Hacker News Reader

Comment by dvtrn | Hacker News Reader

Kill em with kindness.

“Thanks for letting me know how you feel about this, I consider this a valuable opinion and think deeply on it”.

Then go ahead and do whatever you were going to do anyway, but at least let them know you’ve heard and acknowledged what they had to say. Sometimes folks just want to be acknowledged, that doesn’t seem like too much of a burden.

View on HN

I this this is a good approach that I've used before.

I think it starts to crumble when people start to demand you to do stuff like posting on your social media or showing them donation receipts.

It’ll crumble if you allow them to continue pushing the matter and imposing upon you, enforce your personal boundaries and if they continue intruding, probably HR time or at least sidebar with your manager. Good luck in your new job otherwise!

I think the unfortunate reality is that some people are intolerant of others who are insufficiently supportive of certain causes, and the only way to deal with those people is not to deal with them. The subject of this thread seems to be one of those people.

I think the unfortunate reality is that this isn't about individual people expecting support for certain causes. What you're looking at is fundamentally a social phenomenon - a belief that's been spreading from person to person and community to community that every person in the social group must support the correct causes in the correct ways, that anyone who doesn't go along with this is actively going against the cause and must be shamed and shunned until they do. It's the social spread via peer pressure that gives this its power. This isn't a new thing, it's been spreading amongst the tech community and elsewhere for probably well over a decade at this point.

I agree that this type of toxic peer-pressure is spreading, and I have no idea what to do about it. It reminds me of what Louis Fischer and Arthur Koestler described in their respective essays in "The God That Failed".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_that_Failed

I would go even further and say s/tech/human/ and s/well over a decade/millenia/ :-)

Not necessarily insufficiently supportive, but insufficiently supportive in public mediums.

Why not just ignore them?

I have found that having a serial killer resting face precludes me from these type of workplace bullies (only kinda joking).

But do you actually acknowledge them? I think this is fine if you're taking it to heart and actually internalizing the discussion a bit. Otherwise, it's disingenuous.

Edit: this is very basic EQ and active listening, not sure why it's controversial to have good social skills.

If you want genuine don't ask people questions where the answer can give them negative backlash at work.

Getting upset when someone wont be truthful on things with you on touchy subjects at work is like being upset when someone wont be truthful with you on touchy subjects when you're pointing a gun at them.

Acknowleding someone’s opinions and feelings can be as simple as being quiet, letting them speak, giving them room to express themselves without interruption, objection objection or reprisal. You don’t need to automatically alter your course of action just to merely recognize and acknowledge something someone’s said, sometimes just shutting up and being deferential is enough.

“Thank you for your opinion but I’m going another way” is no more of a failure than establishing any other decent and respectable boundaries between peoples.

Manners maketh the man (or woman, or however an individual chooses to self-identify).

OK, I think I'm getting this a bit more. I believe this is a healthy way to think about these topics. I just wasn't sure if you were encouraging people to participate in active listening or passive-aggressiveness. It's clear you're focused on the former which I find commendable.

I encourage seeking clarity and being secure in one's own emotional intelligence to ask questions when things are ambiguous, so I appreciate your asking. Happy to have helped find a mutual understanding. Sorry your comments were so negatively reacted to here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com