Comment by fallingknife | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fallingknife | Hacker News Reader

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> I have had situations where, even after a few meetings where I felt I was just “talking about how things are” the other person left HATING me.

This is very familiar to me. There are things nobody talks much about because they are obvious and everybody knows them already. There are also things that nobody talks about because everyone is lying to themselves about it and actually believe are not true (though some part of their brain unconsciously knows it). If you aren't one for the lies, you can mistake one of the latter for the former, and you will think that you are just stating the obvious, but really you just stepped on a landmine. Has happened to me many times.

I remember specifically having my first meeting with a Director of a large account at my last job.

I was really excited by it and was rattling off a list of ideas and tactics and strategies for how we could open the account.

His face turned bright red and he started SCREAMING at me.

At that point I was like “oooohk I did the thing again.” And backed off and didn’t interact with him.

After that he was a total asshole to me and started spreading rumors about me.

He felt extremely threatened I gather that he had been running this account for years and I could walk in and imagine a number of new approaches.

If I did it now I wouldn’t be so direct.

I have ideas all the time and most like do not want to have discussions like this because … they don’t have ideas themselves.

Corporate middle management are generally non creative and “brainstorming” just pisses them off.

Once there was a truck driver maneuvering his gigantic semi on narrow street. I thought I'd be helpful and offer suggestions. He interrupted me and told me to bugger off.

Ok, I backed off and then watched.

The guy moved that truck around like a ballerina. It was a pleasure watching him handle it, a true pro.

The lesson for me was to not tell someone you just met how to do their job. It's a lesson I've had to learn many times.

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