My wife was* one of those rare people who just went ahead and asked people whatever was on her mind. This had a curious effect as I often internally winced and thought "you did not just say that". Sometimes I had the impulse to apologize for her or put in a joke to soften the blow. However, curiously, generally people didn't seem to mind or sometimes registered very mild embarrassment. In very rare cases they just avoided answering the question and she wouldn't press them.
But the great thing about it was that one could have really interesting deep conversations with near strangers, because one would skip over all the smalltalk and immediately discuss something everyone cared deeply about. In comparison I would have shyly still been discussing the weather whereas she would be already talking theology.
* She does it less now. Perhaps my bad influence or having kids?
That’s a great story and I’m like your wife in that aspect, but just intentionally. Either way you’re lucky to have someone like that around, it can teach you a lot.
I’ve experienced very deep, fulfilling connections with strangers (friend of a friend level) and still haven’t found anyone being embarrassed by these questions, but of course nobody else needs to be around as it can quickly be embarrassing. It can also be softened with an honest “if you don’t want to answer I can totally understand” and move on with something else but almost always received a somewhat interesting response. In return, deep/very personal questions are sent my way and I’ve answered them all with the best of my knowledge.
I can see how many people are afraid of having real talk (specially introverts, as I was) because it can show your weaknesses, suffering and your potentially “wrong” ideas/thoughts. Truth is, everybody has their fair share of bs going on and being over polite and wasting time in meaningless small talk doesn’t IMHO benefit anybody, and you miss very interesting mindsets and experiences that can make your life much better.
There may be a generic list somewhere but I find them to come naturally from curiosity. Things like:
- Do you like what you do?
- Do you regret this or that?
- Did you study what you always wanted?
- How believing in X helped you?
- What’s the worst memory/event you went through?
- Do you love your parents?
- What’s the best/worst your kids gave to you (emotionally speaking)?
- Do you think you need this or is it a distraction from the important stuff (whatever that is for you)?
Those questions I just came up for nobody in particular (for a close friend those would be pretty normal) and depending of your background, customs, etc they might be deep or might not. They’re not inquisitive and I’m definitely not judging or trying to convince about anything. They do make you think a bit before answering and you learn a lot from those, even from the most superficial people. You need to be very open and accept very harsh and contrary visions from your own in order to benefit from it though, and that’s a long process.
IME a deep conversation's subject actually depends wholly on the individual participants of the conversation. It generally is about a shared topic that is part of the self-identification of at least one party (with a non-identifying party being willing to listen to the identifying party in a manner that the identifying party understands to be respectful).
For example, between an athiest and a thiest, a deep theological question goes into the thiest's religion with the athiest being at minimum willing to listen in a manner the thiest sees as both participatory (not empty 'uh-huh' responses) and also respectful (no blanket denials or insults). Between two thiests, a deep theological question would go into the nature of their spiritualities, comparing and contrasting, or some specific nuance of a shared thiestic belief.
A non-religious deep question can also be positioned on, say, the influence of a specific popular activity. This leads to, for example, heavy and deep debate on the nuances of tennis between two tennis players, or a similarly intimate discussion in which people who suffer from addiction can feel benefit from discussions with other addicts.
Any question more likely than not to possibly cause some stir or anxiety usually gets listed in my head as not appropriate for shallow conversations. Religion, politics, questions in depth about personal history, metaphysics, philosophy, etc.
Of course, having deep conversations is super rewarding and it can really help you learn a lot about other people and build relationships beyond just inane topics like tv or the weather.
I'm often not brave enough myself but I appreciate when someone does this. I immediately feel more recognized and these conversations feel more genuine.
Conversations about stuff people actually care about are much easier to keep interesting, whereas making small-talk interesting is a skill in itself (which I don't have).
It should come with a package of open mindedness and preferably humor too to create a comfortable atmosphere.
thanks for sharing !
i feel less of an outlier, i behave a lot like your wife. It doesn't go over well in my experience (in the US & India). But i have formed some beautiful friendships thanks to "radical empathy & questioning" and am just wired to be curious about people and their lives !
It depends on a lot of factors. Unless you extremely lack social skills or are new to a language or culture, a conversation is a continual data gathering, feedback loop for both parties.
Here are some examples:
1. How close are you with this person? An issue of trust.
2. What is the context? Friends, coworker, interview, etc.
3. What is the goal? Friendship, small-talk, debate, etc.
4. Who is the audience? student, foreigner, church, etc.
I suspect your wife asks these questions to the religious ("theology"), which is a subset (bias). It is risky to ask controversial issues today to people not with your value system, so I also suspect she became more sensitive after trial and error. The best way is to ask her directly.
It is not a "conclusion", it is a "hypothesis" if you will, which I ask for confirmation from the author of this comment.
My hypothesis stems from his insight comment on "theology":
"In comparison I would have shyly still been discussing the weather whereas she would be already talking theology."
Because it is a deep subject not commonly conversed with the general public, but specifically known inside churches... unless you are giving a speech to a general audience (which this is not the case)
*Btw, apologies if I may have sounded rude, I did not intend to offend, just investigate.
The author misses the point. People are avoiding sensitive questions not because it impacts opinion on average, but because of the rare outliers that ruin it for everybody.
It takes just a single asshole reporting you to HR to ruin your life.
Yep -- a classic "Expected Value is not the only thing that matters, but also one's Risk of Ruin" situation.
The counter-argument is this: do we still overestimate our true risk of ruin when it comes to asking sensitive questions? Are we actually going to get fired (or whatever horrendous thing) for not asking that question? I bet the answer is that we still overrate our true probability of ruin when it comes to these things.
> Are we actually going to get fired (or whatever horrendous thing) for not asking that question?
What's worse than being fired is to be stuck on a job where the environment/culture has gone bad. Not everyone has the economic and social mobility to change jobs on the fly.
the true risk of any given question is a nebulous thing depending on many unknowns and your very specifc circumstances, and it varies from day to day. Working it out is a cognitive load that doesn't seem to be worth the effort. Plus you don't even get much for braving this danger, on average.
From the organization's perspective, though, this is a cancerous growth that kills your employees' motivation and innovation and foments a culture of distrust, siloing and paranoia. Too bad there's no easy way to align the incentives there, since the corps are hella scared of being on the wrong side of political winds, too.
I only read the abstract and the first few pages, so my opinion is uninformed. However my first thought was similar to yours. Asking sensitive questions may be moderately positive on average, but occasionally extremely negative.
Until you get to know people, it requires some tact and restraint. The negative reaction indicates the person is yet to know and respect you as peer. A few such apples are to be avoided until the time they see your light.
I don't think it's that simple. You pose the issue as if it's a rational decision.
There is no rational decision in your brains choice to make you fear public speaking or fear heights. I think avoiding sensitive questions is largely the same thing.
Many people have an irrational fear and their excuse (while semi legitimate) is to try to rationalize the whole thing as you have.
None of the examples of the "sensitive" questions I've read are anything that HR would discipline someone for (at least where I work). If the environment was so toxic that people were reporting each other for questions like these, and HR was actually acting on it, it wouldn't be a place I would want to work anyway. Either way, it certainly wouldn't "ruin your life"
And certain "sensitive" questions are just straight up illegal to ask in an interview / the workplace, and there are tons that are in a gray area depending on context:
- Do you have any medical conditions / health issues?
Hmm, in my head, I model conversation as a game of who can get the mine the most "intimacy", if you will, while revealing the least about oneself. So risque topics are, as the adjective suggests, high risk, but also high reward. Correspondingly, small talk is a lot of low risk, low reward back-and-forth. You don't have to be intimate with a stranger, but you need to stick your neck out if you want to progress beyond pleasantries.
Revealing "intimate" things about yourself seems to be the easiest way for others to believe that you consider them trustworthy for almost zero cost.
"u/screye trusts me enough to tell something they are vulnerable about." Or on a more selfish note, "I now hold leverage on r/screye, so I shall continue engaging with them from a position of assumed power" or lastly, "I can share something intimate about myself with u/screye because I know something just as important seeming, so they would not use it against me"
It works surprisingly well to fast track the building of a relationship with any acquaintance.
Ofc, I put intimate in "quotes" because while the details sound intimate to the listener, they are often carefully chosen to be ones that do not cause value judgements for my current self nor are they the real insecurities (or at least not present ones) which I hold far closer to my heart. But, the person I'm talking to doesn't need to know that.
Trying to get the most out of another while giving little or nothing seems like a strange and rather mercenary way to approach interpersonal interactions. Could you explain how you arrive at this mode of communication?
Well, no. My point was that conversations are not zero-sum games. You produce intimacy via information exchanges, which you both benefit from, though there will always be an information asymmetry between you and your conversation partner.
I know analysing social interactions is seen as a rather, if you will forgive the term, "autistic" (or worse, sociopathic) way of looking at things , but some people do not have the natural capacity for social interactions that the vast majority of the population enjoy. I myself have wondered for years if I lay on the autism spectrum before getting diagnosed with ADHD and so all this I had to learn explicitly from years of observation.
>I know analysing social interactions is seen as a rather, if you will forgive the term, "autistic"
That may be your perception of autism, but this statement is more akin to using "retarded" derogatorily than actually making a comparison. Autism is categorized by deficits in social interaction and repetitive thoughts or behaviorism. "Analyzing social interactions" is certainly not a standard symptom of autism, and depending on the severity of one's social deficit it may not even be possible for someone on the spectrum to do so without the help of a therapist/doctor/behavioral aid. I discovered I was on the spectrum this year, albeit at a relatively low level, and while I personally analyze social interactions a lot due to anxiety it absolutely shouldn't be seen as "rather autistic" as you say as that is a mischaracterization of autism
Nothing wrong with being autistic, but it's just one of many reference points and is no more or less valid than others. Analysing too much loses connection with others.
I don't see anything wrong with analyzing social interactions. I'm not on the spectrum, and I still find value in it. My confusion what at what seemed to me (perhaps incorrectly) as an approach to conversations that tried to min/max against information disclosure.
You've clarified that though and it seems much more reasonable, although I'm still not sure why there must be information asymmetry. As an example, I just attended an office holiday party. Myself and a coworker I don't know well had a brief conversation on each other's family visit dynamics during the holiday season. I think we both fairly adequately covered our respective situations, and neither of us could come away thinking, "Wow, he/she knows all about my setup but I still don't know much about theirs". It was pretty equitable.
Some personal advice: stop viewing your interactions in this transactional way and just be yourself. Stop giving a shit who reveals what and the perceived balance or imbalance of the same. Be kind and be generous.
If I were to "just be myself" at work, I would be fired very quickly -- because my self is outside the narrow little band of what is "approved of" in my workplace.
Every conversation of a sensitive nature is an opportunity for disaster if not treated with the utmost care not to be "found out"
I don't know why you assume being an asshole is the trait your GP doesn't want to reveal. Any number of innocuous interests could hurt your reputation in different circles: hunting, being gay, watching anime, practicing (a different/any/no) religion.
"What did you do this weekend" is a loaded question if you're a cultural outlier at your workplace. Even decent people often have personal biases that lead to awkwardness and friction.
Sure, readers don't have to interpret what you said as "being himself must mean being an asshole," but when you say that being yourself would get you fired, some flavor of "asshole" is probably high any anyone's list for the type of attitude/personality that would cause such an extreme reaction. Can you expand on what sort of being-your-self attributes are not professionally disruptive, but would still get you fired?
I mean, I can think of plenty of hobbies/cultural differences/etc., that could make things awkward between colleagues, but not much that would get you fired. "Wow, Bob likes to go Skiing in a Furry costume while voting Republican and being an Atheist. We can't have that, let's fire Bob." doesn't seem all that likely of a reaction.
He's Republican / Libertarian and his worldview is grounded in economic and biological realities, which will absolutely get you run out of many (perhaps most) SV tech companies... for example, James Damore.
Again, you describe things that might be awkward, and even then it's only awkward if the people make them so. It's not at all fraught with "you're fired" potential if everyone remains calm and professional about such differences. Not only that, but you're think it ng entirely too narrow if "being yourself" only means expressing political and cultural beliefs.
Otherwise, I work in an environment in an industry that is much further "to the left" than SV Tech: academe. You may not believe it, but despite the cliche ostracism of "OMG that's a ::hushed tones:: conservative", it is quite easy to be one without self censoring. You simply refrain from injecting situations with those views when they're not called for, and if they are or you decide to do so during non-work times (breaks or side conversations) you be respectful of the other opinion. In short, don't be an asshole.
I get along with plenty of people all along the political spectrum at work, because we have an environment of respect and professionalism.
That isn't "not being yourself" unless you refrain from discussing those topics even when it might be called for. In my roughly two decades of experience working in academe, I have not suffered negative consequences for speaking unpopular opinions when they are relevant, nor have I ever seen someone suffer the same.
But, if in every meeting I attended I went on a rant about how 4-year colleges inflate student debt for marginal gain and future earning potential (yes, the issue is more complex than that) then I would be labelled some flavor of asshole, unprofessional, etc.
However, consider the context of admissions standards and policy for the institution. It would not be inappropriate to discuss aspects of that idea. How some segment of our population may not be good fits for the institution or 4 year college in general, that they would be better served by some other path of advanced education and job training, and how it is part of our job to set students on a good path rather than chase tuition dollars that put the student in debt for no likely tangible benefit. That would be appropriate to do, and in fact I do this on a somewhat regular basis, backed up by rigorous data analysis (my own area of work) from both my own institution and national data, when we are setting enrollment goals and other related benchmarks.
It's also been perfectly fine for me to discuss other controversial/unpopular opinions with colleagues outside of meetings during non-work related breaks or side conversations so long as I do so respectfully. Roughly two decades of steady career advancement would indicate that none of this has hurt me professionally: I have literally never failed to be awarded a promotion I was seeking, and quite contrary to negative consequences I have developed a reputation of speaking honest, unvarnished opinion backed by solid evidence.
The whole thing was unnecessary and not part of his job AFAIK. It was also a giant, dressed up, thinly veiled "fuck you" to any of his female colleagues even if he didn't have proper social awareness to realize it. The scientific claims on gender differences were exaggerated and aloof, in part because even if you believe such a claim in terms of averages, making social determinations based on them ranges from flatly idiotic to against the law (for good reasons).
He should have stopped himself when he needed to add a disclaimer that he doesn't believe in prejudices and stereotypes. The need for such a statement is a giant red flag at which point one can ask themselves some critical questions.
When he is fired for this, a lot of conspiracy theories abound, up to and including in this thread. But he should work on the awareness to know what he was saying is a fireable offense by reasonable people. Apparently NLRB concluded the same.
This is all not the same as him being unforgivable or a bad person. In googling after this thread I noted an interview about him and autism. So he may very well deserve our sympathy and have an alternate explanation. The way people on forums like this one use him to allege a massive conspiracy at Google remains unwarranted despite this.
I think the problem is that people feel like they meet a lot of assholes, or more assholes than other types, and it puts them in a sour mood. They are predisposed to read your comment as such.
Oh, wow. Thank you for revealing my insensitivity to me. I could really have sworn that's how they presented it themselves, but I see now that's far from the truth.
I was rather shooting for most people being decent, when you get to know them better, if given any chance of that of course.
As for actual assholes, one shouldn't assume they want best for the team, or anyone else for that matter. Some people shine best when slinging turds making everyone else look bad. They are usually minority though and managable.
I think people conflate "decency" with "don't ruffle any feathers", and that led to some uniformity of thought. But in my experience, when done tactfully, feathers can be ruffled in a way that breaks that uniformity. It just takes a bit more tact and thoughtfulness than blurting out, "That's an awful idea" etc.
I know I don't sound like it, but I completely get where you're coming from. It's weird and rather sketchy to find out that someone you're talking to is just following rules in their head. It's just that for people like me, conversations are not primitive actions. We need an explicit mental model to anchor ourselves, and while that doesn't excuse predatory behaviour, models are still just tools at the end of the day and some people need them to be seen as "normal".
Some people's brains are wired differently and they are not able to approach relationships in the way that you consider normal. I would submit that usually there is no malice in their analysis and in fact it's very hard to be one of those people because most "normies" will never get you.
"Just be yourself" is terrible advice to people to whom this stuff does not come naturally. Especially at work, hardly anyone brings their "true self" to work and it was very apparent in the threads on Google that a lot of people thought that those bringing their whole selves to work were idiots who should be fired.
This advice is, in my experience, a low quality action item. I saw incredible progress in my life when I modeled the interactions. You can model interactions as information exchange, etc. and you can also model out the increased value of maintaining repeated interactions. It’s just another way of learning a skill: good human interactions.
Be yourself / don’t model / etc. works for those who are able to take this analogy to children learning language (in a natural way) vs. learning language by studying grammar and vocabulary systematically. The former is desirable because it’s speedy, you grow the skills you use most (so it reinforces the right things) but sometimes it’s just not available. That can happen just because you suck at it.
There are very limited ways other people’s lives are better than mine (as an existence proof) and I used to model interactions. I stopped when my skill reached unconscious competence.
And the thing about "children learning language" is that all sorts of bad habits are often picked up that don't conform to standard grammar, not to mention following rules without really understanding why they're there or what they do.
Social rules are even less concrete, meaning that learning the amorphous set of unwritten rules, guidelines, best practices, etc.,through analysis more than osmosis may let you know when it's okay to bend or break one.
Not quite "full stop", no. That is a utilitarian view of language that does not take into account the social side of speaking a certain way.
There is an abundance of social stratification in language, and the ability to code switch in different social environments is an important skill. It doesn't matter that you would still be understood if you did not do so, what matters are the pragmatics and social labeling attached to speaking in/out of the current group's mode of speaking.
It is true that the formal study of linguistics (which was my own area of advanced degree) does not consider there to be an absolute correct way of speaking, that "grammar" is not some unchanging and inherently correct set of rules. They are, instead, a social convention. And like many other social conventions, breaking their rules has consequences, and understanding those rules and consequences is important to navigating in social environments.
The problem is that the over-analysis is a form of stress. As is worrying about your own poor skills. In the ideal case, you don't care about either thing. I know sometimes it's easier said than done. But I've definitely found stress reduction in the past when I stop caring about some of this.
I think you may underestimate how much human nature is more towards kindness and generosity. I think a lot of us have negative experiences in childhood and similar younger stages, and it causes us to be less kind, less generous as a sort of defense mechanism. When you realize that the defense mechanism isn't actually necessary, you realize there is more space for kindness, and maybe that is actually your authentic self beneath.
Obviously you can't, and the end result is that this dramatically amplifies the effect of catching someone out in an insincerity. The stronger your belief that someone is truthful, the larger a portion of their actions you need to re-examine once catching them out in a significant lie, and the longer it will take for you to re-build your original belief that they were generally truthful.
(Statistics isn't my strong suit but I believe this is perfectly in line with modeling a person's trustworthiness as a Bayesian process?)
You might be interested in the opposite perspective, too. Some authors believe conversation (and indeed nearly everything we do) is an art of posturing. We converse because we want to show how eligible mates we are. We want others to know how intelligent we are, or how brave we are, or how resourceful we are. I highly recommend reading "The Elephant in the Brain" for more about that. It starts a bit slowly but then picks up!
I did not get the diagnosis, but I was very close. I hate talking and listening to people, but since it is important in workplace I do it and I view it as transactional because if I hate it and I would rather by nature not talk or listen why should I not try to use it as something as an attempt to benefit me.
Of course I have also been diagnosed with depression and social anxiety.
I think I excel in work interviews and first dates because I have time to plan for these scenarios, but I am terrible I'm group situations and day to day activities. Once I get the job I just work and try to avoid communication as much as possible.
If you find someone you can trust in the day-to-day environment, I have a hunch you could benefit greatly if you could confide this to someone. It could be "your friend you don't talk to" and both would know it's because you don't like talking much.
I don't recommend having only one such person if you have depression or anxiety. Things can go poorly should things ever go sour with a small number (~1) of trusted friends.
And of course a network of friends while helpful is not a 1-for-1 substitute for say, a therapist.
In my experience, the opposite works soo much better.
Put your true self out there and people will respect that massively, be willing to trust you, and be willing to open up to you.
Obviously, you need to have some sense of the other person, and whether they will respond well. But really, most human beings are decent. And those who aren't, mostly aren't worth knowing at all.
This is part of why I try to just speak my mind. The great advantage of that is if people are nice they'll correct you when you say something really disturbing and maybe you'll notice bad things about yourself that you otherwise might have missed.
There's an evolutionary reason for why it's default human behavior to avoid sensitive questions.
In general there's sort of a trend with psychology nowadays in how it identifies and teaches us how to deal with our own biases. While I think it's good to understand the origins of our biases it is not completely wise to ignore them because they are their for a reason.
I'm feeling this hard at my place of work. We can't ask probing questions about people's real behaviors and actions, so while projects are running far behind we're not asking why. We're great at keeping a calm head and working towards a solution for today's problem. We have zero capability to reflect on how people's specific actions get us into these problems.
The one thing that you miss the most after leaving Google is the postmortem culture - the fact that anything that goes wrong will be picked apart for lessons to learn, and said lessons WILL be learned. Trying to get a large org to buy into that idea is just... impossible.
Anyone interested in this topic might find a search for the phrase 'preference falsification' interesting. For a great resource in book form, I highly recommend "Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification" by Timur Kuran. He was recently in The Portal podcast for an even shorter intro.
The greatest conversational challenges I encounter are not immediately due to sensitivity but indirectly so due to customs, assumptions, and culture. I find many people are deeply fearful of originality and criticality and group defiance when it comes to their operating habits, perceptions, and executing behaviors.
In short many people will take drastic steps to irrationally preserve their operating habits as cognitive decisions even in defiance of direct evidence and at risk of eminent failure. Conversations about this are supremely challenging.
In my experience the reason why this is so challenging is not due to sensitivity, though sensitivity is certainly present. Instead I find many people are challenged by objectivity as a deeply instilled personality trait. The degree of objectivity acceptance by person is variable and varies further in group dynamics. This is a measurable quality of some behavior analysis tests.
I wonder what would be a more personal (and interesting) question than:
- Describe your relationship with your mother
- Describe your relationship with your father
Completely open-ended, yet, is universal to everyone. Being candid in that area can provide a lot of foundational underpinning to understand someone.
But - would people find it awkward? Would they take offense? Feel pain thinking about the answer?
As for someone's political opinion in a specific area, I'm worried self-presentation pressures and social environment crafts us to more heated (or passive, to not make a stir) for us to conform. In fact, on that subject, Wikipedia's page on this area is amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformity
The thing is - isn't the interesting thing someone's true hardships, needs, dreams, interpretations of life events, and desires, rather than something stemming from an idealized image they want to portray others, to be "good"? When social pressures of trying to say things the "right way", it's not a good read. Sure, they may be lashing out at others in outrage. Perhaps its very righteous and personal (most of the time?)
So I worry that even if we ask sensitive questions, there will be so much splitting, and so many people who are coy on their responses so as to avoid the people who really make a fuss of stuff. Maybe we'd find people are scared to validate their true feelings and needs. What if environment and fear of being an outcast/ridiculed for showing candor has them in a compliance state?
>What if environment and fear of being an outcast/ridiculed for showing candor has them in a compliance state?
It goes further than being outcast. Having the wrong opinion on things can put your career and sometimes physical safety in jeopardy. With costs like that you will always have people hiding their true thoughts. I think one of the most important things to learn in life (for the individual) is to know how to hide what is not popular in your current company.
Yes, sharing anything about my relationship with my parents would cause a certain amount of pain. I wouldn't feel like going through that for just anyone who decides to ask about it.
The act of refusing to answer this question is already giving plenty info that the person was seeking by asking it. As long as they don't push it after the refusal, the question has served its purpose, and it is all in good spirit imo.
I am absolutely fine with receiving those kinds of sensitive questions, as long as the person asking those is cool about it after hearing "no".
I like learning about people, but I would only ask “how’s your relationship with your mother/father?” if I already think the person’s unusually open. It’s a pretty direct “therapy”-style question, and some people don’t like feeling analyzed that way.
But it’s not that hard to get there a little less directly. If you just ask about people’s days and weekends, their parents will come up at some point. Then you can ask more gradually and organically.
Put it this way - on the other hand, there are many sensitive questions that can be inflected by an underlying need to gain approval, avoid disapproval, or their own compliance to appear "good" to the interviewer at the moment.
If it's a political topic, where someone can get lost in the herd so to speak, they can be partisan/intellectualize as a way to mask themselves as an individual. It's cheap and easy. Are we learning about them, or seeing their environment has them scared straight?
I guess with the parental question, there's a motivation to not be candid on that either though. What if the person feels they'd be selfish complaining about their parents or be ridiculed for expressing themselves? If it's a sensitive question, that involves vulnerability of not having feelings validated. If you're hurt by something, and someone scorns you for simply for stating discomfort, that's a pretty difficult situation!
Hm - what would be a valuable question to gather insight on someone, that's open ended, but not invasive? Would there be a way to phrase it so there wouldn't be pressure to give a "good" answer / portray an ideal self-image?
I've gotten a long ways in my technical career from being able to ask sensitive questions. (In the business environment, I've focused more on them being "critical questions".) It has been really great for me, and I've tried to make it as painless as possible for others. It started simply enough.
For real business reasons, there are things that I either needed to know, or I needed to be confident that the other person either had the answer to or were were putting some serious thought to. I wasn't asking sensitive questions just to embarrass them. I expected them to give me an honest answer (and I helped make that easier if an honest answer wasn't forthcoming on its own). I learned that I could trust my team not to take any of my questions out of context, and they learned that I would never try to take their answers out of context either.
Here are the big takeaways as best as I've been able to pin them down: it is all about trust, personal motivation, and intention. These complications are multiplied by the number of participants (even in situations where one person is asking a question and one person is answering the question, but multiple people may be listening). The process is quick and painless when the trust between the participants is high, the personal motivation (at the cost of others) is low, the level of trust between everyone is high, and there are just the two people. (Can it get better than that? Surprisingly, yes. Consider when one of the participants is a benevolent all-seeing and all-powerful diety.)
I have to admit, I haven't read the full article. I'd be curious what dimensions of trust they recorded and how well it coordinated with their results.
If you've developed all those factors between all the participants, you can ask just about anything with the minimum of time wasted. As one or more of these factors break down, the more complicated the conversation becomes. Or the more process you need to introduce to smooth over the wrinkles. "Hey, I don't mean to embarrass you, but on the Johnson account it is more important to get an accurate documentation than to show any kind of regular process. See? Here is where we've been capturing this for everyone, and this is what's done with the information." (So then you see how something like transparency comes into play.)
I think it makes sense when you look at it in those terms. You also need to be asking questions work asking, and sometimes you're going to be asking questions that you don't want or need the answer to yourself. You might be asking to build up trust within a group of people, or you might be asking because you know that several people really would benefit from knowing something that they're too conditioned to do on their own. (This is where I started. And the key is that even if a question is confrontational, you must never ask in a confrontational tone. The tone of your voice and the content of your words have to reflect that you're asking because you need to know. Nothing personal, just business.)
Even still, I hardly consider myself the master. I've never written anything down on this, but this is the 10,000ft view of what I picked up up over the years. If you've spotted something along these lines in a book or an article somewhere, let me know. I'd like to compare notes.
You can ask, prod, show, but still managers and decisionmakers will go ahead and cargo cult, ie. "Agile" and "SAFe". So depends if you are Director or not. This time it'll be different..
What is a sensitive question? Not the examples provided. Here’s an alternative.
Former Secretary of Defense for two presidents Donald Rumsfeld once framed (brilliantly actually) the possible things we know.
... there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know [1]
A while after someone (which I can’t trace back) made an interesting (and equally brilliant) observation - there is a fourth option - unknown knowns - that is, things we don’t know we know. In most cases, that person pointed out, the category contains, things we actually know, but prefer to pretend that we don’t.
So, what is a sensitive question?
A sensitive question is one for which the answer is an unknown known.
The cost of asking such a question in American society (and, obviously in SV) is dear. Avoiding them is free.
The bit about unknown knowns does not make sense to me, also it seems to change the point of reference. It is referencing things from third party perspectives whereas the original ones are referencing from first party.
That is, you are talking other things other entities might not know about me that I know myself which makes them, from my point of reference, known knowns. And in the event that I don't know those things myself they just become unknown unknowns.
If you don't change goalposts and keep the point of reference constant, unknown knowns wouldn't exist.
Personally, if I actually had to define unknown known from the individual entity's point of reference it would most probably refer to derived or calculated values. For example, do I know the product of 171 and 342.45673. Do I know I could calculate it? Yes. But do I know it by head? No. Which means it is eventually a known but right now it's still unknown. But even that is a stretch of a definition.
I am convinced Rumsfeld's initial proposition covers the entire space of knowledge. Maybe you could give actual examples of unknown knowns from the individual's perspective.
When I read "unknown known" I thought that it was going in this direction:
"I apparently know how to parallel park - I didn't know I could do that". And other stuff like it. "Oh, I could manage this project, never thought I'd manage."
The stuff in our brains not immediately accessible to our conscious thoughts. But OP didn't go there which surprised me.
If your parents are in town and ask where the nearest weed dispensary is, you might pretend not to know, even though you know. That's an unknown known.
But you still know it. Pretending not to know doesn't render it unknown knowledge.
To the other person/parents they don't know that you know, but that's looking at knowledge of party a vs. party b, which is mot quite what all this is about. Yo your parents it's still a known unknown (hence why they ask you).
I believe the closest to unknown knowns would be temporary loss of knowledge, where at a given moment you don't manage to make the right connections between the known knowns. So it's a "could know" given the right moment or prerequisite calculation step/thought, but right there you don't so it's an unknown known.
You can be surprised by yourself. Going to ski lessons and finding yourself good at it because your parents took you when you were five years old and you had forgotten you knew how to do it. You can be questioned by police as a witness and uncover details you didn't realize you knew. You can meet with old friends from high school who you didn't recognize.
Unknown knowns is not a sensitive category by default, though it can be triggering uncovering painful weaknesses.
I thought you were going in a different direction with this. To me, sensitive questions are very much in the first observation you pointed out (known unknowns). i.e. things we know we don't know about somebody. These things are often sensitive and therefore avoided in casual conversation. Not every known unknown is a sensitive questions, but a question by definition implies an unknowing. You ask so you can discover (unless you're perhaps asking as a conversation starter in a particular topic).
I'm not sure I follow what you mean by "unknown knows". How is a sensitive question an unknown known?
A sensitive question is one for which the answer is an Unknown Known.
Put differently, answers in that quadrant are the ones the questioned individual would like to avoid. As long as you, the asker, avoid asking them, there is a peaceful equilibrium. Once you ask such, you become a hostile.
Or put in the original context - Unknowns Knowns are coverups.
I do not get this classification. The answer is fully known to the person who tells you, just has emotional valence such that they'd prefer not answering. Or you will prefer to not having heard the answer.
Most of the time it is also possible to deduce it partially. (but careful about that) Unless it is something very unusual.
> A while after someone (which I can’t trace back) made an interesting (and equally brilliant) observation - there is a fourth option - unknown knowns - that is, things we don’t know we know. In most cases, that person pointed out, the category contains, things we actually know, but prefer to pretend that we don’t.
That's an interesting interpretation, though with a rather negative connotation.
I've also seen it described as unconscious competence, or the highest level of competence -- effortless mastery.
I'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager (https://www.askamanager.org/), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both managers and employees will avoid awkward topics ranging from trivial ("your breath smells") to consequential ("you need to step up or you'll be fired!"), to the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody.
And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly.
> the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody.
If you genuinely think the ones you saw could have been avoid just by a conversation, I’d wager the main issue was not an awkward situation but a crucial lack of trust, often coming from a toxic culture.
I saw a lot of situations where something awkward was going in, ranging from bad hygiene to mild harassment.
Dozens of people are witnessing the situation every single day, even if the manager doesn’t step in there’s a flurry of other people with enough power or influence to intervene. That often means that the situation goes on because nobody gives a crap, or the one in fault thinks (right or wrong) that nothing will happen if the warnings/requests are ignored.
That’s just a crappy place to work either way. Quitting won’t be because of the awkward situation, but because it was a symptom of a deeper issue.
My experience has been people is afraid of asking, as the article puts it, “sensitive questions”. Afraid of the repercussions: Will they react aggressively/defensively and never talk to me again? Will they feel bad and have depression after that? Among other things.
I say it because it happened at my previous company: After a new team member joined the company (he was like 6, 7 feet away from me), I from time to time started getting weird smells, but it was occasional and it’s not like I was out on a hunt for the origin of the smell. Eventually we had to work together and wow, the smell was really intense (not sure if only that day or what); I immediately told him about it (it was just the two of us). He started using deodorant (that was the reason) more often after that. Weeks after I was drinking with his team, and they started talking about him and how much he had improved his issue, and I asked them if they had told them. They said no, with the reasons I mentioned above.
So, yes, people is different and you have to hopefully measure a bit what you say depending on the person in front of you, but if society wasn’t so sensitive these last years, it’d be easier for everyone to accept criticism so everyone improves. Also, if it’s something that directly affects me, there is NO way I’m not going to try and change/improve the situation.
I hear you. Somewhere I wonder how long this kind of sensitive questions can stay unasked.
There usually are repercussions, with concrete effects on work relationships and productivity (if there aren’t, why even bother ?). In your example, I’d guess people would delay talking to him and this would slow down communication. Keeping these kind of stuff silent usually don’t last long anyway, and it’s so much better to have early enough factual conversations, “we want you to fix X because otherwise it causes Y”, soon enough for the employee to have time left to digest the info and react on it.
"not offending others by asking sensitive questions/Avoiding awkward" is the polite thing to do.
But a core part of being polite, is not hruting others through your actions directly or undirectly. ( or at least trying)
In cases where not asking the question puts the other party in a disadvantage or at the risk thereof, I feel one shouldn't be allowed to claim that one was being polite or "doing the right thing".
You were being either too shy, cowardly or selfish. This doesn't mean that you must ask such questions/ venture in those topics. But it certainly does mean, that those that don't, shouldn't be allowed to claim active virtues ( to others or to themselves).
* Also, if one chooses to not inform the other party of the problem, I feel that one shouldn't make them suffer for that choice. Which means at the very least, not trashtalking them behind their backs for it.
The first part is about being good, the second part is about not being actively evil.
> But a core part of being polite, is not hruting others through your actions directly or undirectly. ( or at least trying)
The problem is that in some cultures it's perfectly fine to talk about things that in other cultures it's not. The solution to that is to give people a benefit of a doubt and not assume they are trying to be hurtful, even if your first response is to be hurt. We don't seem to be great at that when dealing with people from other cultures, and we're really not great about it with people of the same culture (but the same thing can apply, since people interpret culture differently).
With the addition that we're currently in a zeitgeist of being very sensitive as a society about how people feel about what has happened to them (I would argue to the point that we're ignoring intention far more than makes sense), and it can be very hard to have sensitive conversations without someone being hurt and/or repercussions resulting, even if the intention was good.
Not to mention the thousands of little subcultures that exist. I've seen people offended by others leaving notes that seemed polite to me - "please refill coffee pot if it's empty" as passive-aggressive, etc.
OK... - "This is exasperating and I'll just accept it"
OK... - "His response was childish; moving on..."
OK? - "What you've just said appears to have no bearing on the question I asked nor the conversation at hand. Please explain how it's relevant or get on-topic."
OK? - "Did you understand? Please provide a response indicating whether you need additional information."
OK! - "I acknowledge your request and am capable and willing to fulfill it. I'm on it. I'll get it done. You can count on me."
In person, you can provide vocal inflection and facial expression to communicate which of these you intend. Over text, you're at the mercy of how the reader is feeling in the moment. Personally, I'll spend time either putting more punctuation around the "OK" to help clarify. Or I'll just go with the sentences that attempt to preclude ambiguity. Apparently (anecdotally), most people don't bother.
OK = Acknowledged or agreed.
OK? = Request for acknowledgement or agreement.
Anything else is reading too much into it. If I send someone an email explaining something and I get an, "OK" back, then I assume they've read it (or will read it) and I'll hear more from them if they have more to share.
When speaking in person, the "OK" itself almost completely superfluous as it's merely a vehicle for inflection and other social cues which carry the real meaning, as you noted.
> I'll just go with the sentences that attempt to preclude ambiguity.
And that's what I'd do 99% of the time, but I was specifically pointing to discussion around "OK"
Well, it depends on how you define "easily". And any culture that agrees a thing is offensive will probably not feel the offense is taken too easily, because by definition it's the norm.
I mean, I was chastised for taking a picture with a Buddha even while I did my best to be polite (I knew taking photos was OK but you had to make sure you weren't standing higher than the Buddha, etc.) - to me it seems kind of arbitrary, but I don't think the people offended ("annoyed with another dumb tourist" might be more apt) were being unreasonable.
In my case it was just a move to a different country and the social norms about what was acceptable, etc. are slightly different.
I've always advocated for a "refill the coffee if you find an empty pot" rather than "refill it if you empty it" approach since the latter means you _could_ be wasting a pot of coffee if you happened to be the last to want coffee that day, but I get that people have different views.
Is refill the pot of coffee if you empty it another casualty of technology? I don't think I've worked anywhere in more than a decade that did not have big automate coffee maker that allowed you to choose between a dozen passable options.
In that situation you never refill the pot if you empty it, you empty the grinds or pour in more beans if the the machine asks.
I strongly prefer a good old coffee pot to some ridiculous espresso making contraption. Most of the machines you refer to (so far as I'm aware) won't do "big ol' cuppa joe" but you can get about 3 watered down "large" espressos if you want (I don't recommend it).
evidently I asked a sensitive question here, as I got downvoted a couple. Sorry I just thought they had gone the way of the tape cassette, phonogram, typewriters etc.
Most people still work at small to medium size businesses, and depending on business type and density, it doesn't make sense to have a machine like that. Those big machines aren't inherently better, they've just faster at serving lots of people, but at the expense of cost to run and service, and that cost can be a lot (especially the up-front cost to buy).
As for downvoting, I guess people thought you were being dismissive of smaller workplaces? I dunno, I'm just guessing there, since I didn't feel the need to downvote you.
maybe it's different where I'm at. I do work at a lot of big places, but right now the company I'm at is small to medium sized (they recently bought another company in another city so while it is probably a medium sized company now it still feels small) and it has a machine.
Also at the big companies I've worked at often you have a small room with a self contained team and each of these teams has one of these machines.
That's a good point, but at the same time, at least in a work setting, there needs to be some sort of common ground.
It seems to me that a reasonable compromise would be to expect people to notify a coworker of things that their boss would judge the coworker for; even if it is contrary to the culture of the person doing the notification.
Sure! There are many reasonable compromises. I'm just making the point is that people sometimes have very localized view of what's reasonable, and what's reasonable or not from a bird's eye view may not seem so to those in the situation.
We should be able to interact in the best manner of the business and out coworkers. Sometimes doing that may be perceived by others around you as having crossed a line. Sometimes, there isn't a great answer.
What if bringing an office problem forth exposes that the person causing the problem has personal reasons for doing so (a disability they don't want to advertise, for example). The end situation may just be the status quo (neither the company nor the staff really want to impede the person with the disability once it becomes known), but with two people now uncomfortable either with each other, with coworkers, or both. I would say that's often a case that can be helped by being able to talk about sensitive things, but also a case where people may have good reasons for wanting their privacy (people do not always act rationally). The "right" answer is often contextual, and in some cases it may not exist.
This isn't to say that we should just forget it all. It's just that it's hard, and we should be careful before assuming even somewhat obvious statements such as yours (which I agree with) are enough.
>But a core part of being polite, is not hurting others through your actions directly or indirectly. ( or at least trying)
The problem is wanting the notion of politeness to do too much work. Being polite, being nice, is just a moment to moment strategy for avoiding conflict. Unfortunately, niceness has become the most important virtue in American culture.
Being good is much more profound, and niceness is just one of the many tools you can use to achieve it. Sometimes being good entails being harsh. Sometimes it means doing things that will upset others.
I think you are definitely correct. However, the other side of the coin is that:
In my experience, people who say that they are being harsh for someone's own good are generally just being jerks. On the other hand, people who are actually able to be harsh for someone's own good are generally people who try very hard to be nice.
It's sort of like the saying that luck favors those who don't expect luck.
To be clear: I don't mean to say that I think you are a jerk. I realize that you are just explaining the principle that good and nice are not necessarily the same thing; not saying how you would or wouldn't act in a given situation.
This hits at a fundamental point that has puzzled me about American culture for the longest time. A country that is so heavily steeped in protestant/purtanical Christian roots and yet does not even realize that one of the main components of that creed is NOT taking offense to things. In fact, taking offense to things is as sinful as actually offending someone.
It's basically a philosophical method of being a little less self-centered. It also suggests that while objective offensiveness is possible (calling someone a harsh name, etc.), most of the time offense is taken rather than given.
It is one of my favorite principles from a religion that most who practice said religion almost entirely ignore. Puzzling.
> It is one of my favorite principles from a religion that most who practice said religion almost entirely ignore. Puzzling.
There's nothing puzzling about this. Most people who practice any religion with written principles almost entirely ignore almost all of those principles. The official principles of a religion don't really have anything to do with why people affiliate to one or another.
But, particularly in American culture it is the imbalance in "enforcement" of principles that is the problem.
It is perfectly fine to be super-nice as often as possible. But, the culture is "do not offend" dominate and almost void of "do not take offense".
This imbalance of cultural enforcement is likely a driving factor behind the younger generations view on enforcing standards of political correctness, social justice, etc. If you are offended then you are in the right, always, and without question.
>But, the culture is "do not offend" dominate and almost void of "do not take offense".
Events where people get offended end up being reported online or in the media. Events where no one gets offended get no coverage, though that mind set is also very common. Additionally, extreme examples of "offensive behavior" are used by poth sides for political propaganda.
Very, very important point. I'm not sure it's possible to overstate the effect of confirmation and selection biases in any kind of "people these days" generalization.
Take that with a grain of salt, there's plenty of stuff in the Bible that suggests overlooking offenses (things like Proverbs 19:11) and obviously forgiveness is part of it. But I'm not sure "take no offense" is quite the main component of that creed.
One explanation that I read recently (https://aeon.co/essays/what-duelling-can-teach-us-about-taki...) is that taking offense may often be not so much the magnitude of the slight itself as it is about establishing that you are an equal and therefore have the right to take offense.
For example suppose that a trans person takes offense at someone refusing to use their preferred pronoun. The issue may not actually be about the importance of the pronoun so much as it is about whether they have the social right to define the pronoun that is associated with them.
I think that the failure to understand this dynamic could be one of the causes of polarization in America. For example:
- Conservatives often criticize "political correctness" by mocking what they perceive to be overreactions to minor slights. However, that may be missing the point if the issue is not the magnitude of the slight but whether someone has the right to take offense at all.
- Anger over removing the Confederate flag may not be about the flag itself so much as it is about asserting that Southerners have a right to be treated with respect.
> may not be about the flag itself so much as it is about asserting that Southerners have a right to be treated with respect
This seems extremely generous, and doesn’t match my impression of supporters of the confederate flag I have seen or heard about, many of whom live outside the former confederate states and have nothing to do with the South culturally.
There is a demand to be heard/respected involved, but the demand as far as I can tell is for recognition of white racial superiority and white social hegemony as a legitimate political ideology (which goes hand-in-hand with an implicit threat to non-whites), rather than anything about geography per se.
There’s also a strong element of defiance of what is seen as a subversive culture of pluralism and mutual respect, along the lines of: “I know this symbol is offensive to you, but I declare my right to wave it in your face because you can’t stop me.” This kind of militant offensiveness is attractive to the same sorts of people who “roll coal” to stick it to environmentalists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal
Being polite and nice is the lubricant in the gears of society. You're correct in that it's not the same thing as being good (and, as you said, sometimes to be good we have to be impolite or even harsh) but being nice is an important part of getting along with other humans, especially the ones you don't know.
I’ve heard people talk about the “compassionate” thing to do and I’ve asked, “What exactly is compassionate about prolonging suffering?” Either they get it or they think I’m a brutish social nub.
I once worked on a desk opposite a guy, who had often his finger in his nose, searching, finding and taking out.. you know.
After weeks of hesitation, once I told him: "Please, if you need to do it, do it in the bathroom". He said "Ok" and that was it.
It is a sensitive topic, just when writing this I have doubts whether to post this message or not.
But those things are just here, and if you act out of kindness towards the person, seeing how may he/she suffer because of that and by having a discussion or drop a few sentences on the subject, you are actually helping the person as well.
I guess it is better to try than to alienate that person in our mind and the longer it takes, the harder it is to start the discussion.
Having driven in country roads with lots of sheep around, their behaviour doesn't seem rational. Run in front of the car right as you are about to pass them.
Absolutely not, as per your demonstrative examples. You are confused and, I predict, will now want to quibble about what "genuine" means since youve lost context in the digression. SMH
After being on the disgusted end of one of these situations, I’ve learned to be more attuned to lighthearted teasing and other offhand remarks about my own behavior.
People who care about you may be trying to help you understand that you’re violating norms, but feeling limited in how they can communicate it.
The worst one for me was the guy who didn’t wash his hands after using the restroom. One day, one of my team members told me about this, and I didn’t believe him, ha ha, so a few days later I’m in the restroom and this guy comes out of a stall and just walks out the door. So about a week later my guy who’d complained about it had some problem with one of our other systems, and who do they send over to help him out? You guessed it - Mr. Doesn’t Wash His Hands. So I watch this guy sit down at my team member’s keyboard and work on some stuff with him, then after he leaves my team member gives me this horrified look and gestures at his keyboard. I straight up just walked over to his cube, unplugged his keyboard and threw it in the trash and told him “Go tell IT you need a new keyboard.”
It was easier to just throw away the keyboard than to have that conversation with someone. What grown adult needs to be told to wash their hands after they use the toilet? I later learned that almost everyone on the floor knew about this guy and they were all sickened being around him.
while the disgust is warranted, I can't help but feel that you've created a toxic culture there.
for example, the Keyboard scene, being horrified because someone touched your keyboard is not logical behaviour. In fact, the keyboard is probably more disgusting than the toilet paper.
The actions of your employee were not rational. But by validating them you create a mob.
"begin sickned/disguested" becomes a behavior of the in-group. Mocking that guy, overreacting is than encouraged by social validation. These are the same dynamics as bullying because it is a form of bullying.
Plus, this is exacerbated by your team member ( and maybe you later, just by asking) going arround bad-mouthing him.
Imagine if everyone started acting hostile towards you and you had no way to know why?
You phrased that a lot more gently than I would have. Kudos.
The guy should wash his hands after pooping, but performing a melodrama behind his back based on a pathological fear of unwashed hands seems extremely unprofessional.
Come on it's a story read between the lines. The message is that you are reluctant to great lenght to emberras someone infront of the same person but have no problem doing it behind his back.
This is acctually a prime example of where mocking might fix the issue so I kinda agree with you. He might think "what a bunch of wuzzies" and star cleaning his hands.
Quite ofent I get to work with my tshirt inside out ... before I get to know my colleagues they don't say a thing which is quite embarrassing when my wife notice back home.
> I straight up just walked over to his cube, unplugged his keyboard and threw it in the trash and told him “Go tell IT you need a new keyboard.”
I’m not sure whether you’re proud of this story, but that is an extreme overreaction. What grown adult throws away a keyboard (company property!) rather than having a conversation with someone? Did you also go around removing the doorknobs to all the rooms this person went into?
Employees don't usually value hardware they didn't pay for. I've seen people intentionally banging their old laptops against the table to break the HDD and consequently get a new, faster computer.
I'm also guilty. A certain easily-upset micromanager sourced a box of one dollar second hand HP keyboards that are pretty much unusable, so I've been shipping them out with other hardware, forgetting them at customer premises and so on.
This story is layers of stupidity. Yes, you should wash your hands after pooping. But that keyboard, simply by virtue of being a keyboard, was more heavily laden with bacteria than the toilet seats in your bathrooms, regardless of who was using it, and evidence of any health risk therefrom is so far lacking [1].
Do you have dogs? Better get rid of them too since they track feces into your house in quantities that dwarf those spread by Mr. Poopy Hands.
You said stall so I am onboard with your disgust. This always reminds me about a Richard Feynman story where he'd stand in the bathroom and ridicule people who washed their hands after using the urinal, saying the urine was sterile anyway. I find that kind of hilarious. Colleagues complained all the time, like "well I was headed to lunch anyway and always wash my hands before lunch"
Though after showering in the morning and putting those parts in cotton clothes it might be the cleanest area you've been close to touching the last few hours when going to the bathroom.
Maybe not completely, but they told us that it was when i studied biology 25 years ago. And on outdoor first aid courses where water wasn't available to clean wounds it was also suggested that urine could be used.
I wasn't talking about soap. I never use it or shampoo either. My theory is that by washing away all the oils from your skin, you just encourage your body to produce oil faster. That's why you soap users get all goopy at the end of the day and your clothes smell. I can wear my clothes for at least 48 hours before they start to smell.
But anyway, even just water can dry out my hands, and I don't want to use any creams. Either they contain alcohol and dry my hands out further or make them too greasy, and cause then to stop producing oils.
I think your just going to have to get used to the fact that there is going to be traces of poop and pee wherever you go. I mean, even if people like me did wash my hands, the spray from flushing the toilet disperses fecal matter and urine throughout the whole room, onto your clothes, on your hair, in your mouth when you breathe.
It's probably a healthy thing, exposing your immune system, anyway.
why would you favour naturally oily hands over clean hands? you are sacrificing everybody's hygiene for your own comfort. what do you do around babies and the elderly? despite your superior body chemistry, do you not wash your clothes in soap? would you refuse antiseptic treatment, or condone a team of surgeons with your unhygienic practice to save your life?
there is a reason humans harness sanitation: it saves and prolongs lives
> why would you favour naturally oily hands over clean hands?
At the end of the day, with your accelerated oil producing hands, that became that way because you are constantly stripping them of it, your hands are much more goopy than mine.
> you are sacrificing everybody's hygiene for your own comfort. what do you do around babies and the elderly?
I don't even think about it. Despite your implication of calamity, nothing happens. (Besides, babies are a lot dirtier than me, drooling and sticking everything in their mouths)
> despite your superior body chemistry, do you not wash your clothes in soap?
Clothes are another matter, they aren't living organisms with evolved mechanisms to survive in a natural environment full of all kinds of microorganisms that could kill you. You need to wash clothes just as you need to take care of any artificial tool.
Naturally, we don't need soap. This is a classic marketing technique, create a problem, “hygiene”, then push a solution, buy my soap. Only the soap creates more problems, but nevermind that. Oh if you're really suffering, buy my hand cream.
> would you refuse antiseptic treatment, or condone a team of surgeons with your unhygienic practice to save your life?
Would you take blood pressure medication when you didn't need it? How about put a cast on your arm for a week after lifting a heavy object just in case the bones are slightly weakened? Just because medicine can cure a problem doesn't mean you should use it all the time.
> there is a reason humans harness sanitation: it saves and prolongs lives
An enormous oversimplification. Obviously it saves lives, but if we lived in a world where we never came in contact with any microorganism that might kill us, our defense systems would be weakened to a point where if we were ever exposed to one, we'd all die.
> > why would you favour naturally oily hands over clean hands?
> At the end of the day, with your accelerated oil producing hands, that became that way because you are constantly stripping them of it, your hands are much more goopy than mine.
my hands are certainly not "goopy", but if you associate soap with that, then you obviously haven't found the right soap for you.
> > you are sacrificing everybody's hygiene for your own comfort. what do you do around babies and the elderly?
> I don't even think about it. Despite your implication of calamity, nothing happens. (Besides, babies are a lot dirtier than me, drooling and sticking everything in their mouths)
this sounds like an uneducated statement to say the least. it's not about dirt (a bit of dirt never harmed anyone), it's about bacteria and diseases, and the risks posed to those with developing or weakened immune systems. could you sleep if a baby you had contact with died from MRSA or diarrhoea? if you are consciously assisting the spread of infection and disease then calamity is the least you deserve.
> > despite your superior body chemistry, do you not wash your clothes in soap?
> Clothes are another matter, they aren't living organisms with evolved mechanisms to survive in a natural environment full of all kinds of microorganisms that could kill you. You need to wash clothes just as you need to take care of any artificial tool.
if you admit to willfully using soap on items that protect and insulate an organism then these could by natural extension include skin. also, the reproductive and therefore evolutionary rates of microorganisms far exceed our own - you and your kin would not evolve quickly enough to survive a pandemic.
> Naturally, we don't need soap. This is a classic marketing technique, create a problem, “hygiene”, then push a solution, buy my soap. Only the soap creates more problems, but nevermind that. Oh if you're really suffering, buy my hand cream.
bacterial infection and disease are not a product of unethical marketing. nor are they some imagined, artificial problem. the suggestion that soap is not needed is conflating to the domain of cosmetics, of which it does not belong. I'm not saying soap is the answer to humanity's demise, it just enables us and other species to thrive. the major example being post-sanitation life expectancy.
> > would you refuse antiseptic treatment, or condone a team of surgeons with your unhygienic practice to save your life?
> Would you take blood pressure medication when you didn't need it? How about put a cast on your arm for a week after lifting a heavy object just in case the bones are slightly weakened? Just because medicine can cure a problem doesn't mean you should use it all the time.
firstly, soap is not a medicine so that analogy is safely dismissed. secondly, those are auto-negating or rhetorical questions, so I'm not inclined to answer. mine were life-or-death scenarios, which you chose not to answer. I wonder why that was. I will not assume you would choose death, but instead presume you acknowledge that you would indeed need soap.
also, since you touched on threat perception. it's not about what could happen, it's about what is happening and what is being done to prevent it.
> > there is a reason humans harness sanitation: it saves and prolongs lives
> An enormous oversimplification. Obviously it saves lives, but if we lived in a world where we never came in contact with any microorganism that might kill us, our defense systems would be weakened to a point where if we were ever exposed to one, we'd all die.
soap does not alter our immune systems. everything we are immune to has nothing to do with the availability of soap. it's more about protection and mitigation against the things we are incapable of becoming immune to.
it's absurd you dare include yourself in that "we". you are the minority here. you are alive for two reasons, the first being you are lucky enough to live in an environment where sanitation is available, and secondly because the majority of mankind grasp basic biological concepts and are not living under some anti-goopiness delusion.
there are several instances in pre-sanitation history where we did nearly all die. to say that you do not need soap is simply insane (etymological pun intended :)
It's all relative. What you consider normal, is quite slimy for someone who is not engaged in your activity.
> but if you associate soap with that, then you obviously haven't found the right soap for you.
I just told you, this is not due to soap but to the increased oil production in response to you stripping the oils from your skin. Do you not understand this?
> this sounds like an uneducated statement to say the least. it's not about dirt (a bit of dirt never harmed anyone), it's about bacteria and diseases, and the risks posed to those with developing or weakened immune systems.
Jesus Christ, how did you construe that I thought that dirt caused disease?
> could you sleep if a baby you had contact with died from MRSA or diarrhoea? if you are consciously assisting the spread of infection and disease then calamity is the least you deserve.
You dare blame "MRSA" on someone advocating for less routine and systematic destruction of germs everywhere and anywhere? How do you think the "MR" part of "MRSA" got to be that way, hmm?
> If you admit to willfully using soap on items that protect and insulate an organism then these could by natural extension include skin.
There is a huge difference between washing a tool and washing what is as actually a human organ, namely the skin. The human body is complicated and tuned to a particular environment. Radically changing it by smearing chemicals on it several times a day will have many short term and long term unintended effects.
> also, the reproductive and therefore evolutionary rates of microorganisms far exceed our own - you and your kin would not evolve quickly enough to survive a pandemic.
If that were true how did humanity evolve in the first place?
> bacterial infection and disease are not a product of unethical marketing.nor are they some imagined, artificial problem. the suggestion that soap is not needed is conflating to the domain of cosmetics, of which it does not belong. I'm not saying soap is the answer to humanity's demise, it just enables us and other species to thrive.
Our species thrived quite fine before people engaged in obsessive hand washing. And I wasn't aware other species used soap?
> the major example being post-sanitation life expectancy.
Do I really need to explain to you correlation vs cause and effect? Just because people started washing their hands and started to live longer does not mean that one caused the other.
> firstly, soap is not a medicine so that analogy is safely dismissed.
If soap is meant to prevent disease, namely infections, and blood pressure medication is also meant to prevent disease, namely strokes and heart attacks, then how is not a medicine? What is it, if not, and why are you pushing its use so hard if it isn't?
> secondly, those are auto-negating or rhetorical questions, so I'm not inclined to answer. mine were life-or-death scenarios, which you chose not to answer. I wonder why that was.
Are you insane? You don't think scenarios where you ask if I would choose to live rather than die is not supposed to be taken rhetorically?
> I will not assume you would choose death, but instead presume you acknowledge that you would indeed need soap.
You get that I'm not advocating for the banning of soap use anywhere and everywhere, right?
> soap does not alter our immune systems. everything we are immune to has nothing to do with the availability of soap. it's more about protection and mitigation against the things we are incapable of becoming immune to.
If it only targeted germs that we are incapable of becoming immune to, and had no other effects, that sure, why not? The problem, though, is it reduces our exposure to all germs, and our immune systems do not develop properly in this sort of environment. There are many studies that show a connection between over sanitized environments and allergic reactions due to the immune system going haywire, as well as getting sick easily when they are then exposed to dirtier environments.
> it's absurd you dare include yourself in that "we". you are the minority here.
I am a "we" as in I am in a human being in the human race. You really cut those dividing lines deep, don't you?
> you are alive for two reasons, the first being you are lucky enough to live in an environment where sanitation is available,
Am I asking for a ban on sanitation?
> and secondly because the majority of mankind grasp basic biological concepts and are not living under some anti-goopiness delusion.
Sorry, I don't want my body to overproduce oils all the time and then have to wash those oils away every day to prevent being covered in my own body oils. We've lived like that for tens of thousands of years, it won't kill us all.
> there are several instances in pre-sanitation history where we did nearly all die. to say that you do not need soap is simply insane (etymological pun intended :)
Sanitation isn't wholly and exclusively comprised of hand washing. Me advocating for not doing it, isn't being against sanitation entirely.
> It's all relative. What you consider normal, is quite slimy for someone who is not engaged in your activity.
most people can distinguish between slimy and not slimy. I bet you can guess what they'd do if they felt that their hands were slimy..
you try to make it sound like a sordid act whereas in fact, it is quite the opposite, and whatever sensation you attribute to it is invalidated by society's expectation.
> I just told you, this is not due to soap but to the increased oil production in response to you stripping the oils from your skin. Do you not understand this?
then find a soap which doesn't affect oil production if that is your preference or requirement. you're not expected to suffer, or sacrifice, or join a cult. just be clean and responsible. or is that too much to expect?
> Jesus Christ, how did you construe that I thought that dirt caused disease?
I didn't, hence "it's not about dirt", and no mention of causation. besides, you can't really cause bacteria, but you can hinder their growth and spread. with soap.
> You dare blame "MRSA" on someone advocating for less routine and systematic destruction of germs everywhere and anywhere? How do you think the "MR" part of "MRSA" got to be that way, hmm?
the arguments around antibiotics (medicines) seem tangential here, let's save that one for another time. I'm talking about preventative measures for the benefit of all. why do you think they have sanitation stations in hospitals, on farms, in kitchens?
> The human body is complicated and tuned to a particular environment.
bacteria are simple organisms and present in virtually every environment.
> Radically changing it by smearing chemicals on it several times a day will have many short term and long term unintended effects.
if you are worried about certain chemicals, or perceive promoting cleanliness and hygienic practice as radical and unintended, then you should re-evaluate your options or seek advice from a pharmacist. there is no excuse.
> If that were true how did humanity evolve in the first place?
by enduring near extinctions, adapting to new environments, and eliminating the weak? human evolution has been a slow process among a relatively small population. my point is that if we all stopped washing our hands it would mean bad news for all of us, faster than the rate of our evolution.
> Our species thrived quite fine before people engaged in obsessive hand washing.
by becoming aware of the dangers of not being clean. did we choose to live in trees or caves with rot? did we scavenge decaying food? did we favour unclean water sources?
it doesn't have to be obsessive, just regular and thorough.
> I wasn't aware other species used soap?
I was referring to our veterinary use on animals and resistance use on plants. I'm sure many species are instinctively aware of natural bactericides, salts, etc.
> Do I really need to explain to you correlation vs cause and effect? Just because people started washing their hands and started to live longer does not mean that one caused the other.
I'm no expert, but I would expect that there is a strong case for correlation, and probably a causal relationship, between sanitation and life expectancy.
> If soap is meant to prevent disease, namely infections, and blood pressure medication is also meant to prevent disease, namely strokes and heart attacks, then how is not a medicine? What is it, if not, and why are you pushing its use so hard if it isn't?
again, not a medical expert, but my understanding is that strokes and heart attacks are incidents governed by risk factors, not diseases themselves like CVD or CHD. bad examples aside, soap is used for preventing the spread of harmful bacteria. medicine is used for treatment of an established condition. blood pressure medication is specifically for treating high blood pressure. as a side effect it lowers the risk of heart disease. I'm not against using medicine. I am pushing for the use of soap because my culture deems it acceptable to shake hands, share toilet seats, and eat food, with staph-ridden strangers like you.
> Are you insane? You don't think scenarios where you ask if I would choose to live rather than die is not supposed to be taken rhetorically?
I admit it was a cheap shot. but if it saves lives then is that not more important than your perception of harm?
> You get that I'm not advocating for the banning of soap use anywhere and everywhere, right?
sounds like progress.
> If it only targeted germs that we are incapable of becoming immune to, and had no other effects, that sure, why not? The problem, though, is it reduces our exposure to all germs, and our immune systems do not develop properly in this sort of environment. There are many studies that show a connection between over sanitized environments and allergic reactions due to the immune system going haywire, as well as getting sick easily when they are then exposed to dirtier environments.
washing our hands does not reduce exposure to all germs. if they're not on our hands then they're on the rest of our body anyway. I don't use soap in my eyes or lungs. washing hands has one simple purpose: to prevent spreading bad bacteria through a specific medium. it's simple risk reduction. many diseases and infections have a faecal-oral route, with hands as the main carrier. why on earth wouldn't you wash your hands after using the lavatory? it's bizarre and vile. I'm not concerned with cherry-picked studies on such a complex subject as immunology, just common sense and decency.
> I am a "we" as in I am in a human being in the human race. You really cut those dividing lines deep, don't you?
if something is detrimental to the continuation and progression of a race, it does by its own being not belong.
> Am I asking for a ban on sanitation?
you are advocating for and contributing to the spread of bacteria and disease. am I sounding unreasonable?
> Sorry, I don't want my body to overproduce oils all the time and then have to wash those oils away every day to prevent being covered in my own body oils. We've lived like that for tens of thousands of years, it won't kill us all.
it's the twenty-first century, there really is no excuse. I suspect it's more to do with mentality than physiology.
> Sanitation isn't wholly and exclusively comprised of hand washing. Me advocating for not doing it, isn't being against sanitation entirely.
I never said it was. it's just the most basic form and first line of defense.
Mr. Feyman’s mistake is assuming I’m trying to wash away urine. I touch stuff other than my dick throughout the day. Post-piss is as good a time as any. Not that I would have ever that I felt I owed such an asshole an explanation.
Piss starts smelling over time. You can drink it but don't pretend it's water. Various situations like sickness can contaminate and spread through urine. Some besserwissers just aren't.
Nowhere in OPs comment did he state, or even imply, that he got urine on his hands... The point he was making, which you seem to have missed entirely, is that he ISN'T in fact trying to wash away urine but rather any other nastiness he may have touched throughout the day.
I see Mr. Feyman has been woke from the dead, and still feels the need to demand an explanation. People piss on their hands sometimes, own up to that. Let he who has never had a stray pubic hair turn the urine stream into a spring rain shower cast the first stone.
which elicited a lot of comments about how much they disliked this type of conversation
reading this comment makes we wonder if its not more a function of 'non-violent communication is a tool people use to bring up subjects they would otherwise avoid; there's basically no way to talk about a lot of these subjects in a manner that doesn't bother people; ->-> if these is something you're going to pay costs on if it doesn't get brought up, using the tool of non-violent communications is one way to handle these costs'
> And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly.
To be fair, I'd have done the same. That kind of behavior strikes me as a symptom of something else going on and I don't know if I'd want to put myself in their sights.
> And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly.
Well, i guess such conversation would not have a rational background, it would be just a power struggle whether one side could enforce its cultural norms on the other side.
Using one's soft power to enforce specific goals or norms is risky and should be risky, not only because it could turn against the speaker, but also it could turn into oppression of those with less soft power.
So perhaps it is best to reserve that to important issues, while handling trivial ones with tolerance.
In the first (real) job I had after undergrad (physics and mechanical engineering, graduated in 2010 when the economy was a horrorshow), I was a shop supervisor in a factory. I was 23, working in the assembly department of a dirty factory, and I reasoned "appearance is shallow and not worth spending time and effort on, and this place is filthy anyway" (I'm kind of an aspie).
A lot of the people working in assembly in that factory were old women, and I became friends with them. After a few months, one of them pulled me aside and she clearly had a question, but seemed nervous about asking it. I invited her to be candid, and she asked "uh, do you use soap when you shower?". She had correctly identified that I didn't use soap, and her question immediately made me realize that everyone who I managed noticed my hygiene and quietly endured it because they were uncomfortable speaking up about it. I was mortified that I had been presenting myself so poorly, blind to the impact on the people around me. I was (and remain) grateful that she worked up the courage to let me know that something I dismissed as beneath notice actually was noticed. I started taking better care of myself and being mindful of how I presented myself to the world, and I quickly noticed that people's facial expressions were different when I was around, and when I showed people how to do different assembly operations, they learned the first time (rather than producing a lot of waste before I had to show them again) as they weren't distracted by my hygiene.
TLDR: One honest question immediately corrected incorrect beliefs that I held for years and that hindered my success.
Honestly, it was not honest question. It was extremely carefully worded question, prepared in advance that hinted that you smell without telling it. She was not curious whether you use soap, she was in the process of informing you that you should. And she took a lot of care to be as gentle with it as possible.
I tend to ask myself "does something really disturbs YOU", if the answer is yes, then I will talk about it because:
1. You cannot expect someone to realize something, no matter how obvious it is to you, you don't know how to person was raised and what experiences that person went through, thus you should never expect something obvious for yourself to be obvious for others as well
2. If something bothers me but I don't talk about it, I will resent the problematic person one way or another, and the problem will resurface one day or another (probably not in the way you would expect too).
We had some contractors in a Mexico office that would sometimes visit San Jose (CA). At a certain point, one of them decided to permanently relocate to the US. Most things were fine, but there was one social line he crossed that needed to be said. His computer desktop background was pretty much laden with boobs and asses. The background image was pretty much intensely horrible. Another co-worker and I just calmly explained to him that he can choose any background he wanted as long as it didn't potentially land him in trouble with sexual or racial discrimination issues. Definitely, in this case it was an easy conversation and he obviously fixed the issue immediately.
Something I realized taking a remote job for the first time, having genuine conversations was the default - my capacity for giving and taking hard criticisms is so much better. Some of it has also spilled into my personal life :)
I knew a guy like that and he had a very different attitude than most in this situation. The guy I knew was 100% aware of what he was doing. He said he's not poor at all, but chose to live poor to save his money and invest it instead. He said he was on track to retire at 30. The man had laser vision with his eye on the target, can't hate on him for that. He'll be the last one laughing with that "fuck you" money.
But saving money on clothes and hygiene is crazily short-sighted. Bad clean clothes are maybe a couple hundred dollars a year, generously. I sincerely doubt that outweighs having your co-workers dread interacting with you.
Changing clothes weekly was societal norm before washing machines became common. With washing machines Jevons paradox takes effect - instead of just accepting more free personal time with less time taken by washing clothes, we ramped up societal expectations for clean clothes.
I'd have to agree that it's necessary to view the professional sphere in terms of investment and investment is not only financial it's also effort and agency
If you're a professional you ought to have some sort of professional persona that's not so directly tied to your 35 year mortgage
If all your money is tied up in interest payments to where you can't hardly afford a stitch of clothing what fault of it is mine who manages my money differently do I seriously have to see you wearing the same tired old outfit every day for a week and you're in a position to affect my career to boot?
You have no idea what people have going on though. There are so many reasons someone could be short on money that would be understandable if you knew. you simply can't make that judgement easily.
People always come up with examples of eccentrics who dress like eccentrics
I'm not interested in working with Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey or Elon Musk or Einstein himself I'm interested in working with regular people who know how to shop for value and don't have to piss holding a cell phone or chew loudly with their mouths open
The reason for this is I'm trying to achieve the enlightened state of higher consciousness that comes with practicing my art to its highest form of mastery and with it comes a certain social awareness that requires like-mannered colleagues to realize
He almost definitely has many copies of that shirt and isn't just wearing the exact same shirt every day. Just like Zuckerberg, who was showing off his wardrobe consisting of a bunch of t-shirts that are exactly the same.
No one should have issues with people dressing similarly every day. But wearing the exact same shirt literally every single day without washing it every day becomes noticeable really quickly for hygienic reasons, and that's the part that makes it problematic.
That's one consequence of the push for political correctness at all cost in our societies. We went too far in applying it, and yet the mindset of people haven't changed, only the surface for compliance. The result is that we have hyper hypocrisy instead of even a tiny amount of respect.
But the great thing about it was that one could have really interesting deep conversations with near strangers, because one would skip over all the smalltalk and immediately discuss something everyone cared deeply about. In comparison I would have shyly still been discussing the weather whereas she would be already talking theology.
* She does it less now. Perhaps my bad influence or having kids?