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Comment by r_hoods_ghost | Hacker News Reader

I do this all the time and have done with every boss I've had over the past 25 years. None have ever objected. The phrase I use with my current CEO is "I'm not sure what you're asking for, can you clarify?" With my line manager this is shortened to "huh?" But then again I don't work for Americans who seem to be much more into hierarchy in the workplace and not asking questions.

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> I don't work for Americans who seem to be much more into hierarchy in the workplace and not asking questions.

In my experience, this is not true at all. But, as you say you don't have direct experience to come to this conclusion, may I ask what makes you think this?

Not OP but I have that experience. Europeans have been much more open.

My personal theory is that it's connected to job security and how big personal problem it is to lose your job in a layoff. If you get laid off in Europe, your health insurance is paid from public budget now and you get several months salary from your employer. If you worked for a big name, it may be six months or more. If it was a small startup, you get at least two months.

Our US colleagues always made more money but also were more afraid of losing their jobs. All of that said from the IT perspective. I'm sure being a coal miner and getting laid off is much worse.

Americans being into hierarchy is a bizarre opinion. Are you confusing it with asian countries?

A lot of Americans, particularly the more traditional minded, really are into hierarchy.

They’re probably confusing hierarchy with our obsession with middle managers who fear it being discovered that they don’t actually do anything.

The only time I have ever been “ordered” to do something was for an American middle manager (not in my line) in an American company. “Haha get fucked” wasn’t the answer he was expecting, but my non American manager told him the same thing when he went to demand I’d get fired.

I mean, that'd probably get you fired even in a country that really does allow for a lot of informality with your bosses (e.g. Australia).

I think Anglo-Saxon countries are all pretty much the same in that respect.

No fan of Suella Braverman, but she got fired not because of what she said, but because she publicly went against hierarchy, which seems to be a terrible offense. Which in the UK it probably is.

Where i’m from, if your manager literally states “you are ordered to do xyz” that manager will be fired. It’s not the fucking military.

Were your quotation marks meant to indicate that was the literal language used? I interpreted it in the opposite way (as scare quotes), but would agree extremely authoritarian orders will produce interesting and counterproductive reactions.

JFYI, scare quotes are also indicating the it is "the literal language used". The quotes are added to say that you are quoting literally what other people/the culture uses, but that you disagree with how that term/phrase is used.

I'm aware, but what I meant is the ironic usage - you can use scare quotes in an ironic way (i.e. you may be quoting someone or an expression or idiom but we do not know it is the boss being quoted verbatim).

Being American and having worked in American companies we absolutely are. Not as much as Asian countries, but much more than European countries.

It's not as bizarre as you might think. The United States is not a monoculture, different parts of the country are more hierarchical than others.

Same experience here. See my reply to the sibling comment.

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