[HN Gopher] Don't be spooky
___________________________________________________________________
Don't be spooky
Author : mooreds
Score : 295 points
Date : 2021-11-06 14:45 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (therealadam.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (therealadam.com)
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| I recently had spooky messages several times, like "All-hands
| meeting on Wednesday, attendance is mandatory". So, are we all
| getting fired? Are you leaving? If you want your employees
| dusting off their resumes, this is a great way to do it.
| exegete wrote:
| We had "town halls" for a long time and then one time it was
| called an "all hands". You can bet everyone was on edge before
| the meeting, but the meeting was exactly the same as the others
| (general info dissemination). I definitely gave feedback not to
| arbitrarily change the name of the meeting like that.
| logicchop wrote:
| The way I see it, if "let's talk when you get a minute" comes
| across as spooky that means you already have a communication
| breakdown and mistrust has already blossomed. Here's a slightly
| different scenario: You have a disagreement with management;
| there are many subsequent conversations happening behind the
| scenes; but no one keeps you in the loop or updates you on what
| is being decided. In that situation, practically any message
| (apart from "here is exactly what we are thinking..") comes
| across as spooky, and you will start reading into what _isnt_
| said. In short, if you think someone might want to know
| something, and they have a reasonable claim on deserving to know,
| let them know. Keep people informed, and if you do that then
| "let's talk when you get a minute" won't feel like such a lurking
| shadow.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I will never make the mistake of trusting management again.
|
| No matter how good my relationship is with my direct manager,
| someone above them can decide I'm gone and neither my boss or
| my boss's boss can do anything to save me. Happened to me
| twice.
|
| Every time some bad happened in my career, it's been preceded
| by vague request to talk.
|
| This isn't helped by having an unrelated anxiety disorder.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Some degree of mistrust - or should I say, _fear_ - is normal
| when communicating with your manager /supervisor, because
| there's a _power imbalance_ in that relationship. Your manager
| has the power to significantly complicate or even derail your
| whole life. They 're also themselves in a similar relationship
| with the person above them in the org chart. So no matter how
| much you trust them, there's always the possibility they're
| bringing bad news, and vague communication helps people play up
| that possibility in their heads.
| wpietri wrote:
| Exactly. What this article leaves out is the correct opening
| to the story.
|
| "A person who can arbitrarily make your life hell, including
| by ending your job right now, tells you 'let's talk when you
| get a minute.'"
|
| I think the standard American corporate system of power is
| kinda ridiculous. But it is what it is, and whenever I'm a
| manager in that kind of system I try hard to remember that
| everything I say has that preface to it whether I like it or
| not. Everything. And everything people "beneath" me say to me
| will have an equivalent preface about what they think they
| can safely say.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| The American system is designed to keep the power balance
| by making it easy to get another job.
|
| Yes, there's some economic power difference - and sometimes
| it is out of balance. The idea that your boss has control
| over you is silly; your boss has the control over you that
| you give them in exchange for compensation, and you can
| always just quit - I wish people would do so more, because
| many of the worst attributes of the modern workplace are
| because people don't just quit.
| ipaddr wrote:
| With health insurance connected to your employment,
| references checks, previous salary leveling, noncompetes,
| the interview process.. the American system doesn't make
| it easy to get another job.
| logicchop wrote:
| I don't disagree, but I think it's more about establishing a
| good rapport where statements like "let's talk" can be
| informative and not just confusing. If you trust your manager
| and have good communication with them, "let's talk" _should_
| get you worried. Management obviously has a power advantage,
| but good managers that communicate effectively know how to
| become reliable signals, even when they aren 't in a good
| position to divulge more information. In other words, I take
| it that the problem OP raised is not "don't signal that bad
| news is coming" but rather "don't put out confusing signals."
| If you are a manager, and you say to someone "let's talk" and
| they can't figure out how to interpret that - they can't
| figure out whether they are about to be fired or whether you
| simply want to ask them about such-and-such - you have
| already done a bad job at establishing a rapport. A good
| manager, who has established good communication, can use a
| carefully placed vague statement to communicate that
| something unpleasant is coming.
| pydry wrote:
| >I don't disagree, but I think it's more about establishing
| a good rapport where statements like "let's talk" can be
| informative and not just confusing.
|
| Can take years to establish something like that. That isn't
| a luxury most managers have.
|
| Moreover, having enough empathy to understand the power
| imbalance and going out of your way to not be "spooky" when
| you first start working together is partly _how_ a rapport
| like that is built.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| And what, exactly, is the purpose of a manager
| communicating that something unpleasant is coming without
| actually giving context for what that domain is going to
| be?
|
| If you're going to tell me something unpleasant is coming,
| at least give me enough clues to steel myself for news
| about:
|
| - technology problem
|
| - customer problem
|
| - team communication problem
|
| - team performance problem
|
| - personal performance problem
|
| - litigation problem
|
| - etc
|
| Any of those things _still_ might lead to me getting fired
| for any number of reasons, but at least my imagination can
| spin something potentially productive to bring to the
| meeting.
|
| If you say only "let's talk" all the time, it just becomes
| a background anxiety due to being acclimated to it, sure,
| but I don't see how it's productive.
|
| This whole "you need to have anxiety now" makes absolutely
| zero sense to me. The meeting can be for the details that
| you're not prepared to dig into right now, that's fine,
| just give me enough broad context to hang a hat on.
|
| Edit: I guess if there's zero power imbalance, I might be
| fine with just "let's talk," but I still don't see why
| providing zero context results in a better meeting.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Even in intimate personal relationships "we need to talk"
| is frequently assumed to be something bad. You're asking
| for co-workers to have better rapport than a typical
| significant-other relationship, which is just not realistic
| for most working relationships.
| madamelic wrote:
| > The way I see it, if "let's talk when you get a minute" comes
| across as spooky that means you already have a communication
| breakdown and mistrust has already blossomed.
|
| I talked with a former boss about this (in a good way): trust.
| I always think about this when thinking about my relationship
| with an employer: do I trust them to do right by me? Typically
| when the answer is "no", I know it's time to leave.
|
| You need to build and maintain trust in the relationship. It
| doesn't need to be on a friend level but you need to have built
| trust that your boss is watching your back and wants the best
| for you as a person.
|
| Then if a hard discussion needs to occur, even if it doesn't
| end in termination, the discussion can begin at a place of "how
| do _we_ solve this" rather than having to work on an unstable
| and untrusting platform.
| redisman wrote:
| Even if you trust your boss, do you also go for drinks with
| the CFO and CTO on the weekends? Have cookouts with the VP of
| engineering? Join the board meetings where they decide to
| kill your region? In the end a middle manager is just a small
| cog with most everything out of their control. Having a
| decent relationship is as good as it gets but it's hardly a
| safeguard against much of anything
| vlunkr wrote:
| I think I have a really good boss, but at the end of the day,
| it's an imbalanced relationship. He holds my salary in his
| hands, I think some fear is natural.
| ordu wrote:
| _> The way I see it, if "let's talk when you get a minute"
| comes across as spooky that means you already have a
| communication breakdown and mistrust has already blossomed._
|
| Oh... Not necessarily. If I heard this I couldn't resist the
| temptation to guess what the talk would be about. In a work
| environment normally a lot of things happens at the same time,
| so any of these may be the topic of the coming discussion.
| Which one of them? Is this important enough so I should stop
| doing what I'm doing? Or it may wait for some time? For how
| long? An hour? A day? A week?
|
| I cannot talk about everyone, maybe I'm not socially competent
| enough to decide on how long it may wait (could I infer it from
| the tone used by the manager?), so it is easier to me to drop
| my recent work and to start talking right now, then to risk
| showing disrespect or something like this. Or I can go clever
| and to pretend that I'm busy right now, but to show up to the
| talk in a half an hour. Probably doing nothing for half an hour
| because my mind wanders trying to guess what it is about, so I
| cannot concentrate. Such a delay is not very helpful for the
| work done, but it helps to not look super awkward, but shuts
| the question on "how long it may wait".
|
| From the other hand, if I know at least something about the
| coming talk, I can judge (at least vaguely) on how it is
| important, how long it can wait. I can shuffle my priorities in
| a meaningful way without any anxiety that I'm making a mistake
| now.
|
| All this is a description of my _normal_ reaction, but
| sometimes I 'm stressed a lot, or maybe feel myself not totally
| healthy, and then I can be really anxious. Without any rational
| reason.
|
| _> In short, if you think someone might want to know
| something, and they have a reasonable claim on deserving to
| know_
|
| In a short it is easier to give a bit of a context, then to
| simulate the mind of the others to guess what they might want
| to know, and what the reasonable claims they can have. It may
| be just me, but it is hard to simulate properly -- you need to
| know what they know, what they didn't know but you know, to
| shuffle all this to prepare a context to a simulation, then to
| spend some effort on the simulation itself, ... Why to do all
| these difficult tasks, if you can say instead "I wish to talk
| with you about X, because I got bits of information X and Y".
| It would take 0.5-1.5 seconds longer, and no theory of mind
| needed.
|
| There was a psychological experiment, where experimenter came
| to a queue to the copier, and tried different strategies to
| make his copies in a hurry. The key insight is a word
| "because": you can ask people of anything, but you need to give
| them a reason, why your claim should be respected. You can give
| dumb explanations explaining nothing ("please, let me be the
| first to copy, because I need to hurry"), it is nevertheless a
| way better than to give no explanation. The position of
| managers let them to ignore these rules of a common decency
| (they are so much more important for the company, and they can
| make your life a misery, and in any case they find some excuse
| to blame you instead of themselves, like "you must be a team-
| player and to forgive your teammates for a small mistakes they
| made in a hurry"... they have power, so just get over this
| crap), but it doesn't mean that they should do it. Sometimes I
| think, that they do it to remind everyone about their position
| in a pecking order. Not consciously, but the pecking order is
| wired deep inside our brains, it doesn't need consciousness to
| drive our actions.
| Hayarotle wrote:
| Trust alone isn't enough to make a cryptic message not cryptic.
| I can 100% trust someone, but still be scared when they send
| cryptic messages like that. With a cryptic message, you won`t
| be able to predict what they are going to say, and they still
| might have to deliver bad news like "X has been fired", "X has
| passed away", "there was a critical failure in product Y", "our
| department has been having financial problems and we will have
| to layoff you and your team"... Not to mention the asymmetric
| power relationship, which exists regardless of trust.
| redisman wrote:
| If my wife sends me a "we need to talk after work" then I'll
| be scared shitless even if I trust her with my life. Or if my
| mom sends me a calendar invite for a "quick life update". It
| has nothing to do with trust. It's just good communication to
| state what it is you need to talk about.
| umanwizard wrote:
| It's impossible for me not to have any fear of someone whose
| job is (in part) evaluating and criticizing my work and
| determining whether I should be fired.
| logicchop wrote:
| I should clarify: I don't mean that you shouldn't be worried
| when you get the "let's talk" message. What I mean is, it
| shouldn't come across as "spooky"; that is, when they say it,
| it shouldn't leave you with the utterly baffling sensation of
| not knowing whether they are about to tell you something
| utterly horrible or something utterly trivial.
| nosianu wrote:
| And how would that work?
|
| No matter the connection between two people, how close they
| are privately, none of that can fill in the missing
| information.
|
| Even your best friend or even your spouse can have some
| very bad news for you. In the context we are discussion it
| is rare that only one person and exactly the one giving you
| the request will be completely in control over what it's
| about.
|
| The news does not have to originate from them, they are
| just reporting it. So you may have the greatest of
| relationship with that person and you know 100%V they have
| your best interest in mind at all times, but you don't have
| that same connection with the rest of the entire universe
| which can be the real origin of the message you will be
| receiving.
|
| There also is to take into account that humans are much
| more likely to try to delay _bad news_ while good news is
| shared much more easily and quickly. So receiving the
| discussed communication already tends to be used more
| frequently for talks people would rather not have.
| a_e_k wrote:
| To me, even with good trust, the naked "let's talk" or "team
| meeting at X:XX" communications tend to come across like a dead
| canary.
|
| I've had good trust with most of my managers but since they'd
| usually include a few words to indicate what they'd like to
| talk about, then the rare cases where that context is missing
| tends to imply that it's something too sensitive to mention
| over e-mail or chat. That's almost always bad news.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > that means you already have a communication breakdown and
| mistrust has already blossomed
|
| This is too all-or-nothing. It's a business; things can happen
| that are nothing to do with trust. Not everything can be
| avoided by better relationship.
| dennyabraham wrote:
| The problem with that is that we _don 't know_ how another
| person finds our communication. The reason the phrase "let's
| talk" leads to alarm bells is because one side has the self-
| assured feeling that they have good communication and don't
| take the other side's ability to respond into account.
| Moreover, when we initiate a work-related meeting with no
| context, we provide no frame of mind or ability to prepare to
| the other party.
|
| If our request isn't high value enough to provide the other
| person additional context, our request isn't so important it
| can't wait until coincidence or regular schedule allows the
| discussion. We're responding to our own feelings of urgency in
| the moment rather than the planned and understood needs of our
| roles. When we do that, our communication, even if we feel like
| it is healthy and well-built, is only coincidentally so and its
| health is subject to swift erosion.
| tsar_nikolai wrote:
| > The way I see it, if "let's talk when you get a minute" comes
| across as spooky that means you already have a communication
| breakdown and mistrust has already blossomed.
|
| I think this might not necessarily be the case. Judging from
| the frequency the topic is brought up here on HN, a lot of
| highly skilled, well-performing people suffer from impostor
| syndrome or other forms of anxiety in the workplace. A 'spooky'
| message then easily leads to reinforcement of their (skewed)
| negative self-image, without it having anything to do with
| distrust in either direction.
|
| P.S. I do completely agree with both the scenario and
| conclusion you illustrate in the rest of your comment and think
| my supplement of the premise in your first sentence in no way
| changes the validity of said scenario and conclusion.
| williamdclt wrote:
| > you already have a communication breakdown and mistrust has
| already blossomed
|
| Or you haven't had the time and chance to build up
| communication and trust. That takes a long time, it's perfectly
| natural that it would take many months to a few years for
| somebody to feel perfectly safe in their relationship with
| their managers
| logicchop wrote:
| If you are in a new relationship with management and they are
| already hitting you with vague "let's talk" statements, you
| are pretty much guaranteed that they are bad communicators
| and that you won't be able to glean much of anything from
| what they say to you.
| redisman wrote:
| We've also been in a insane bull market for most of many
| peoples careers now. Many fresh managers have never seen bad
| times. It's easy to be a pal when times are good and budgets
| aplenty. From 2008 I remember a distinct overnight shift in
| managements demeanor once they knew what was coming for us
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I feel like most anxiety among people today is due to lack of
| confidence. Confidence isn't just about getting things done in
| time, it's also about willing to accept the outcome of an event
| and run with it. Without it bothering you.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Early in my career I got a Monday morning meeting invite on a
| Friday afternoon just after I left the office. The meeting was
| called "The future of <business unit I was in>"
|
| Entire weekend was a write off. I was so anxious. And yep. They
| shut down the unit (but I got to keep my job).
|
| As a result this is forefront in my mind as a manager. One thing
| that works great is whenever I ask questions about something,
| anything, I also say "this is on my mind because..." and I find
| that both calms people and gets me more useful information.
| Context matters so much.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| From: CEO Subject: An update on Waterluvian
| shoto_io wrote:
| The place I used to work for introduced a general rule:
| whenever upper management would ask a question, they had to add
| the context why they would ask the question.
|
| There were three options
|
| 1. Just out of curiosity
|
| 2. To challenge the team
|
| 3. Because they didn't understand something
|
| This helped a lot to lower anxieties of teams in discussions.
| ssss11 wrote:
| You've just made me think about memories I've surpressed of a
| job I had, where the boss would hold Monday morning meetings
| every week to go around the table and get updates from the
| team.
|
| He took the opportunity to pick on someone different each time
| and rip them to shreds. It was a horrible thing to be part of.
|
| Needless to say my Sunday evenings were a write off during that
| period with the stress of having to go to that the following
| morning (and it potentially bring my turn to receive the wrath)
| Aeolun wrote:
| What could compel someone to want to start their Monday
| morning that way?
| Jolter wrote:
| Some weird behavior at my employer perhaps. We had several
| rounds of layoffs during my tenure and they were always
| announced at an all-hands meeting at 9 AM, announced the same
| morning.
|
| I still get nervous any time there's a meeting called for 9. At
| least they had the good sense to not announce them for the next
| day.
| ljm wrote:
| Thursday, 10am: Company All-Hands. Scheduled at short notice.
|
| First 10 or 15 minutes is beating around the bush about how
| well things have been going, buuuuut....
|
| Another 10 minutes of different leaders explaining how
| difficult the decision was, crocodile tears and all.
|
| Everyone, meanwhile, is waiting for leadership to stop
| wasting time and get to the point. If it wasn't obvious at
| the start, it would be crystal clear now.
|
| Another 5 minutes or so of hand-wringing about how amazing
| everyone is and how hard this was, to complete the bullshit
| sandwich.
| onion2k wrote:
| I "over communicate" pretty much everything. I always give
| context, I provide links to any docs I mention, my meeting
| invites always have a description, agenda and goals, and I
| write more documentation than most devs. This is because I hate
| surprises and mysteries at work. I need to know what's going on
| to do good work, so I make sure no one has any excuse not to
| understand what things are about. I really wish more people put
| the effort in to do it. It makes life so much less stressful.
| 5faulker wrote:
| Too bad that "future" is now a business jargon for crisis.
| xxpor wrote:
| Isn't there an unwritten rule about layoff timing that it's
| always on a Friday? Always do layoffs on Fridays so people have
| time on the weekend to calm down instead of going postal?
| silentsysadmin wrote:
| I'm speculating. Perhaps this practice is common because it
| keeps the books clean on final payouts. Plus it allows the
| employee to finish any projects they're working on during the
| week. Not 100% sure though.
| mszcz wrote:
| > Plus it allows the employee to finish any projects
| they're working on during the week. Not 100% sure though.
|
| I'm not sure I'd count on an employee that's being laid off
| to really put in the effort to finish up his projects ;)
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| That's the point, you don't tell them until Friday.
| chollida1 wrote:
| What difference does a Friday have vs a Monday if the person
| isn't comming back to the office?
|
| Maybe your remembering giving as news on a Friday so it gets
| lost by the media over the weekend?
| telman17 wrote:
| I'd consider it more of a respectful gesture to the person
| being laid off so that they have the weekend to take it all
| in so they're able to start their job search on Monday and
| make the most of the next week, should they be in a
| situation where they need to.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Everywhere I've worked, unless someone was walked out the
| door, it happened early in the week and they were paid to
| the end of the week before their severance package even
| began. If you're going to lose your job, having most of a
| fully paid week to take it in helps soften the landing.
|
| Layoffs on Friday are awful. People have lives. They have
| appointments and kids' soccer practice and grocery
| shopping and such. Now they have to reconcile that
| they're unemployed during those tasks?
|
| I'd call that respectful. Well, as respectful as you can
| be when you lay someone off.
| maneesh wrote:
| It's about not bringing a gun into work and "going postal"
| (named after a situation with a post office employee)
| Jolter wrote:
| Why would that be a more likely situation if you're
| escorted out of the building on a Friday than it would be
| on a Tuesday?
| verve_rat wrote:
| So I'm a little confused. This whole thread implies that
| in the States you get laid off and ushered out of the
| building on the same day? Is that common practice?
|
| I understand that most(?) Of the US is an "at will"
| jurisdiction, but where I'm from all employment contracts
| have a notice period in them. So when employment is
| terminated, by either party, there is a 2-4 week period
| where the employee works out their notice.
|
| Often in the case of lay offs there would be plenty of
| heads up before the official notice period as well.
|
| Only in the most egregious cases of misconduct could an
| employer get away without a notice period.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I think this is indeed common in the US.
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| Getting laid off and shown the door immediately after
| (plus having your access to systems and buildings
| revoked) is very common.
|
| The reason for this is because the HR person drafting
| this policy probably had someone take advantage of the
| window between when someone is told they are laid off and
| when they are actually terminated, and so the policy gets
| made to reduce that liability. It sucks for the 90% of
| people who wouldn't do anything, but that's how it works.
| Imagine getting told you're your laid off, then your
| laptop handed in before you even leave the meeting room,
| then a security guard or HR person escorts you to your
| desk to pack your things in a box before they walk you
| out the building.
|
| Mind you, you'd probably still get some severance bonus
| or keep getting paid for weeks or months, but you just
| wouldn't be expected (or able) to work.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I dunno, as a European that sounds absolutely mental to
| me. How about transfer of knowledge and ownership of
| projects?
| caedex wrote:
| Many years ago I worked at a company that had many rounds
| of RIF (reductions in force). We always did them on
| Friday - people would be called in for their exit
| interview and IT removed their access while it happened.
| We were based in the US but had offices in the UK.
|
| Because of labor laws in the UK, HR did everything they
| could to avoid laying off the UK office staff because the
| process and cost was prohibitive. We kept people in the
| UK office for years just because it would have been a
| pain in the butt to remove them even if they were
| redundant or basically had no tasking.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Many people have weekend off. This includes friends,
| lived ones, family, thus, a layoff on Friday, can mean
| time spend with these people instead of sitting home
| alone on a weekday, mad?
|
| Postal, or just depressed with the news, in may help to
| have higher odds for the comfort of others.
| xxpor wrote:
| Because in a traditional 9-5 M-F office, no one will be
| there Saturday and Sunday.
| LogonType10 wrote:
| I've heard the opposite. You lay off on a Monday so you have
| 5 business days to call recruiters. You give a promotion or
| bonus on a Friday so the employee can celebrate on the
| weekend and won't slack off the rest of the week.
| taeric wrote:
| This feels like the area of advice where you can probably
| concoct a narrative that supports any particular day of the
| week. :D
| thrower123 wrote:
| It's so much fun when you get a jackhole who does this kind of
| thing, and then the big meeting is about something completely
| asinine and inconsequential.
| webtopf wrote:
| It works the other way around too. As a manager, when some of my
| employees sent me messages like: "Can we talk when you have some
| time?" One of my immediate fears was that they are quitting
| because he found another job.
|
| That happened only once, the other 300 times it was just about
| something they were working on and needed more information.
| wbharding wrote:
| I suppose it depends on how many meetings you have?
|
| In our company's culture of few meetings, about 90% of the time
| I received a Slack message "Can we chat when you have a quick
| minute?" it was indeed the employee quitting. Eventually I
| would just respond in Slack to confirm they wanted to quit, so
| we could skip the dog & pony show that is assumed to be
| necessary for a "proper resignation," which I don't think
| employee nor manager enjoys.
| draw_down wrote:
| Sure, but "my manager is gonna fire me, after which I will be
| unemployed" and "my job will get somewhat harder because a
| report is leaving" are two different outcomes to be scared of.
| In one of them the person is unemployed. Also, managers
| typically expect employees to leave at some point.
| bookface wrote:
| I don't take as much issue with this happening the other way
| around. It's a rare opportunity for the information asymmetry
| shoe to be on the other foot.
| mavelikara wrote:
| > I don't take as much issue with this happening the other
| way around.
|
| That seems to imply that your opposition to a person not
| being spooked is not a moral one. Please tell us more about
| it.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Right? I called a meeting to let people know a teammate was off
| because he'd suddenly lost family and was a real mess and
| needed our support, and I didn't feel comfortable putting that
| in emails... And the reaction I got was "I was scared I thought
| you were quitting". They stopped short of saying it was a
| relief, which is good, given the circumstances.
| dharmab wrote:
| Context could be provided with something like "Due to
| unexpected circumstances, Joe is taking leave of absence.
| We'll have a meeting to discuss this and the impact on the
| team."
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| Managers shouldn't send messages like "let's talk", but if
| receiving a message like that scares you, there's probably
| something broader going on (ie the work environment might be
| toxic or lacking in trust).
|
| As an extreme, think of the worst manager or company you worked
| for saying "let's talk" vs the best manager or company you worked
| for saying the same thing.
|
| Honestly, I've worked in places (and with managers) where a
| message like that would scare the crap out of me, and places
| where a message like that would make me really excited, because:
| - I trust that my manager will rarely negatively surprise me.
| - I feel like most news is generally positive (ie positive
| feedback, good opportunity opening up, etc). - I know that
| even if it is going to be negative (ie negative feedback, etc), I
| have room for failing and learning and my manager will generally
| have my back.
|
| So I agree, there's no license to be spooky, but the broader
| context can be as important as the specific context.
| raldi wrote:
| This is the corporate equivalent to "See me after class" and "We
| need to talk."
| kirse wrote:
| It's funny to see so much serious conversation on this. On my
| team we always take the opportunity to roast the "see me after
| class" pair because 99% of the time it's unintentional and
| everyone does it at some point.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Believe it or not, lots of people in the corporate environment
| still behave like grown children, but with much more expensive
| toys.
| milofeynman wrote:
| Thank you for this. I don't like the anxiety I feel when my
| manager does this to me. I always give context when I ask one of
| my ICs if they have a minute to talk, because I empathize with
| that feeling and don't ever want to give it to anyone else.
|
| Go through a startup layoff? It can weigh in you for a few years.
| Are they going to re-org? Did I do something? Is my team going to
| get cut or moved around?
|
| It's also subtle, so it's not obvious when a good manager does
| this right. It's just really obvious when a less-good manager
| does it...
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Messaging people that you want to chat I find inefficient anyway.
| Not everyone checks their messages regularly. Either just call,
| or create a calendar appointment.
| kazinator wrote:
| Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyB_7LdRh6c
| djmips wrote:
| My company and manager is excellent to always add reassurances to
| such requests.
| djmips wrote:
| Which means if they don't. I'll be really worried. But also, I
| don't worry anymore because I'm not afraid of the future.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Good advice. I used to be very careful to be "un-spooky" as a
| manager.
|
| That said, nothing beats a good track record. If I don't have a
| reputation for stabbing people in the back, throwing employees
| under the bus, being rude, inconsiderate, and obnoxious, then
| I'll likely be a lot less scary to my employees.
|
| A lot of folks think that kindness and empathy are interpreted as
| weakness, and, in some cases, this is true, but, in the
| aggregate, it's entirely possible to be quite authoritative,
| respected and obeyed, while also being kind, honest, and
| sympathetic.
| mattbee wrote:
| "Hi."
| bitwize wrote:
| Because of increasing awareness of "spook" as a racial slur, it's
| probably wise not to casually throw around words like "spooky"
| anymore.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Oh come on...you cannot be serious.
| bitwize wrote:
| I don't make the rules: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswit
| ch/2017/10/24/559502238...
|
| Using the word "niggardly" can get you fired because it's
| slur-adjacent. Anyone who uses it in 2021 is looking to give
| offense. As we understand words like "spook" in a new light,
| it becomes prudent to avoid using them as well, lest we be
| seen as deliberately offending people.
|
| It's always important to think about the social effects of
| what you say.
| smegcicle wrote:
| I know you're being sarcastic, but responding anyway.
|
| NPR fortunately also does not make the rules. Refusing to
| use the word 'spooky' because someone might imagine racial
| connotations creates those very connotations, while
| continuing to use it the regular way prevents those
| connotations from creeping in.
|
| Those looking to be offended, especially on behalf of
| others, are ofcourse free to do so, and they are also free
| to be offended at being publicly ridiculed when they
| attempt to use their cultivated sensitivity to redefine
| acceptable discourse.
| dudul wrote:
| So Leah Donnella makes the rules?
|
| I genuinely can't tell if your message is 2nd degree or
| not.
| Zababa wrote:
| > Anyone who uses it in 2021 is looking to give offense.
|
| Most people in the world have no idea of the current state
| of racial tensions/issues in the USA. The majority of
| English speaker in the world don't live in the USA.
| dudul wrote:
| Don't worry, the majority of the USA doesn't give a damn
| either. Twitter loonies are not representative of the
| general population.
| protomyth wrote:
| if "let's talk when you get a minute" is spooky, then you have
| other problems. In a normal environment, that phrase simply means
| "hey, I need some time, nothing urgent just need to talk about
| something". If brings dread to your day, then the job is not
| working out the way it should. You're in a toxic environment and
| need to extract yourself from it.
|
| If your workplace has common toxic symbols (e.g. the HR folks
| bought some pink envelopes), then you need to avoid them in your
| day-to-day unless you are trying to signal an abandon ship to
| your folks.
|
| On a weird sidenote, if you commonly phrase things the same way,
| then don't decide to be different and change for change's sake.
| Consistent and predicable are gifts to anyone you manage. Variety
| is the spice of life, but consistency gets you better service.z
|
| Monitoring language for signalling is the warning flag.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I dislike that phrase because it gives me no context. Does my
| manager want to talk about a specific project? A team change? A
| goal change? An issue? Does he want to chat about a new
| marathon he wants to run?
|
| Give me context. If you want to chat for twenty minutes just to
| catch up, then that's fine but just tell me.
| protomyth wrote:
| So you want every communication with you to have full
| context? Perhaps the manager needs a couple of things and
| wants to be respectful of your schedule. They might not know
| the full extent of the conversation yet. If you work in an
| environment where full context is necessary to combat
| paranoia then there are other problems. If you need to have
| every conversation be formal then don't expect to be the
| first person a manager talks to when they are thinking about
| things.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| That's an obvious strawman. You can include context without
| having to write an essay. If you have a few things to say
| then list those things.
| redisman wrote:
| Let's talk about our sexual harassment policy when you have
| a minute.
|
| See it's not some ungodly burden to add one or two words of
| context
| protomyth wrote:
| Any manager who sends that message is an idiot. They are
| going to have an HR rep with them and tap you on the
| shoulder to go into a conference room. The whole idea of
| an environment that could be that bad is way worse than
| any message you could receive.
|
| Frankly, someone disturbing my flow by adding information
| that I don't need now and making me subconsciously think
| about something new is now respecting my work.
| shannifin wrote:
| I've worked with people who did this on purpose as a sort of
| passive aggressive tactic. I didn't work with them for much
| longer after that.
| dudul wrote:
| "Never message someone on your team, "let's talk when you get a
| minute"."
|
| This advice applies beyond the manager/report relationship.
|
| I always ignore these freaking "hey" or "got a minute?" messages
| on slack. For the life of me, I can't imagine how either dumb or
| disrespectful you have to be to send such a useless message.
|
| Just tell me what the f you want to talk about. If prod is down
| yeah, I definitely have a minute buddy. If you're wondering how
| to organize next quarter's roadmap it can wait until I'm done
| doing whatever I'm in the middle of.
| docflabby wrote:
| 3.30pm untitled meeting on a Friday always means bad news...
| bananamerica wrote:
| Be spooky: people get tense, scared, etc.
|
| Don't be spooky: "how can you drop that BOMB on my lap without
| warning? YOU MONSTER!".
|
| I may be thinking about romantic relationships, though...
| wildrhythms wrote:
| This reminds me of this wonderful NPR segment from last year:
|
| >[...] when it comes to text messaging, the period has lost its
| original purpose because rather needing a symbol to indicate the
| end of a sentence, you can simply hit send on your message. But
| caution is needed, said McCulloch, noting that problems can start
| to arise when you combine a period with a positive sentiment,
| such as "Sure" or "Sounds good." "Now you've got positive words
| and serious punctuation and the clash between them is what
| creates that sense of passive-aggression," said McCulloch.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/09/05/909969004/before-texting-your...
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The dreaded "full stop of hatred", as we call it in my circles.
|
| In digital text-based communication, you have to choose: either
| go all-in with proper style - capital letters, proper
| sentences, correct punctuation - or don't capitalize at all,
| write in single sentences, and never use full stop. In the
| latter case, full stop is equivalent of hitting the desk with
| your fist for emphasis.
|
| Related: don't end sentences with ellipsis, ever. That's (in my
| experience) almost universally read as being disappointed with
| something or someone, and the lack of explicit target usually
| implies the disappointment is with the recipient.
| williamdclt wrote:
| A relative of mine ends _all_ of his whatsapp messages with
| ellipsis, often multiple ellipsises per message. Drives me
| insane, I don't even understand what he's trying to express
| with these. He's also innovating by using the half-ellipsis:
| only 2 full stops rather than 3, which is even more efficient
| to produce confusion.
| neilv wrote:
| One tactic I've seen for when you _do_ have some bad news, is to
| _misrepresent_ it in the meeting request. But that has long-term
| cost.
|
| One day at a past company, I noticed in a videoconf team meeting
| that the CEO and the head of my dept. looked atypically grim.
| After the meeting, dept. head texted for a call with me. I think
| the gist was something like: are you available
| for a call a little later? uh oh. you and bob
| looked unsmiling in the meeting lol nothing bad!
| just want to talk about the project
|
| Then the video call comes a short while later, and he's standing,
| and has an unusually good backdrop (taking the occasion
| seriously). He's leaving the company.
|
| I suppose he saved me an hour of worry before the call, but these
| days we're friends, and if he ever tells me some forthcoming
| meeting isn't bad, I will probably instantly remember that time
| it actually was. :)
| Sebb767 wrote:
| I think when applying this principle most of the time, it just
| makes vague statements more concerning. If you would usually hear
| "let's talk about issue 9 on Monday", hearing "we need to talk"
| just makes it obvious that something bad is about to happen. On
| the other hand, I can see why the manager doesn't state "we will
| need to let you go, let's discuss on Monday!", but this is why
| these vague statements are so scary.
|
| That being said, there's a world of difference between "let's
| talk when you have 5 minutes" (= let's discuss something small
| which isn't worth detailing the context right now) and "come to
| my office on Monday, we need to talk" (= this is important, but I
| don't want to give you context right now).
| metters wrote:
| > deliver constructive but critical feedback as close to the
| "original sin" as possible. Receiving feedback that you did
| poorly weeks after the fact is disconcerting. It can lead the
| recipient to wondering what other things they're doing poorly but
| won't hear about until later.
|
| This is very true. It happened to me some time ago, that I was
| performing very poorly - at least according to my team (I think
| it is at least partially true but there were circumstances)
| Instead of telling me so I have a chance to improve, my boss just
| fired me during my probation time. If I would have known earlier
| they are not happy I would have adapted my work style according
| to their expectations and tried to please them. This way I didn't
| even receive a chance.
|
| Context: I just started a new job and then the first lockdown due
| to corona happened. Nobody was prepared to onboard me properly. I
| was a junior developer, but in hindsight I believe they expected
| a senior developer
| 83457 wrote:
| Yep. I thought I was the only one. I think it is a dominance
| thing.
|
| Also... "did you do that thing we talked about last week".
| jrootabega wrote:
| I think the kind of managers who would follow this advice (i.e.,
| decent humans) would just figure it out the first time they
| scared somebody. Many/most don't give a crap, or can't even
| conceive of their underlings as humans.
| soheil wrote:
| Can confirm also happens in relationships and best to be avoided.
| nuclearnice1 wrote:
| It's good advice for many circumstances.
|
| Do a little 5 whys analysis and ask why in the absence of
| information your employees are moved to terror.
|
| It might be a normal human reaction and an unavoidable power
| asymmetry between labor and management.
|
| On the other hand, if the median expectation is terror, perhaps
| that provides some valuable information about the background
| energy left behind from all your other communications.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| Ime, companies that have an environment of terror-by-default
| generally know, and brand it is "high expectations" or "fast
| paced work environment".
|
| Sometimes they back that up with high pay, and in those cases,
| perhaps it's fair enough. Oftentimes though, it is not.
| bluetomcat wrote:
| Probably because the tasks are badly-defined and management is
| generally uninterested, which leads to a low motivation, which
| in turn instills a constant fear of reprimand.
|
| In an environment where there is constant positive feedback
| from your work, you wouldn't feel as scared from such "spooky"
| messages.
| nuclearnice1 wrote:
| Exactly. If the environment has all the sharp edges of your
| first paragraph, then "send more detailed meeting invites" is
| hardly task one.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| This is good advice to some one who is already aware that they
| terrify their employees -- but many of these scary vague
| messaged come from people who aren't.
| nuclearnice1 wrote:
| True. Self knowledge is the first step to all these self
| improvement plans.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| 1. Why are they afraid of meetings without a stated purpose
| beforehand? Often the reason you wouldn't state a purpose is
| because you would rather do so in person, which usually means
| bad news.
|
| 2. Why does firing cause terror? Bad news could be a firing,
| which can be done at any moment without cause or notice.
|
| 3. Why would that cause terror? They need a job to have money.
|
| 4. ...
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Even in romantic relationships, it's a common trope that "we
| need to talk" is going to be a breakup.
|
| Is it really realistic for working relationships to have a
| level of trust that even most intimate personal relationships
| don't achieve?
| chaircher wrote:
| Once too often I've filled someone in on why we need to talk
| before we actually talk, only for them to use the email to cause
| grief before the actual meeting.
|
| I did also once have a manager who chronically used "we need to
| talk" for every conversation out the usual routine and got
| everyone stressed out for no good reason.
|
| Best thing to do is to not work in ane enviornment where things
| are so toxic to begin with.
| throwaway-blue2 wrote:
| I started work one day to find a message (with no prior context)
| from my manager saying "if you had to choose one other person on
| the team to keep working with, who would it be". I panicked
| thinking there was about to be a slew of redundancies and
| messaged back saying I don't feel comfortable answering that and
| that I was worried why I was be asked. Turns out it was just some
| random thought on her mind and thought I had over reacted. She
| never really seemed to understand it from my perspective.
| Jugurtha wrote:
| This is excellent. I use "When do you have time to talk about
| ways to solve [particular issues, with ticket numbers if
| possible], including [possible initial implementations and
| approaches] and how they impact other parts, including [part 1,
| module 4, service X, etc].
|
| Our product offers real-time collaborative notebooks, and we use
| that feature to create a notebook that contains the agenda for
| what we'll address in a scheduled meeting. Each member writes
| down the issues they think are pressing. Then we get on a call
| and go through the points one by one, and we collaboratively edit
| the document based on the roadmap, customer conversation, etc.
|
| We try to leave as little to interpretation as possible, and when
| someone isn't clear enough, others usually reply with clarifying
| questions. Usually a "What do you mean by X". The person then
| clarifies with a more specific answer, but we evolved to be much
| more systematic.
|
| We strive to be "clear, concise, complete, and correct" in our
| writing, even more so for personal matters precisely to avoid
| people filling the void, and putting effort into what we'll
| actually talk about before the talk. I have addressed that issue
| with the same words and am aware that we fill the void with fear.
|
| By the time we have the chat, the person has already done the
| groundwork and is prepared, and we both use time wisely.
| grumple wrote:
| Yes, thank you. As someone with anxiety / panic disorder, spooky
| things like "we need to talk" at the wrong time can be a trigger.
| That doesn't really happen often for me anymore professionally
| (being a principal engineer, well regarded, hard working,
| competent, with tons of jobs I could jump to), but when I was
| more junior and less financially / personally secure it would
| bother me.
| newsbinator wrote:
| > When you're communicating with your team, lead with context and
| reassurance. Never message someone on your team, "let's talk when
| you get a minute". That's void of information and scary as heck!
|
| This should be engraved on a plaque in every office building.
| sharken wrote:
| Except when layoffs are imminent, then you see the messages
| mentioned in the article.
|
| Another 'spooky' indicator is if your manager texts you with a
| similar urgent message.
|
| But i wholeheartedly agree that spookiness should be confined
| to layoffs.
| labcomputer wrote:
| Amen. I automatically assume that an all-hands meeting (one
| that isn't part of a quarterly schedule, announced months in
| advance) without context is about layoffs and start looking at
| my resume.
| koboll wrote:
| I'd like to be able to follow this advice always, but what
| about when, say, you're scheduling a call with your manager to
| let them know you're leaving the team? Do I lead with context
| by titling the meeting "Discuss my Departure"?
| redisman wrote:
| Don't lead with " I have some bad news". My manager thought I
| was dying or something so in the end I guess they were
| relieved.
|
| Just call them without setting anything up or if you're in
| the office pull them into a immediate quick chat.
| [deleted]
| dharmab wrote:
| When I announced I was leaving to my team, I titled the
| meeting "Future of (project name)"
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| IMO, that sounds super spooky!
| sharken wrote:
| Another way of doing it is on the Daily Standup, when the
| topic moves on to Anything else?
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| I'd usually first communicate that in an email where you
| express your appreciation and briefly explain why you're
| leaving, along with your last day.
|
| Then the manager will usually schedule an exit interview for
| the report (or, if you're at a bad company, fire you on the
| spot).
| thebean11 wrote:
| Eh, when I left my last company I felt it was important to
| deliver the news in person. I had been with my manager 3
| years and an email didn't seem right.
| ljm wrote:
| I did it in a 1:1 call, just... "hey, just letting you
| know I'm gonna hand in my resignation."
|
| Funnily enough my boss had the same idea so we were both
| informing each other that we were leaving, in the same
| conversation.
| version_five wrote:
| Having been both an employer and manager giving and
| hearing "major" news (departure / restructuring, etc as
| is being discussed), I'm torn. On one hand, we are
| conditioned that its important to deliver news in person
| and not hide behind email, and I agree with this - it's
| much more collegial to have a conversation.
|
| On the other hand, I don't react well to having news
| spring on me. My heart can race, I need some time to
| think through it by myself in order to be ready to
| discuss it rationally. I doubt I'm the only IT person in
| this boat. And likewise, if I'm delivering bad news, I
| end up spending more time worried about reactions that
| properly explaining myself. So a note in advance, to
| break the tension, could lead to a more effective
| conversation, vs. surprising someone. I understand there
| could be legal reasons why you'd have to terminate
| someone in person, but outside of that, it's nice to give
| people time to consider what they'd like to discuss
| before pulling them into a discussion.
| xxpor wrote:
| I have seen situations where the person was immediately
| escorted out, but it was for competitive security purposes.
| They still got paid for their 2 weeks. That seems fine, if
| a little paranoid.
| LogonType10 wrote:
| This seems normal for employees with privileged access.
| Give them a two week vacation on their way out.
| Kosirich wrote:
| Amen. My manager scheduling an afternoon meeting with title
| "Very important information to share" without no info and
| sending it early in the morning, means I will barely work and
| will spend the day wondering what it is. 50% is due to my
| anxiety, 50% due to curiosity.
| grantjpowell wrote:
| As silly as it sounds, I use the technique of using of using
| _really_ informal language to avoid spookiness
|
| "Wanna see somthing cool?" "Lets shoot the shit after this"
| "Yo, you wanna hang for a minute at 4"
| [deleted]
| dennyabraham wrote:
| Unfortunately, for people that don't know you, this can be
| spooky to the other person while reassuring yourself. If you
| can be specific and provide context, you can prepare the
| person to engage you much faster and more effectively.
| dylan604 wrote:
| "You'll never guess what happened. Hit me up to find out
| more"
|
| if it works for headlines, why not messages to your co-
| workers?
| goto11 wrote:
| That is just spooky _and_ creepy. If you are in a position
| where you can fire people, they will know it.
| redisman wrote:
| Why can't you just say what the topic is ahead of time? It's
| still not any better, just more bro-y
| munchbunny wrote:
| There's a pretty simple fix for this too: "do you have a moment
| to talk about ____"? And if it's benign, you can just say "I
| want to ask about ____".
|
| These days when you have chat as an alternative to saying it
| out loud with other people around, you can afford to tell
| someone what negative thing is coming: "hey when you have a
| moment let's talk about how you handled _____".
|
| Then they know what's coming. It might be unpleasant, but it's
| not spooky.
|
| And if you have to drop the news without a prior hint,
| regularly scheduled meetings can do that without people having
| their guards up.
| madamelic wrote:
| I always respond with "Yep, have a minute right now" regardless
| of what's happening.
|
| I'm not going to do more work if I am going to get walked out
| so work stops _right now_ to resolve the vaguery, so in the end
| there is a net loss in productivity when the message could've
| been, "Need to chat about <x>, no rush", then we can minimize
| context loss for 2+ people.
|
| Basically the same length but clarified.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I just say "sure, what about?" If I'm curious.
| madamelic wrote:
| Other corollary: Don't say "hey, need something." in an IM.
|
| Just tell me what you need in the first message. It takes
| combined less time for you to continue typing the original
| message than it does to send a message, interrupt me (or multiple
| people!), so I can wait for you to finish typing what you
| actually need.
| [deleted]
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Tons of comments here agreeing that this kind of vague messaging
| is to be avoided (and I'll toss my comment in there as also being
| in agreement).
|
| But....clearly there are people out there who use this kind of
| communicaton, some of them doubtlessly reading this thread. So my
| question is: those who do say vagaries like "let's talk when you
| have a minute* - why? What is your intention?
| [deleted]
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think the best intention version of it is "I need more time
| to have this conversation in nuance, but I don't have that time
| right now."
|
| When IMHO, it's better just to carry secret water as the
| manager in those circumstances, and have the conversation when
| you have time to have it.
|
| The key to avoiding spooky messaging is asking "How is the
| person I'm saying this to going to receive it?" and "What good
| is going to come from their knowing what I'm going to tell
| them, between now and the actual conversation?"
|
| Sometimes it's important! Like "Do it this way ASAP, we'll talk
| about why later." But in the meh version the person cannot do
| anything productive with "We should talk later." And in the
| worse version, they're worrying about it.
| Izkata wrote:
| As someone who isn't a manager but has used similar phrases on
| occasion, it's short for:
|
| * I know I'm interrupting so you don't have to act on this
| immediately.
|
| * I also don't want to be overheard (in my case I didn't want
| the family member I was using it with to share something if
| they were with friends), so the message doesn't let on what the
| conversation will be about.
|
| * Hopefully it won't be a long conversation.
|
| I don't know if I've just gotten lucky or something, but even
| in a work context "let's talk when you have a minute" doesn't
| bother me. It and variations have been used a few times, and
| it's always been neutral or positive - a manager I don't have
| regular conversations with wants an update on something big
| they know I'm working on, my immediate manager wants to tell me
| about an upcoming project and if I can take it on/put aside
| current stuff to do it (and it's urgent enough it can't wait
| until our normal 1-on-1), stuff like that.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > and it's always been neutral or positive - a manager I
| don't have regular conversations with wants an update on
| something big they know I'm working on, my immediate manager
| wants to tell me about an upcoming project and if I can take
| it on/put aside current stuff to do it (and it's urgent
| enough it can't wait until our normal 1-on-1), stuff like
| that.
|
| Yes, it usually is. But the whole point of avoiding phrases
| like this is that the person does not know this beforehand,
| which can put them in a state of uncertainty. It's not at al
| difficult to just say "hey, can I get an update on your
| project" in your example.
| mavelikara wrote:
| Multiple others have commented on this already here, but I will
| chime in.
|
| The intent is to deliver a message in person over a synchronous
| communication. In many cases, dropping a message over Slack,
| text, or email, does not feel fair to the other person. For
| example, "Hey, I need to talk about my departure from the team
| when you have a minute".
| vortico wrote:
| This applies when interacting with children, or any family
| members. My folks send me a text just saying "I have some bad
| news." and I immediately assume that yet another relative has
| passed away. But it's usually some nonsense like "We had to
| reschedule our trip so we'll be back 2 days later than planned."
| mmaunder wrote:
| Great advice and this extends to being a public figure and
| branding. Create a void and others will fill it with whatever
| they like, and that may be negative. Be communicative as a brand
| or individual and you get to choose what the space is filled with
| before others can fill it. And if they choose to express an
| opinion, there is already a well established foundation of
| perception there that they have to compete with.
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