their internal communication guides, where it's known as the ABCs (accuracy, brevity, clarity) of professional communication. > I always have doubts about others' work and suggestions on how they could do it better If you're right, they should listen to you (gratefully), if you're not they should tell you why so you can learn. There is no good reason to react emotionally to professional criticism, it is a worst-practice which no measures ought be taken to accommodate.
        trifurcate 3y ago
        > There is no good reason to react emotionally to professional criticism. And yet when it happens (not a rare event), it can be quite unproductive for both parties. I would hope that you deal with other worst-practices in your domain with greater grace than a total refusal to deal with and prevent pathological outcomes. Additionally, if you truly believe what you stated, then so long as I avoid sacrificing significant efficiency/productivity to keep my words from bothering people, then I do not see why it should bother you either. If I had to self-judge, I really don't think that the added conversational padding pans out to more than 15 minutes per day. That's worth spending to make sure that the people you work with are engaged with you and the task at hand in an accommodating way, rather than fearing being rebuked at each turn.
    - allarm 3y ago
      > Hey I’m glad you patched the bug, but can you give the SREs a heads up next time? I read it as passive aggressive. Pretty much everyone in my culture would read it this way. If you think it is a good example, please reconsider.
      - gretch 3y ago
        Okay, if we worked with each other in real life, I would accept that and I guess never speak to you that way. Since this is a discussion of communication theory, I have to say, it’s crazy to me that you read it as passive aggressive. Like when I say bad things about you, you can just accept those things in a straightforward fashion. However when I say good things about you, that cannot be accept in just as straightforward a way, and instead it is viewed as passive aggressive. You don’t see the asymmetry there?
        allarm 3y ago
        You don’t seem to understand the reasons why I would consider it passive aggressive, and it’s my fault because I didn’t explain it. Thing is, in my culture exactly this phrasing had been a form of passive aggressive tone that had been very common way of working communication. I’m not sure if that’s still the case - I’ve left my country years ago. But this exact phrasing is a strong trigger. > However when I say good things about you Yeah, I read it as the exact opposite, in this particular phrasing. Historical reasons. In fact I’m on the SRE side in this example, and I often have to remind people to suppress alerts when they change something. I normally go with “We got paged for the planned works, could you please turn off alerts next time? Thanks”. I’m not thanking people for their job in this case because it’s likely irrelevant - we’re from different teams and chances are I don’t even know what exactly they’ve been working on (in a broad sense) or for what reason. I’m being polite and straightforward. Never got any complain, at least so far.

I'll share my reason. It's phony as hell. If someone is legitimately angry or disappointed with my performance, just say it. Don't construct a "compliment sandwich" and patronize me with that.

jasonlotito 3y ago

Considering this is about how you communicate with others, you are saying people should consider the way you want to be communicated with, but you should be able to ignore how others want to be communicated with? That just makes you a disappointing, inefficient hypocrite.

function_seven 3y ago
No, I didn't say any of that. I would like people to be straight with me. I try to be straight with them. Golden Rule and all of that, right?
- gretch 3y ago
  > I would like people to be straight with me But you understand that people can genuinely like you right? Perhaps that person is trying to not throw the baby out with the bath water. “Hey I’m glad you patched the bug, but can you give the SREs a heads up next time? They p0’ed on an expected traffic spike” The person is actually happy with you for fixing a bug. They don’t want to you take away that in the future, to not take initiative and fix bugs.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    "Hey I’m glad you patched the bug, but.." To me that just sounds passive aggressive and sort of like "you should mind your own business". I'd feel better you if someone just told me: "I saw you patched a bug, could you do X" or even just "can you give the SREs a heads up next time?" alone. Then again I'm used to a culture where any praise is ussually implicit and criticism tends to be quite explicit so it's easy to interpret words like "glad" etc. as insincere by default without even wanting too..
    - anon84873628 3y ago
      Because the example is oversimplified for the sake of HN commentary. In the real world it goes more like this: "Hey, I saw you patched that bug that was causing traffics spikes. That's awesome work and I appreciate your proactivity! The Ops team thought we had to work late tonight to implement mitigations for the problem. In fact, it looks like we had a communication breakdown and they didn't realize you had fixed the issue until 6 hours later. In the future do you think you could let them know when this sort of problem is fixed, just to make sure we're all on the same page? We'll have to look at a solution for automated alerts too -- maybe an integration with the ticket system or build system. Do you have any ideas for that so we don't have to rely on manual communication? We're moving so fast that it's hard for everyone to keep up! Thanks again for the great work."
  - function_seven 3y ago
    > But you understand that people can genuinely like you right? Yeah, I do. And when I get genuine compliments, I like them! But it's obvious when someone consistently prefaces their statements with "softening" compliments. When they're "deploying" a "communications strategy." Talk to me like a real person, please. It will make it easier for those compliments to land when recipients know they're real. But if you're the type to always lead with one, then they're all worthless. You're just a happy-talker. Your praise is empty.
    - trifurcate 3y ago
      I always have doubts about others' work and suggestions on how they could do it better. To avoid constantly dominating others, I either have to shut my mouth or try to be more accommodating in how I deliver my feedback. I do a mix of both, but if you tell me to be straight with you, then I'll be straight with you. Especially in large corporate organizations where there are vast differences in how people communicate and take input, and you talk to too many people in a given day to really get close with any of them, it requires a handshake to know that I can always indicate my roughly unfiltered technical opinion to you and that you'll take it in stride, and if you feel strongly about it, you'll have the confidence to shoot my idea down without me having to give you an opening by posing my suggestion as a question.
      - thegrimmest 3y ago
        This should just be the default. Many organizations do in fact write this down in their internal communication guides, where it's known as the ABCs (accuracy, brevity, clarity) of professional communication. > I always have doubts about others' work and suggestions on how they could do it better If you're right, they should listen to you (gratefully), if you're not they should tell you why so you can learn. There is no good reason to react emotionally to professional criticism, it is a worst-practice which no measures ought be taken to accommodate.
        trifurcate 3y ago
        > There is no good reason to react emotionally to professional criticism. And yet when it happens (not a rare event), it can be quite unproductive for both parties. I would hope that you deal with other worst-practices in your domain with greater grace than a total refusal to deal with and prevent pathological outcomes. Additionally, if you truly believe what you stated, then so long as I avoid sacrificing significant efficiency/productivity to keep my words from bothering people, then I do not see why it should bother you either. If I had to self-judge, I really don't think that the added conversational padding pans out to more than 15 minutes per day. That's worth spending to make sure that the people you work with are engaged with you and the task at hand in an accommodating way, rather than fearing being rebuked at each turn.
  - allarm 3y ago
    > Hey I’m glad you patched the bug, but can you give the SREs a heads up next time? I read it as passive aggressive. Pretty much everyone in my culture would read it this way. If you think it is a good example, please reconsider.
    - gretch 3y ago
      Okay, if we worked with each other in real life, I would accept that and I guess never speak to you that way. Since this is a discussion of communication theory, I have to say, it’s crazy to me that you read it as passive aggressive. Like when I say bad things about you, you can just accept those things in a straightforward fashion. However when I say good things about you, that cannot be accept in just as straightforward a way, and instead it is viewed as passive aggressive. You don’t see the asymmetry there?
      - allarm 3y ago
        You don’t seem to understand the reasons why I would consider it passive aggressive, and it’s my fault because I didn’t explain it. Thing is, in my culture exactly this phrasing had been a form of passive aggressive tone that had been very common way of working communication. I’m not sure if that’s still the case - I’ve left my country years ago. But this exact phrasing is a strong trigger. > However when I say good things about you Yeah, I read it as the exact opposite, in this particular phrasing. Historical reasons. In fact I’m on the SRE side in this example, and I often have to remind people to suppress alerts when they change something. I normally go with “We got paged for the planned works, could you please turn off alerts next time? Thanks”. I’m not thanking people for their job in this case because it’s likely irrelevant - we’re from different teams and chances are I don’t even know what exactly they’ve been working on (in a broad sense) or for what reason. I’m being polite and straightforward. Never got any complain, at least so far.