Oh Star Trek played a vital role in both our formative years? That’s nice, but let’s get back to solving the matter at hand.
That said, there are some times that even Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans can actually get along.
I'm bistellar: I love both Star Trek AND Star Wars!
I like holodeck episodes, as long as they're not overdone. I have no strong feelings about Gowron, seems like a canonical distillation of a Klingon. Maybe we won't get along.
> I'm bistellar: I love both Star Trek AND Star Wars!
Me too! Can we get along now?
If you disagree with this I hope you get pipd /s
In The Pale Moonlight is the maximum scenery-chewing by Avery Brooks I can take.
(AKA "Hard Time", S4E19)
...Did you know Battlestar Galactica was based on the Book of Mormon?
I also love Dark Star! But it is time for Sgt. Pinback to feed the alien.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESQK98HbKBY
Some people hustle pool. Some people hustle cars. But have you ever heard about the man who hustles stars? Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkJheh1XcAQ
Due to unfortunate confusions by the cosmos and misunderstandings by the search engines at the outset of the internet era, he had to make a trans-steller switch to Star Gazer!
People and worldviews are totally inconsistent, even when two people watched the exact same thing religiously and can quote it back to you in context.
That it was made by immoral or amoral people is secondary to that usefulness.
The way to get things done with difficult people is:
1. Work out (for yourself) what you really want*
2. Work out (for yourself) what they really want*
3. Accept that they want that
4. Work maturely and fairly within that context.
No cookie cutter management fluff is going to get you anywhere useful with intelligent people.
* Usually people want their situation to either be more rewarding (read: recognition or control) or less taxing.
Edit: Acknowledging this here, because it does apply to this comment:
5. Draw the rest of the owl
They want, more than anything, approval and recognition - to an embarrassing extent.
It's not fun and I'd have it almost any other way given the choice, but we've achieved a lot despite that and observers so far have been astute enough to see things for what they are.
bollocks. intelligent people are just as susceptible to advertising, charisma, good looks, "presence", flattery, threats, and other manipulation as anyone. The bar may be a little higher, but everyone has intrinsic biases regardless of IQ, and it's not hard to flesh those out through interactions, then pander to them.
These are all part and parcel of the management toolkit and if you don't think they are then chances are they're working on you right now. "Advertising works, even when you know how advertising works".
Intelligent wasn't some nod to the learned class or a differentiator, I meant it in a very general and generous way.
People quickly see through things like, "I understand that you feel that way, and I'll definitely take your comments on board.
Moving forward let's see how we can collaborate in a manner in which we can all feel heard and empowered."
Or rote-learned manufactured smalltalk.
It's not an argument against generally finding things in common with people either, of course, just a recommendation to avoid the scripted stuff and get to the meat of it sooner.
I do think that a lot of management advice would suffer from a replication crisis if it had a strong enough base for that to be coherent.
Again, It's half your life in your most active years so Idk how I'd tolerate a lonely workplace in top of an increasingly lonely world. Does everyone just suffice using online dating and posting here for other socialization?
> There's no reason to feel like this is a negative thing.
disagree or not, I already gave my POV. you spend half your waking hours of the best years of your life there, I want to try and at least be open to the idea of people who hopefully are passionate in the same kind of work as me would have something to connect over.
But hey, if you have friends in town or are fine focusing on family, that's fine.
>I can certainly get all my friendship needs met outside of work and love from my family at home. The only time I'd be desperate to make friends at work is if I'm single in a new city with no attachments to anyone around me.
welcome to most college grads that don't all go work at a FAANG together after college. First job sucked but met some great friends, still talk to this day. Didn't force myself at all; some people asked to go out to lunch and I was simply willing enough to go out instead of keep my head at my desk. Some meshed well, some not so much.
2nd job was amazing from a career perspective, but I clearly wasn't going to closely bond with everyone else being 15+ years older than me with kids/family as a single 26YO dude (at the time). Wouldn't change it for the world, but it was always a lingering feeling there where I felt I had to try and act 10 years older in career and maturity compared to just being myself in the first role.
At work? They are not my friends. Over almost a decade working for the same company there's one person I can consider a friend and I'm pretty sure I'll continue to talk once we are working at other places. Everyone else? Not friends. Friendly, sure.
Work is really the wrong place to be looking for friends. Hopefully one has a life outside of work.
I've had to jump jobs every 3 years (not because I wanted to. just laid off) and I try to make at least 2-3 people I keep in contact with at every place. Made a few close friends but not at every job.
>Work is really the wrong place to be looking for friends.
Third place is dying, so it's becoming more and more of the only place to meet friends. It's not uncommon advice to try and find friends at the place you work. But like people anything, YMMV.
>Hopefully one has a life outside of work.
3 years of pandemic and looming recession don't help much with that, unfortunately. feel so bad for those that graduate in 2019, or worse, in college as the pandemic hit.
How do you make friends with the equivalent of someone's customer service voice?
Not everyone is or even wants to. You just have to earn enough trust for them to drop the mask, and sometimes that involves not wearing one yourself.
I'll admit it's usually easier (or harder) for my industry to do this. I work in games, many people like and play games Obvious icebreaker: what kind of games do you play? Granted, games are super varied and it can lead nowhere if you play MMOs and the recipient plays FPSs, but it's more than what most can try to start out with. It also means there's a lot more non-devs on the floor to talk with too if you don't care to breath tech in and out of work.
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I do also need to echo the other reply that there are also, simply more and more people who aren't willing to try to socialize at work. You can't do much about that so don't spend your time talking to a wall if you can identify one.
I can't see how making people more comfortable talking to and collaborating with you could really be a negative, but everyone has different priorities I suppose.
I prefer the Columbo method. No matter emotional the other person gets, remain calm, polite, and respectful in ALL of your responses. Remember that an angry person's only goal is to get you angry as well in an effort to blind you to the facts. Then when you trip up, they point at you and say, "Ha! See? You were wrong!" A professional manipulator can be very, VERY good at this. The most important thing to remember is: just don't get angry no matter what. You can't control THEM, but you CAN control YOU.
If they are the type who can _eventually_ be reasoned with, then relentlessly question their facts, poke holes in their logic, and eventually they will likely shut up or go away. Or, possibly, you might learn something you didn't know and they weren't good at articulating it well, and you can both move forward with a better understanding. It sucks that some people can't put forth a rational argument without making it a flame war first, but that is sometimes the way it goes.
But if they just want to argue, then a simple, "sorry, but I really have to focus on X right now," followed by the silent treatment always works as a last resort.
Really taught me a lot about my perspectives and what real humility looks like.