Comment by DamnInteresting | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DamnInteresting | Hacker News Reader

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DamnInteresting

In professional settings, when it comes to these kinds of awkward topics, I have found a method that has served me very well:

A. Meet with the person who is applying the unwanted pressure (it works best one-on-one, so if more than one person is pressuring, you may need to figure out who is best to speak to).

B. Frame your concern as asking for advice. For example, "I'm struggling with how to handle this on-call thing. Work-life balance is EXTREMELY important to me, but I love my job, and I don't know how to set that boundary without upsetting management. What would you do?"

In my experience, this approach makes the listener very sympathetic and pragmatic, and they advise you to do what you already want to do (and subsequently stop pressuring you to change). I think this is because people like being asked for this sort of help, and when they enter "advice mode" they take a step back and look at the situation from an impartial distance.

YMMV, IANAL, etc., but it's served this awkward introvert quite well.

This approach was coined as "forced empathy"[0] by Chris Voss, author of the book on negotiating Never Split the Difference[1]. I would highly recommend reading it. Blackswan LTD is the consulting group he made based on his experiences, also mentioned in the book.

[0] https://blog.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/the-1-tactic-for-nego...

[1] https://info.blackswanltd.com/never-split-the-difference

This approach really depends on the manager. A manager who has a habit of bullying people will have no issues laying on more pressure/guilt/whatever... in this situation.

Personally, if I feel as though a manager has expected me to do something outside my contract, I just don’t even give it any thought. That’s their problem. If they bring it up I just tell them no in a rather blunt way.

I’ve worked with plenty of bully managers, but have myself never really been bullied by any of them. I’ve watched all of them bully my less assertive colleagues though.

As an introvert, what I like about this approach is that it does not close any doors, it just opens a discussion. Ofttimes that discussion is rapidly helpful. When it is not—when the manager is a bully, or oblivious—I still have the option to be more blunt. It's a diplomatic first foray into tricky topics.

Whatever works for you is great. I’d just suggest you be careful that you don’t first establish yourself as somebody who will tolerate bullying. Once you’ve laid the groundwork for that, undoing it can be much harder than just avoiding it in the first place.

This requires the other person to see the need for the work-life balance. Some people genuinely don't. For some work is always the priority.

I see you've met my CTO.

Thanks for sharing it, this is a very interesting approach.

Thanks. It is really good advice. Seems like dropping little bit of ego, gives lot back.

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