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I feel similarly. People who are willing to be blunt with others are something of a dying breed in many social circles. I actively attempt to surround myself

by jlgreco 13y ago

I feel similarly. People who are willing to be blunt with others are something of a dying breed in many social circles. I actively attempt to surround myself with people who communicate like Linus. When I use to do farmwork, there was no shortage of people like this. If you did something wrong, you heard about swiftly and clearly. That clarity wasn't limited to just informational content, the person delivering the news made a point of making sure you got the message, that requires clarity on an emotional level too. You don't get "Dear, please don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest."; you get a string of profanity and information so clear and targeted that I am unable to give it a fair representation. In that culture the "familiar" tone that people used with each other was a symptom of mutual respect. You wouldn't "baby" people that you respected.

johnchristopher 13y ago
You don't get clarity on an emotional level when being cursed and yelled at. You get into fight or flight mode. You get into danger mode. "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is perfectly fine.* You really are demonstrating and promoting the "yell on my employee to make them work better" attitude that just don't work on the long-term. * Anecdote: My grand-father decided to take evening studies after the war to get out of this blue collar mentality of cursing and not getting much more done. He rose from one social ladder to the next and always made it clear the senseless profanity, bravado and fake expertise (the fuck do you need an expert to lift haystack or push wagon in the mines as he did in his 20's was his conclusion) was what he was fleeing from. And the fact they could be pretty good at back-stabbing too. There is no respect in insulting someone else when trying to convene information. Are we going to have that bro-grammer fad all over again ?
- Zikes 13y ago
  "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is NOT perfectly fine if it does not sufficiently drive the importance of that sentence home. jlgreco's example of working on a farm is incredibly relevant because one tiny mistake on a farm can literally cost the lives of anyone or everyone in the family. If you're working on a tractor and you get something remotely wrong then suddenly you can't harvest this season, and everyone is broke and starving. Or the tractor falls and kills you and anyone else working under it. One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    > One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again. I am really tempted to play the "citation needed" card on that one but in my experience yelling on someone has never prevented them doing the same mistake again. Quite the contrary. Are the geeks on HN that were yelled at senseless during PE better at basket-ball or sports ? I Thought so. Oh I don't say that encouraging someone with swearing or cursing to rise the adrenaline is bad. Cursing someone or yelling at him to get information conveyed ? Ridiculous. > One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again. When do we really man up and just punch the other guy in the face ? That should make sure he doesn't make the same mistake again since we just associate something physically to make things connect. > jlgreco's example of working on a farm is incredibly relevant because one tiny mistake on a farm can literally cost the lives of anyone or everyone in the family. If you're working on a tractor and you get something remotely wrong then suddenly you can't harvest this season, and everyone is broke and starving. Or the tractor falls and kills you and anyone else working under it. Right. Because on the farms, they are dumb enough to let newbies who saw a cow for the first time in their life on the tractor when real dangerous work is needed. I have worked on a farm for some days and my SO's cousins are all farmers. They ain't that dumb. > "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is NOT perfectly fine if it does not sufficiently drive the importance of that sentence home. Yes, it does. We don't need cursing words as big punctuation sign to get our attention focused on the task at hand. We need words like "now, listen boy, this is dangerous and this is how you do it safely". It works as well and you don't perpetuate violence and intimidation disguised as manhood.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      > I am really tempted to play the "citation needed" card on that one but in my experience yelling on someone has never prevented them doing the same mistake again. Quite the contrary. That jack example was a real example. I was disassembling some greenbean processing equipment to move it across the plant floor (a scrubber/rinser, iirc), and decided to take a shortcut. It probably would have taken my hand if I hadn't have been stopped. You can be damn sure I never made that mistake again. This may seem alien, it may seem like something I should have been able to get through my thick skull with kind words after the immediate danger was neutralized, so I'll give it some background: Lots of things can take limbs on a farm; damn near everything has a warning label about that. Most of the time the labels are for stupid shit like "make sure you have this turned off, unplugged, and disabled before you stick your hand in there". Most things you do have very long drawn out procedures that seem over-engineered for the sake of safety (similar to the procedures people being trained to use firearms will learn). It is very easy to become complacent, particularly when you are being worked hard, but when somebody chews you out for something for five minutes then you know that in this case something is deadly serious.
- jeltz 13y ago
  In my anecdotal experience the problem with "yell on my employee to make them work better" is not when it is used for getting your point across when they have done something wrong. When it fails is when you repeatedly rant at them. Structural problems cannot be solved by yelling at people.

by jlgreco 13y ago

johnchristopher 13y ago

You don't get clarity on an emotional level when being cursed and yelled at. You get into fight or flight mode. You get into danger mode. "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is perfectly fine.* You really are demonstrating and promoting the "yell on my employee to make them work better" attitude that just don't work on the long-term. * Anecdote: My grand-father decided to take evening studies after the war to get out of this blue collar mentality of cursing and not getting much more done. He rose from one social ladder to the next and always made it clear the senseless profanity, bravado and fake expertise (the fuck do you need an expert to lift haystack or push wagon in the mines as he did in his 20's was his conclusion) was what he was fleeing from. And the fact they could be pretty good at back-stabbing too. There is no respect in insulting someone else when trying to convene information. Are we going to have that bro-grammer fad all over again ?

Zikes 13y ago
"Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is NOT perfectly fine if it does not sufficiently drive the importance of that sentence home. jlgreco's example of working on a farm is incredibly relevant because one tiny mistake on a farm can literally cost the lives of anyone or everyone in the family. If you're working on a tractor and you get something remotely wrong then suddenly you can't harvest this season, and everyone is broke and starving. Or the tractor falls and kills you and anyone else working under it. One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  > One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again. I am really tempted to play the "citation needed" card on that one but in my experience yelling on someone has never prevented them doing the same mistake again. Quite the contrary. Are the geeks on HN that were yelled at senseless during PE better at basket-ball or sports ? I Thought so. Oh I don't say that encouraging someone with swearing or cursing to rise the adrenaline is bad. Cursing someone or yelling at him to get information conveyed ? Ridiculous. > One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again. When do we really man up and just punch the other guy in the face ? That should make sure he doesn't make the same mistake again since we just associate something physically to make things connect. > jlgreco's example of working on a farm is incredibly relevant because one tiny mistake on a farm can literally cost the lives of anyone or everyone in the family. If you're working on a tractor and you get something remotely wrong then suddenly you can't harvest this season, and everyone is broke and starving. Or the tractor falls and kills you and anyone else working under it. Right. Because on the farms, they are dumb enough to let newbies who saw a cow for the first time in their life on the tractor when real dangerous work is needed. I have worked on a farm for some days and my SO's cousins are all farmers. They ain't that dumb. > "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is NOT perfectly fine if it does not sufficiently drive the importance of that sentence home. Yes, it does. We don't need cursing words as big punctuation sign to get our attention focused on the task at hand. We need words like "now, listen boy, this is dangerous and this is how you do it safely". It works as well and you don't perpetuate violence and intimidation disguised as manhood.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    > I am really tempted to play the "citation needed" card on that one but in my experience yelling on someone has never prevented them doing the same mistake again. Quite the contrary. That jack example was a real example. I was disassembling some greenbean processing equipment to move it across the plant floor (a scrubber/rinser, iirc), and decided to take a shortcut. It probably would have taken my hand if I hadn't have been stopped. You can be damn sure I never made that mistake again. This may seem alien, it may seem like something I should have been able to get through my thick skull with kind words after the immediate danger was neutralized, so I'll give it some background: Lots of things can take limbs on a farm; damn near everything has a warning label about that. Most of the time the labels are for stupid shit like "make sure you have this turned off, unplugged, and disabled before you stick your hand in there". Most things you do have very long drawn out procedures that seem over-engineered for the sake of safety (similar to the procedures people being trained to use firearms will learn). It is very easy to become complacent, particularly when you are being worked hard, but when somebody chews you out for something for five minutes then you know that in this case something is deadly serious.
jeltz 13y ago
In my anecdotal experience the problem with "yell on my employee to make them work better" is not when it is used for getting your point across when they have done something wrong. When it fails is when you repeatedly rant at them. Structural problems cannot be solved by yelling at people.