Comment by Snargorf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Snargorf | Hacker News Reader

It's not just tantrums. It's a huge variety of status-reinforcing behaviours which symbolically or actually make the lower-status person uncomfortable in favour of the higher-status person.

Even something like having an entrepreneur stand and present in front of a group of seated money men. They sit in judgement of him, they are comfy and he stands, they relax and he works and struggles to please them.

Or, when bosses make weird symbolic work demands that don't actually make sense. Sometimes there's the idea that they're just looking out for the product and are wrong about something, but there's also often an element of 'I sense some disturbance in the status hierarchy so I'm going to make you do this task we both know is useless just because I say so to remind you that I can'.

Or 'I'm going to be unreasonable to demonstrate that I can'.

Or 'I'm not going to give this question the think-time it really needs; to demonstrate my superior value I'll save myself five minutes while costing you two days to remind everyone that I'm above you'.

A lot of this is subconscious. The people with the power don't always do it intentionally, thinking "I'm going to signal status today." It's just what feels good and intuitive to them, so they execute these status-signalling behaviours without conscious intent.

Which is why people like myself who are honest and oblivious to social signals upset so many managers/etc. We'll honestly and fervently correct your misconceptions without so much as an eye blink. This confers its own sort of status with the rest of the rank-and-file, but doesn't win you any favors come review time. It does make the manager look like an idiot for trying to force you to do something obviously stupid though, which is its own sort of bonus.

Commendable and worth remembering the next time it happens to you. But do remember... Sadly this can backfire. Repeatedly doing this can get you fired, suspended, grounded, or suffering whatever other punitive action the "superior" is capable of metering out.

What if it is unintended e.g. autism spectrum?

Then you are probably under special protection by law. For your the pointy-haired boss it means he has to use more subtle methods, e.g. a performance review, to get you out of the door.

I agree 100%. It has backfired on me several times in life, but it has also been a good thing in my career in organizations which respect it. I find the response to honesty is most measured by the quality of the leaders in your organization. Good leaders crave honest feedback, because its impossible to correctly judge your leadership decisions based on the advice of sycophants.

As an example, in one big company I worked at, I was very far down the totem-pole, but in a senior technical role. I had, however, firmly established my reputation for honesty (sometimes brutal honesty) and integrity. While some of the managers a few steps above me did not care for me because of this, my direct supervisor respected it, and I was meeting for lunch weekly with the SVP of our business unit to answer any questions he had about the internals of the product and give him "straight answers" about things he had asked about. Sure, in some ways, I was probably backstabbing the guys above me, but only because they were lying to the SVP constantly and that impacted his ability to make good decisions.

Honesty is pretty much always the best policy, no matter who asks. It won't always win you favors, but at least no matter the outcome you can be assured of your own personal integrity. Being dishonest when it seems advantageous may prevent some heartache, but it won't prevent all heartache, and you'll end up seeing yourself as a bad person in the end and have a troubled conscience (unless of course you're a psychopath).

This is why there middle managers, project leads, senior developers over those employees. Their job is to frame the misconceptions into something which appears more acceptable to employees who wouldn't toe the line if they were being directly managed.

> Even something like having an entrepreneur stand and present in front of a group of seated money men. They sit in judgement of him, they are comfy and he stands, they relax and he works and struggles to please them.

This is a stretch. The same physical arrangement happens when undergrads see a Nobel Prize winner speak.

> The same physical arrangement happens when undergrads see a Nobel Prize winner speak.

Undergrads are the paying customers in you example, so they are in charge and the Nobel Prize winner is delivering a service they have paid for and his is expected to satisfy his customers! Yeah, in the bigger overall picture of life and things he's above them, but in that particular situation he's their bitch...

At least this is how I always viewed my teachers, even having benefited from free higher education (and the teachers were way richer than me): they were there to satisfy my needs (for knowledge), just as the McDonals' worker was there to satisfy my need (for a burger).

Well that's, quite frankly, a delusional worldview.

The same physical seating arrangement can express more than one social dynamic.

The undergrads won't be judging the Nobel Prize winner or asking him/her to justify their work. The prize winner will not be sweating or struggling. The flow of status goes in the other direction - the undergrads are supposed to be grateful that the great prize winner has agreed to spend some time with them.

Entrepreneur and money men conversations could just as easily happen with everyone sitting on sofas. The adversarial panel approach is intended to be challenging and adversarial - which is only possible if those who are doing the challenging have higher status and feel a need to display it.

There's a case to be made for the suggestion that the primary product of the entire global economy is status signalling. Physical and intellectual invention is a useful byproduct, but most things in most corporations and markets seem to happen because one primate subgroup wants to impress, seduce, or intimidate some other primate subgroup.

Of course. My point was that the seating arrangement is not the relevant part of the setting.

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