Simple Ways to Be Less Divisive (2021) | Hacker News Reader

Simple Ways to Be Less Divisive (2021)

staysaasy.com

51 points_njuy67 comments

> Miscellaneous: joke less, laugh less, stop gossiping.

I can't tell if the last point is satire or not. I think the other points are great, and do agree with "stop gossiping" on the last point. However, "joke less, and laugh less" seem to be bleeding too much into "killing culture." You should be able to laugh and joke with co-workers. Not anyone's expense, though. Of course there is a time and a place, but the last one (if it's not satire) feels a bit mehhhhh. It doesn't feel like good advice in this context.

(Also, mod note, we may want to get a date added to this post, it's from `17 Jul 2021`)

The subtext of the article is that divisiveness is an independent measure of whether ant individuals feel excluded from your organizational culture.

And given that measure, it’s not wrong: sterilizing and suppressing culture is an effective way to make sure nobody is excluded from it.

The tradeoff, which you’re noticing, and that the article fails to, is that a sterile culture doesn’t have inclusivity either.

It’s just inert.

Some workplaces, especially big enterprises, have no choice but to favor non-divisiveness over some kind of signature culture that bonds some people and leaves others feeling left out.

But that’s not the only way to have a healthy, respectful organization and it’s probably not something that we should want as universal.

So?

Sterilize the job thing, go be colorful with like minded folks away from it.

Doing jobs for someone with more money is one of those things we can’t avoid and it’s been shown over and over we minimize engineering issues when best practices are put first.

Jobs are not there to serve every potential individual preference. You’re paid for results not how validated you feel.

    a sterile culture doesn’t have inclusivity either.
    
    It's just inert.

This is what we in the business like to call a "divide by zero error". As the denominator approaches zero, so does the meaning of the ratio.

I joke with my friends. I know their sense of humor. They know mine. Maybe I understand my team's sense of humor. I doubt it. I wouldn't count most of my co-workers among my friends. You also don't always know at who's expense or how expensive a joke may come, whether this is about football teams, geographic areas, hair (or lack thereof), etc. You also don't know if you tell a joke in an email in line with work related stuff whether or not that email gets forwards a bunch of times, might eventually find its way to someone you don't know who doesn't get the joke.

One of my biggest rules of humor is to know your audience. It's easy to know your audience in a comedy club or at a dinner table surrounded by friends. In most cases, you don't know your audience at work.

Indeed: group settings vs one on one, for example. Empathy and connection can make boundaries clear in the latter where the former is a soup of uncharted waters and mixed signals. Group settings require those air traffic controllers flashlights for proper signaling of intent.

I agree. Joking less should be defined as only make jokes that everyone can appreciate. They don't have to think it is funny, but they should not be at anyone's expense.

I have AB tested this previously, and what the article is saying, does ring true to a some extent. I am known to be the joker, the glue of the team that just rallies as we go through harder problems or things we just don't want to do as a team. One day, just to test, for a whole month, I put on a serious facade. People did question if I was okay but in the end they adjusted and so did their treatment towards me. When I spoke they listened intently, when I disagreed the content of it was echoed by my team, I just somehow carry more weight.

I switched back and the treatment then went back to "normal". It's hard for me to joke less and laugh less because it is naturally who I am. I would love to hear other people's experiences, has laugh/joke less helped you?

> It's hard for me to joke less and laugh less because it is naturally who I am. I would love to hear other people's experiences, has laugh/joke less helped you?

I try to bring a more complete version of myself into my work. I treat my coworkers and clients as peers that I'm collaborating with towards common professional goals and embrace an honest, informal air that includes humor, cynicism, sympathy, excitement and whatever else gets stirred.

I do this knowing that not everyone approaches their work this way, and not expecting them to.

What shakes out is that I tend to leave an impression on the clients and coworkers I collaborate with and that I accumulate tighter and longer-lasting relationships with those whose impression is positive.

A few decades into my career, this means that even while I work as an independent consultant, my collaborators often feel like a family where there's a lot of respect, trust, wholeness, and acceptance. I'm not forgotten and -- because I also do good work -- I can usually find it when I need it. It's worked out well.

But I also harbor no illusion that there aren't people who I've rubbed the wrong way and who would prefer a more compartmentalized work environment or who just weren't into my vibe. I don't blame them, and I don't sweat it.

I also don't know that my approach would have flown had I gone down the megacorp route. That's fine by me too.

I have nearly the same experience, but because I moved to a new company/job I had to make my change permanent. My jokes were getting in the way of being productive and so I started to bite by tongue when I think of something funny.

Now I save my humor for times where productivity is not an issue, nor is decision making or in the presence of others making decisions or being productive. This is the nice balance I have found. (it's been better for me at work in every way to make this conscious decision on a regular basis, still not easy, but worth it)

It's called acting like a professional. Nobody actually likes the class clown because he's using humor to mask the fact that he's an asshole. Don't be the class clown.

Precisely that. It's a workplace where people work with a purpose, not a popularity contest. A similar sentiment is expressed in ch. 4 of St Benetict's Rule.

I agree that joking, and laughing at certain jokes, are by their nature divisive. It's feasible to get a room full of people to agree on a feature spec, but it's not really feasible to get a room full of people to agree that a particular joke is funny.

I don't agree that "joke less, laugh less" is good advice. There are things in life more important that minimizing divisiveness at all times.

I found the "type" of joke made all the difference. "A man walks into a bar..." or "Three engineers went to a party..." type of jokes often shut down the natural flow of conversation and focused attention on an individual.

But, when someone tells a "funny story" like "Last night one of my kids did..." or "Did anyone else notice that crazy thing the other day?" then everyone is involved and easily invited to adding to the conversation even if what they say is not a joke or funny.

Or even a spontaneous but appropriate response that was funny and shows wit in both the telling and comprehension making all parties feel good. There is risk, with all spontaneous social acts, I might add, but you may reap dividends in trust and camaraderie.

I see it as a workplace version of a lot of the underpinnings of Strunk & White's Elements of Style:

Strive for clarity and unambiguity.

Jokes are by definition, the opposite of this. The humor of many jokes is found in the ambiguities of language and circumstance.

Humor, and the feeling of where it is appropriate, can be highly subjective. It therefore does have the potential of being divisive. For example, not everyone likes being jokey all the time, or may feel that it detracts when important work is being discussed. I guess in the author’s experience and assessment there’s more often too much than too little.

I wonder about the industrial context, as well. Defense or medical vs advertising

I've been asked before in an interview "Don't take this the wrong way, but do you have a problem with people ... taking you seriously?". For a bit of context it was a spammer company that had gone legit and it was email marketing and I didn't take the interview seriously but it was a friend of a friend reference and I was curious. I laughed out loud and said "I would not say I personally have a problem with it."

The interview lasted for another couple hours and I got to know both of the guys really well. I moved on to another job before they put together an offer but I got to be good friends with both of those guys. I still don't have a problem with people taking me seriously. But also, some people do, some people don't.

A lot of this guys advice seems fairly useful. The "laugh less, joke less" thing is just nonsense. Fuck that, I'm on this planet to laugh. I don't want to make people uncomfortable and I do my best to not be inappropriate at work... but that's just stupid advice for miserable people to be more miserable.

> If you agree with an idea X that Bob said, say “I agree with the idea X”, don’t say “I agree with Bob”. The former states your advocacy; the latter is dividing the group into teams.

Not sure I agree with this one. The problem with the former framing is that Bob might perceive it as failing to credit him for his idea (or even taking credit for it).

That was my first reaction too, but on reflection I think the cases are distinguishable. I do say the words "I agree with <Bob>" in meetings, but only when I am acknowledging (and thereby unintentionally endorsing) that there's a difference of opinion. Usually the subject of the difference is already on the table and doesn't need to be spelled out.

By contrast, when I am crediting an idea it's because I had to reintroduce it when it seems to have been dropped; it's not the current subject of discussion. So I say something like "I liked <Bob>'s idea from earlier, to <frobnicate all the bangwoozles with imaginary polarity>".

Agreed. It's completely dependant on context. Give credit where credit is due. One of my reports had a great idea a few weeks ago and I had him implement it on his own. Knocked it out of the park. When speaking with him I refer to it as "his" improvement. It fires him up that it's his.

People need to be able to take credit for things. If they can't, they can feel like they are just a cog and what they do doesn't matter.

> Write down what you’re saying, while you’re saying it

uh, what? That's a great way to ensure that I do a poor job of both speaking and writing.

This one seems highly specific. Some people might find it beneficial, but I'm not sure who.

Also may be limiting for some people to participate due to their ability to multitask or type quickly (possibly due to a disability).

Kind of ironic that the author has elicited a divided response with the "joke less, laugh less" part of the post.

> Miscellaneous: joke less, laugh less, stop gossiping.

Ah, so not "Simple Ways to Be Less Divisive" but "Simple Ways to Be Less Divisive in a Business Environment Particular to the First Quarter of the 20th Century."

Additional bullet:

* don't talk about unions-- it will create an instant divide between you and management

The divide already exists. Talking about a union is just verbalizing your recognition of it.

> The divide already exists. Talking about a union is just verbalizing your recognition of it.

This divide only exists in somewhat dysfunctional workplaces. In most roles, I have not felt this division. A good manager is an ally and someone who gets your back.

> “Can I confirm that March should be the launch date?”, > don’t say “I assume we’re all aligned that March should be the launch date”.

...only if you really aren't sure. I would actually say something like "We're planning to launch in March unless there are reasons not to."

If someone has a really great reason, they'll speak up. Getting "confirmation" from a group that may be indifferent can sometimes be even worse. How many people in the group aught to "confirm" before we move forward? What if one extremely uninformed person loudly confirms? Then a person with a real issue may feel like they don't want to stir things up by disagreeing.

Tangentially related: This is why you should say "If you can't see my screen, please let me know." when you start sharing your screen on zoom rather than "Can you see my screen?" Who on Earth aught to answer that in a large meeting?

Assuming a "yes" and allowing for the "nos" to speak up is much more successful in general I think.

I find it interesting that getting technical work done is basically just antithetical to getting marketing and sales work done.

In marketing, sales, and even management the goal seems to be to restructure the status of a project look good in a somewhat exaggerative way while also mitigating any fatal issues the client does see where as in technical work your goal should be to have simple, clear, honesty and a healthy dose of distrust not for people but for systems and their ability to not fail.

Watching them talk at an office party is like watching two people talk who live in different countries and speak different languages.

The HN guidelines have a good one too: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

You know, what is even less divisive than no jokes? No communications at all.

Humor not only has very important social functions, but I can tell you that literally every team that is in a tough spot and needs to pull through will rely on humor to keep motivation at some point.

The important distinction I'd like to stress though is that joking together is something different than joking about someone.

> Miscellaneous: joke less, laugh less

why did the language police cross the road?

To get to the other divide.

that's not funny!

The author of the article betrays his lack of understanding and commitment when he uses the term “divisiveness” in the title.

Divisiveness is a term people use to dismiss the value of conflicts that happen to bore them. These conflicts might be quite important to an organization. We may need to settle things. Avoiding those conflicts means less overt divisiveness but more covert sickness and weakness.

I gossip, because gossip is important to the health of any society. I support people, not just ideas, because our companies are not driven by algorithms and data. They never are. They are driven by human motivations and loyalty patterns.

Ironic jokes are dangerous, especially in a professional setting.

If the words you are saying are not literally true, you're increasing the chances of misunderstanding, and it will happen more often than you think.

It says a lot about where we are as a culture that we're here having even a semi-serious debate about whether or not it's good to make jokes. What a bunch of joyless puritans we've become :(

> Miscellaneous: joke less, laugh less

Over my dead body.

My initial thought was that I didn't like that prescription. But I'd like to know _why_ the author thinks "joke less, laugh less" would help with divisiveness.

Humor isn’t universal.

Had a coworker who would routinely make jokes assuming alignment with his own extremist political preferences and it was uncomfortable like whoa.

dad joke time.

If you can't tell a joke without insulting someone, the fault isn't with humor, it's with you.

It’s not just about insults.

If you come into a tight culture of people who will riff all day on harmless puns, or crack references to old Jersey Shore dramas, or whatever, it can be acutely alienating.

I wouldn’t personally want to work in a place so sterile, but I also feel confident in my ability to float around and either find a lively culture that suits me or work my way into a culture that once felt alienating.

But not everybody feels so confident in that, and sterile results-focused work communities get the opportunity to have these people thrive.

That sounds good for those people and for those organizations.

As long as the whole job market isn’t made to look that way, I’m not sure there’s a big critique to make.

> a tight culture of people . . . can be acutely alienating

Exactly. And people are saying "don't rob us of our culture." That ain't woke.

I think that most people can't - and that'd make avoiding jokes a good rule for the majority to follow.

Disagree. Insult everyone approximately equally is a much more tractable goal and delivers far better results.

There's a line to be walked but it's not hard, it just takes practice.

Or you could spend your energy doing your job rather than figuring out which jokes are safe.

[Tells joke about Bob] [No laughter] [Bob is on the conference call]

[Tells political joke] [Others think you're stupid but don't say anything]

In that case, I don't think the idea of joking was the problem so much as shoving politics into the workplace.

The problem is that what you think is funny may be uncomfortable to a other people, and for some reason, it's always the funny guy who thinks that the onus is on everyone else to shift their behavior to accommodate his comfort.

It gets worse when half the team is laughing, and the other half are praying for you to be struck dumb already.

Man it just sounds like such a miserable drone workplace to have no one laughing.

Giving up on laughter seems a "baby with the bathwater" approach to inclusiveness. I suppose being miserable is rather inclusive though :/

It's really not that hard to keep your forms of merriment clean and appropriate, if you are a generally good-natured person that likes who you work with and wants to make them laugh.

That said, there are certainly people that can only perform humor as a zero-sum game. But in my experience they are also generally the kind of people that subject their coworkers to uncomfortable conversations in a myriad of other ways.

Or not being able to pivot when your jokes aren't well received.

I've been able to laugh and joke around with people I work with from all over the globe (literally), its one of the most valuable tools I have found to create a sense of ease of friendliness in the workplace. Self deprecating humor is also a great way to show that you don't take yourself to serious and to ease tensions when divisiveness may arise. I think the better suggestion is to not talk about politics and don't gossip.

Since it's included with "gossip" I assume it's to avoid insulting people (intentionally or accidentally), but suggesting that humor is off limits entirely is an outrageous over-correction.

Ironically I think the author has included an incredibly divisive opinion in a post about being less divisive, and has therefore dissolved any authority on the matter.

It didn't suggest any such thing though. It said joke and laugh less. It didn't forbid them.

Humor that doesn't offend can be hard to pull off. If you crack jokes regularly, odds are high some of them will be offensive.

Most people are quick to assume you are laughing at them, not with them. So if you are laughing a lot at work, odds are good someone will take that as mocking, as disrespect, as you not being adequately serious about the job.

If you are careful with humor, you can do good things with it. People who joke habitually are probably not being careful with it.

Sounds like maybe you need some new coworkers because where I work we laugh and joke around all the time and nobody ever gets offended (or offers offense).

I'm not the author, but I was in a Teams chat with my manager and another guy (that we needed help from). The other says something, my manager posts a huge frowny face with no context and the other guy kinda disengaged from the conversation. Privately, I reached out to both. I told my manager their reaction was harsh. My manager said "I was joking, they knew I was joking". The other guy said "I worked hard on that, the negative reaction was completely unwarranted." In the end, I was able to smooth things over, but I wonder if we could've finished up sooner or if my manager cashed in a little too much good will because of a dumb emoji.

I guess the point is, it's not always clear what is a joke (or by extension, what, or who, is being laughed at).

Most jokes build on shared context, therefore jokes are inherently exclusionary and discriminatory by excluding people without the shared context. Avoiding most humor is thus a good idea.

It seems like the advice is more like "Be the cog you are".

But I'd like to know _why_ the author thinks "joke less, laugh less" would help with divisiveness.

If avoiding "divisiveness" needs killing jokes and laugh, welcome divisiveness, whatever it is.

In my mind, I translate "divisive" as "doesn't think like I do" so it makes total sense to like it.

doesn't 'divisive' generally mean to divide, as in separate into opposing factions? What you're describing seems more like 'diversity', which is pretty different I think.

It's Newspeak.

This particular manipulation of language consists in the confusion of cause and effect.

Diversity of opinions exists. It's good and it's accepted to be good, even if it makes feel some people bad sometimes. Freedom of speech requires effort to accept we're different. To make it sound bad, you need to create a frame where everybody agrees on everything until some evil "divisive" person creates division.

That's false.

Slightly off-topic: any general opinions about this blog? Some very interesting stuff IMO

In today’s attention economy, being less divisive is how you stay behind.

Have strong opinions, stick to them, and say them out loud. That’s how your stand out and have influence.

The attention economy is a lie unless you are a celebrity or a politician.

Not even all celebrities, Djokovic created a lot of drama with his vaccine hesitancy, sticked to his opinion and stated it out loud.

Result: He couldn't participate to a tournament he'd have almost certanely won, lost sponsorship money and engaged in a behavior which is frowned upon in a wealthy circle such as tennis clubs all over the world.

Everybody wants to be Donald Trump, Kanye West or Enron Musk but the world can only absorb a certain amount of such juvinile characters, it's only them who get to monetize their divisiveness. But they do so in such a loud manner (like everything they do) that people think there is this immense payoff for being divisive.

Being a unifer works much better up until the very end of the tail end.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com