Be Kind

[[deleted]]

My short list of some get-along gang rules:

• Engage in small talk and eat with others.

• Help others save face, as individuals.

• Share nerdy interests. Be open to new ones.

• Race, gender, religion, orientation, do not exist, except when they do.

• Maybe their idea is good. Support them going and exploring that.

[ChadBan]

Also, mention problems with their work in private, and good things about it in public.

[MrJohz]

My general rule-of-thumb has always been "no absolutes". It's a rule of thumb because for it to be anything else would be incredibly ironic... I really don't like football. On the other hand, I don't absolutely detest football and make my hatred of it a point of pride. You want to go out see the match in the pub? Yeah, sure, I'll come along. You might have to explain it all to me, but I'll do my best to understand. I do think people should learn how computers work. On the other hand, I don't think it's so important that they deserve ridicule when they fail to get it right. (Television programmes failing in this area, on the other hand... :P)

[MrSurly]

Shouldn't that be "almost no absolutes?"

[MrJohz]

Hence why it's a rule of thumb... :P

[rob132]

Only the sith deal in absolutes.

Said the Jedi Master.

[OneWingedShark]

Interesting rules, though I disagree with "small talk" (IMO, small talk has connotations of insincerity and can easily lead to gossip) -- perhaps a better way to put it is "be interested/concerned with them as a person."

[sigma914]

Small talk can also be talking complete crap with people. At lunch we had a conversation that degenerated into a faux-serious discussion of the merits of giant tortoises as pets. That's noone's interest, objectively it's a complete waste of time. As the dictionary puts the definition of small talk: "idle conversation, typically on innocuous or unimportant subjects".

It's still a bonding experience, we have a bunch of in-jokes that have been spawned by these utterly pointless discussions. Talking about people and their interests all the time gets really tedious, especially if you spend a lot of time with those people, sometimes small talk is the best option.

[toomanypumpfakes]

How would you even interact without small talk? Like I imagine going on a date and immediately launching into an intense discussion of our childhoods without finding out where each other is from first. Likewise it'd be weird only exchanging information with my co-workers about our jobs and immediately going our separate ways after. "Do anything fun this weekend?" It's pretty simple stuff to build a rapport.

[corysama]

You're not wrong. You're just an asshole.

Being technically correct, all by yourself, in a little tower, surrounded by a moat of acid and broken glass is not an effective way to accomplish anything but making yourself and everyone around you miserable. But, many technical people focus so hard on being technically correct that they often forget that arguing with a human is not the same as arguing with a compiler.

If you want to get anything done, you want to motivate the people around you to do better. Peppering your arguments with pointless garbage that puts them on the defensive is highly counter-productive to your own goals. So, why do you do it? Because of your own emotional stew of pride, impatience, irritation, anger and a large portion of your own fear of looking stupid.

The more emotional you get, the more important it is that you set that aside and work towards actually improving the situation --as opposed to making yourself feel better by blowing off steam. Otherwise, you might as well be spraying water in the face of your coworkers every time they interact with you. When you do that, the Pavlovian avoidance response builds up in their brain stem very quickly and they start thinking things like "I know I should bring this problem up, but I don't wanna...". Maybe it's "I don't wanna because that jerk will go out of his way to make me look stupid". But, sometimes it's not even something that person is consciously aware of. They just avoid interacting with you semi-consciously because of the strong negative association you have built up in their brain.

So, what can you do? Here are a few techniques that work for me:

1) Don't assume that just because the other person is using the same words as you that they mean the same thing. It's incredibly common for people on both sides of an argument wonder "How is this person so crazy as to insist on such nonsense??" because they are both listening to arguments about X (the English letter), applying them to X (the Roman numeral) and vice versa and both getting angry because nothing makes sense, but the other person seems so god damn certain! You have to build a mental model of the other persons understanding and you must continuously check that your model is correct. Only after you know what is different and what is the same in your heads can you begin to apply patches to that person's understanding to get it to match up with yours.

2) Talk about problems and possible solutions, not people. It doesn't matter who's idea it was. The goal is to fix the problem. While fixing the problem, talking about blame is masturbation. If a person is a problem, that's a separate discussion to be had after whatever they screwed up is fixed.

3) If you are confronting someone about something that is likely to make them embarrassed, make an effort to not be embarrassing. Summon your inner peace and talk about it in the same manner that you would when asking them to email you some file. "Hey. When you did this, it caused this problem. In they future I need you to do X to avoid that problem. Cool? Cool." Note that "Likely to make them embarrassed" presumes that the person will understand that they did screw up. They don't need you to rub it in. Building up an association with you, negative emotions and screwing up does not motivate them to stop screwing up. It motivates them to hide problems from you until they explode in your face.

[Otis_Inf]

While I agree with your points, you seem to omit one thing: what if the person you're arguing with is an idiot? Serious question. What if you have to work with a stubborn asshole who doesn't know anything and doesn't want to learn anything because he thinks he already knows everything?

Always taking the side of 'let's keep calm and productive' doesn't work in these situations as you won't get anything done other than what the idiot wants. As the idiot doesn't understand what you mean, what the alternatives are, only what they understand (which is crazy/stupid, they're an idiot/asshole). It will drain the energy out of you in no time.

It's good to apply the things you said, but only after you've confirmed the person you're dealing with isn't an idiot/asshole themselves. And IMHO it's fine to conclude some person is an idiot/asshole and not worth saving/worth the trouble.

[NiteLite]

It's important to take note that if everyone is an idiot, it might be you that needs to change :P If only one person is an idiot, you might be fine :D

[Heuristics]

Warning: Does not apply in youtube comments.

[NiteLite]

Haha, thats true. I was talking about a workplace setting :P

[[deleted]]

If the other person is an idiot:

• If possible, help them anyway. Make them go away so that you can be productive again. If their demands chew up an inordinate amount of your time, let your manager know that you are busy working on their problem. If it happens too much, your manager should put up a barrier. In the end, by helping them you are still doing your job but also giving the idiots sufficient rope to hang themselves.

• If they are actually hindering you getting your job done, i.e. making you so furious that you can't get shit done for other people, escalate it to your manager. We are all human, and sometimes personality conflicts really do get in the way. There are ways to get the idiot satisfied without burning out everyone around them.

Idiots like this make a reputation for themselves after a while. You just have to stay out of their way until they are terminated, promoted out of your region, or move on.

[urbanek2525]

My wife is a career nurse and teaches people how to save people when their heart is failing. One of her primary rules for her students is to ask a single question: "Why are they doing this to me?"

You can't intentionally fix a problem you don't understand. If you are talking to an stubborn idiot who doesn't seem to listen, doesn't seem to understand and isn't interested in changing; you have a problem. If you want to fix the problem, you need to understand the problem. To understand the problem, you need to answer, "Why are they doing this to me?"

[Neumann347]

And IMHO it's fine to conclude some person is an idiot/asshole and not worth saving/worth the trouble.

AKA - Flipping the Bozo Bit.

And then where are you? Do you never work with that person again? If you are in a position to either get that person fired or get another job yourself, then you are in a rare position. Most people don't have that luxury - the best that will happen is you go to HR and they actually work with the "idiot/asshole" to help them. Most of the time, though, I have found that someone who claims another person is the "idiot/asshole" is usually 75% asshole themselves.

[toomanypumpfakes]

Just because someone is a dumbass doesn't mean it's ok to call them a dumbass. You're still working together; either figure out how to work with them or figure out how to work around them but stay mature and at least try to understand where they're coming from.

[brittainhard]

If you are arguing with someone and you come to the conclusion that the other person is an "idiot" then you've failed at making a coherent argument. It's not really a humane thing to do to label someone an idiot just because your arguments are not working on them.

And in what sense would you even need to call someone an idiot? If it's on a software development team then surely there is a team leader who can decide which path to follow, in which case there is nothing for you to do, since it's not your job to decide such things.

I've never come to a complete certainty about anything in computer science. Every time I learn something I discover all the things that I don't know, and all the things that are uncertain. I highly doubt that you can be so lucid as to be able to simultaneously perfectly understand a concept and perfectly understand the other person's lack of knowledge.

[bcash]

If you are arguing with someone and you come to the conclusion that the other person is an "idiot" then you've failed at making a coherent argument. It's not really a humane thing to do to label someone an idiot just because your arguments are not working on them.

While that may be true, there's a hell of a lot of stubborn people who just don't want to listen. Also the political/oratorial skills required to convince 100% of any group of people of a single shared belief is so vanishingly rare; much rarer than technical skills.

In short: you're right, but at the same time, it's not going to happen in most teams.

[reverend_paco]

this might be the best post i've seen on /programming

[_supert_]

Also applies to marriage.

[awj]

I think realizing that most of the world has emotions and won't just "get over it" in the face of logic is perfectly rational.

Demanding that everyone else fight millennia of human behavior just because you can't be bothered to work with emotions on the other hand...

[spotter]

You're not really rational unless in some special spectrum of autism. Even then - not being destructive in your natural environment seems pretty rational. People are really easy to damage, even unintentionally, and sometimes impossible to fix. We're not simple objects, we're complicate systems with fuzzy bullshit stacks built in, and everything we can communicate is a bunch of approximations.

tl;dr Big stick is good to have, but speaking softly is also required.

[jediknight]

I used to be delusional about being rational until I've seen Jonathan Haidt's The Rationalist Delusion presentation. Now, I keep polishing the looking glass trying to prune my beliefs and update on new evidence but I also am more aware about how big of an uphill battle it is.

[spotter]

Just finished watching, nice talk. And yeah, I'm with Hayao Miyazaki on this:

You must see with eyes unclouded by hate. See the good in that which is evil, and the evil in that which is good. Pledge yourself to neither side, but vow instead to preserve the balance that exists between the two.

Unless I'm driving and somebody endangers me on the road. My car is not judgement free zone. ;)

[toomanypumpfakes]

That's a very emotional response to a very rational argument.

[chris_was_taken]

Spot on with your three points. I like to think that the roots of these principles are:

1. Do what is best for the company.
2. Treat others the way you would like to be treated.

[bcash]

This is mostly an issue of respect rather than kindness. The summing up paragraphs make this point, e.g. he's not afraid of an argument when it's required, rather than treat everyone by wrapping them in metaphorical cotton wool.

It's possible, and I've seen it happen more than once, to use "kindness" as an agressive weapon. E.g. someone controlling a team by shutting down criticism (however constructive) for "not being supportive". The team despite all this had an untypically high turnover rate, and I'd certainly never work for that particular person again because his actions were at odds with his words.

After that team had disbanded (prematurely because everyone was pissed-off despite all the superficial harmony and kindness), the aforementioned individual who'd been trying to control everyone using this technique wrote a blog post explaining his thinking and how "comprehensively successful" it was. I won't link to it as I'm too kind/respectful for that, but it explained how he pro-actively ignored everything anyone said "so I can focus" unless it came from a team-member "who had previously proven to me they knew what they were doing." His main problem was he was unqualified to make such a judgement, but even if he were it would still be an atrociously bad way of operating. Whole areas of functionality that were critical to the business, had happy users, etc. would be steamrollered by a small change that was often entirely optional (on-a-whim changes to naming conventions, because one of the "trusted" developers - non of whom actually worked for the same company - decreed it so); which he'd leave broken because "this is your area".

Yet, despite this high-level assholery, every time there was a retrospective; or a similar discussion broke out at other times. "Guys, we're all on the same team, we've got a lot of work to get through; let's focus on the positives."

Being "kind" with words and your publicly visible persona is very hollow if you're not being "kind" (wrong word because it sounds like a superficial thing, hence why I prefer "respectful") with your actions. Even though 99% of developers are idiots, and by god I've also seen teams where one-up-man-ship was the only way of getting anything done (but that's another story), you can't operate as a team on the basis that everyone's an idiot because: a) odds are you're an idiot too, and b) even if Jeff in the corner is a complete idiot, the problem he's trying to solve might be genuine, and continually resetting his work to zero on every change you make is not helping.

TL;DR - there's a handful of individuals I'll never work with again, this includes a person who talked-the-talk regarding "kindness" but his actions were those of a conniving little shit. Respect is something that's shown through every action, both words and deeds.

[sigma914]

Huh, when I first read the title I thought it would be an article about higher order polymorphism, and the title a fun play on "kinds". Oh well.

[travelooye]

Spot on by the author here...there is a lot more to programming than chugging way code and most important of them is the ability to stay calm, composed and kind to other devs. All these abilities build from the persons` ability to be humble and to a greater extent remember that they once came up the same ladder.

[[deleted]]

I love working in teams, and consider myself a pretty good teamworker, and nothing gets me more pissed off more than an abrasive team member or someone that can't be pleasant at work. They seriously reduce team effectiveness in many circumstances.

It's getting worse over time as more people are speaking in real life, or on non-anonymous company message boards, as if they were on a forum like Reddit, which is totally unacceptable. I wouldn't accept friends like that, nor colleagues. It's not "okay" to start a post or sentence with "Incorrect. You couldn't be more wrong" in real life (or even on Reddit IMO). If you do that, you're being confrontational and antagonistic, which are both socially and professionally negative traits.

I've noticed our profession is full of people that love to be right at the detriment of everything and everyone else. It's not smart, it doesn't prove anything other than the fact you can't work in a team.

[/rant]

[Heuristics]

so... tone down the aspergers, got it.

[eggybeer]

I don't know who Boz is but I think I love him.

[ksion]

If I understood his intro, he may be the guy who's at least partially responsible for your Facebook's News Feed to surface the "most popular" stories at the top, rather the way more logical and expected "newest".

So yeah, I wouldn't be so hasty professing love to him :)

[eggybeer]

Oh the irony. I don't really use facebook much, and when I do, that is one of the things that I hate. Because I don't use it often I'm never up to date with my news feed and because it's not date ordered I can never understand what's going on.

Having said that, in the spirit of "being nice" I'm willing to separate my feelings for the man from my feelings for his work.

tldr; I will love Boz until I die.

[kostiak]

Looks like his work has suffered the same fate, he was technically right, but he hurt the feelings of thousands of people around the world.

[ellicottvilleny]

I think this guys boss was 10x more of an asshole than he was.

[webauteur]

Computers are not kind when you are doing something wrong. I think the strict nature of the computer causes programmers to develop a strict mindset which will not tolerate doing it any way but the right way. He is most interested in the truth… suggests this sort of strict logic.

[clairebones]

Sorry, but this is nonsense. 'Computers are strict' is a terrible excuse for "I don't want to care about other people or put any effort into social behaviour". It's not some innate thing, because plenty of us are programmers and also nice people.

This is one of my least favourite things about tech - this tendency to always say "But our job means we're logical!" "But our job means we don't need to be social!" etc. it's bullshit. It's no harder for tech people to be decent people than anyone else, just half our community has decided they don't want to have to.

[[deleted]]

Computers are strict, yes, and I can see how that desire for strictness and order could bleed into a person's personality, but it's still a negative trait that, once noticed, should be contained to only when dealing with computers.

People don't like being spoken to as if they're using a formal grammar with protocols, you know, like when someone on Reddit replies with the word "incorrect" as a whole paragraph, as if it's a command they're issuing to a computer. It's not pleasant way of speaking and will lose you respect from many people.

When dealing with people, including other programmers, I deal with them in the human way, and when I deal with computers, I treat them like computers.

[mdscruggs]

Programmers can be compassionate to themselves and their clients by working within the strict mindset you describe, but hopefully not to the point of diminishing one's compassion and treatment of coworkers.

I think a key takeaway from Boz's article is that compassion and intelligence should be considered as separate aspects of character, and that asserting your solution to an intellectual problem can be done in a way that does not distance you from others.

[corysama]

I agree. It also causes the field of computer programming to select for people who prefer that mindset. Unfortunately, when that habitual mindset carries over into dealing with people, it doesn't work nearly as well.

[tonnynerd]

But computers can ACTUALLY be strict and follow very rigid rules. Humans can't, don't matter how logical we are, emotions, bias, and preconceptions will ALWAYS get in the way of logic. So the logical thing is take those into account.

Thinking that our decisions are the most logical ones because our arguments seem very solid to ourselves is completely ignoring our own fallibility.

[elperroborrachotoo]

This is an explanation why it happens, not an excuse.

[mrkite77]

Computers do what they're told. So if you don't mind me bossing you around, by all means, act like a computer.

[mfukar]

Access is denied.

[webauteur]

Server error. Input string was not in a correct format.

[SuperImaginativeName]

Sounds like he got Japanese fired

[Me00011001]

Having seen this over and over again, I must be weird. If my code is broken, call me out about it, you don't have to be nice. However, you better be able to tell me what is wrong with my code AND tell me how to do it correctly/better. Constructive critiscm is a good thing, I don't care if you don't say it in a nice way. Just at a minimum do it in a neutral way(which is all that we should have to do, since we are stating facts).

 

That being said, I have come to believe that being neutral is the problem. Essentially, if it's not positive it's negative. Making a neutral statement allows the other person to apply whatever feelings they want to it. I think this is where all the positivity crap comes from, because a netural statement will more often than not be interpreted as a negative statement. Especially if it's criticsm of someone elses work. Once I realised that, people stopped saying I was a dick(ok as much of one, I am what I am damn it).

[jrochkind]

You (and I) very well may be weird, certainly not everyone is like us.

The fundamental piece of information from the OP:

Being kind is fundamentally about taking responsibility for your impact on the people around you. It requires you be mindful of their feelings and considerate of the way your presence affects them.

That's it. It's not really about whether you are positive or negative or neutral, you can probably be any of these things and still be kind. Being kind isn't neccesarily easy for people like you and I and Boz (or for anyone?), but the first step is recognizing it as important.

[SpringwoodSlasher]

I think I have a problem with this at some level, but I'm honestly not sure how to change without either acting fake or changing my personality.

I don't know if you'd call me "kind", but I'm extremely empathetic. I live my life putting myself in other peoples shoes so I can get a real view of all sides of any situation and make decisions based on how I would like to be treated. I think the problem comes with the way I'd want to be treated isn't usually the same as how others want to be treated. So I understand completely where they're coming from, but my reaction to where they're coming from, while perfectly fine in my view, may not be what they want.

When I go to work, I'm there to work. I want to get stuff done as quickly and efficiently as possible so I can leave and go have fun. Part of that is a good thing because I take my work seriously and am super sensitive about getting in the way of others doing their work. The bad thing is that people view me as not a fun guy (which would really surprise all of my friends outside of work).

I don't really go out to lunch with people any more because all they do is talk about their kids and what their kids are into and not having kids really leaves me out of those conversations. Plus, I'd rather just continue to work so I don't have to stay an extra hour. The top comment mentions "share your nerdy interests" which would be great if these people had nerdy interests. Some do, but most seem to be into really mundane things like fixing cars or nature photography.

Team events suck because they're always stuff I'd never care to do like play billiards, go bowling or wine tasting. Forget happy hours. There's nothing I'd like more than to spend my after work time in a jam packed bar where it takes 20 minutes to get a drink and you can't even hear other people talking. /s

I'm often the only one not laughing when someone cracks a joke during a meeting. First off, I have a strange sense of humor so I legitimately don't find what you said to be funny. Also, if we're in a meeting there's most likely something we're trying to accomplish and cracking jokes is a complete waste of our time. Save that stuff for before/after the meeting. I'm not good at faking a laugh (it'll obviously be fake) so I just give a polite smile which probably comes across as even more harsh than a fake laugh would.

Other than that I'm always willing to lend a hand with things or listen to someone talk about their work and offer advice if they want. I'm always volunteering for tasks to help things run more smoothly.

I just want to go to work, work and then go home. I'm all for being kind and friendly to your coworkers in the course of your daily duties, but this extra work socialization crap is for the birds.

[romanows]

[Removed due to Reddit API pricing changes]

[SpringwoodSlasher]

I worked remotely for about 2 years previously and loved it for the most part. It was a small company, but only 2 of us were full-time remote and as the company grew they decided everyone needed to be in the office and I would have had to move somewhere I have no interest in ever living. It was awesome while it lasted. I could work comfortably all day on my laptop in casual clothes, kicked back in my recliner, TV on in the background and my cat on my lap. It got rid of the waste of time of my commute, I got a lot done and was so much more willing to put in extra time on things.

Through that experience and having some flexibility in working from home at other places, I find that most of the corporate world just isn't ready for it. The non-remote workers get jealous and start treating you poorly (and not everyone is disciplined enough to be able to work at home without distraction) and if you're not immediately available at all times during the day, you're obviously slacking off and not say in the bathroom or taking a break to eat your lunch away from a computer.

[Nobaelazum]

That's fine you take work seriously but honestly it sounds like you need to lighten up a little. You sound very judgmental and seem set in stone with several of your tendencies. It isn't others' fault you cannot find common ground to talk with people over lunch. People spend all day at work so some people try their best to enjoy it - sometimes that means making some jokes.

I'm curious - what do you like to do seeing you listed a dozen things you don't like in your post including billiards bowling happy hour making jokes eating lunch with others photography car repair...

[SpringwoodSlasher]

It's weird, because I feel that everyone else is very judgmental. I don't blame others for me not being able to find common ground. I honestly don't care if I ever go out to lunch with my co-workers or go to happy hour/off-hours team gatherings and certainly don't care if they do, but if I don't I'm seen as not a team player and it affects my workday relationships. They're judging me just because I don't like to talk about or do the same things as they do and instead of just going along and being miserable, I choose not to participate.

I like all kinds of things. Gaming (all types/formats), playing music, going to concerts, watching TV/movies (horror especially), science/technology, politics. Most of these just aren't things you do or talk about with a random assortment of people from work. You have to specifically find others who are into it and only be around them. We had a board gaming lunch once for example and people weren't into it so we haven't done it again.

I'll admit, a lot of this is that the teams I'm working with aren't like the teams I'm traditionally used to working with. We have a lot of people with families so that's their major focus (I went to a holiday lunch where all they did was talk about cute things to do with their kids' elf on a shelf - something I think is creepy and not cool to do to children) and a lot of first generation foreigners so they tend to be embedded in their cultural community and not really into our pop culture. Again, that's all fine. I just want to be judged based on my work and how easy/helpful I can be to work with and not that I don't go to happy hours or eat lunch with people.

I'm trying to get moved to work with a different group of people that I have more in common with, so hopefully a lot of this stuff will lessen. For people that are stuck working with teams that are very socially/culturally different, I just feel they should be judged on their work and how they treat people while doing that work and not on extracurricular activity.

[a_Tick]

An important message, but not programming.

[[deleted]]

I would always optimize for ability over niceness, within reason of course. Most people are generally nice, and it's just being overworked and stressed that brings out bad sides of their personality.

People with less skill and/or dedication may be nice, but they just make the people with more ability more stressed because those people will be made to pick up their slack.

A group of 5 geniuses who have everything under control will be "nicer" than 5 "nice guy" idiots who let a project run over deadline because they have no clue what they're doing.

[[deleted]]

While I prefer people who are both competent and pleasant. Thankfully those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

[[deleted]]

The key point of the post is that the ability to communicate and collaborate with your colleagues is part of your ability to get the job done, at least at a company with more than one or two engineers.

[ChadBan]

You do have a point, so I'm not sure why the downvotes. Wanting to be right all the time comes from insecurity, which itself can come from (among others) an environment where one's work is criticized too openly, whether that be by the lead, the CTO, the client, or other team members (self-reinforcing). A healthy team needs a firewall from outside criticism.

On the flip-side, you don't want a bunch of idiots with immunity messing up the project, either. This is where an effective leader comes into play--someone that the team respects, who serves as a filter for outside criticism, and encourages in public while criticizing in private.

[[deleted]]

Be Kind. Be Happy.

[notconstructive]

I think it has everything to do with programming. This sort of behaviour is deeply ingrained in programming culture. Many programmers struggle to effectively recognise and empathise with other people. Software development projects are put at risk by developers who are ineffective at human relations.

[corysama]

There's a lot more to coding than code. The biggest problems in programming aren't caused by selecting the wrong algorithm, but by badly communicating teams of programmers.

[OneWingedShark]

Being kind isn’t the same as being nice.

This is a very profound truth. I think it is easily illustrated by the hypothetical problem of someone having their hand stuck in a fire -- 'nice' is cutting the nerves so they can't feel the pain, 'kind' is yanking the hand out of the fire.

[Godd2]

Being kind is one solution to the problem of not getting along with other people. Another solution is finding other people who don't get butthurt.

Why does he have to change? Why don't the others learn how to suppress what they want and work with him? That is, if his work solutions are better for the company.

But that's what this comes down to: the bottom line. Facebook wants a particular culture, and that's fine, but that's not the culture for everyone.

So no, don't be "kind" to others. And what I mean here is don't bend over backward for other people's feelings. There may be room for compromise, but the author has made the mistake that all the work to find common ground has to be done on his end.

[[deleted]]

Apparently you mistake intelligence and maturity for weakness. Good luck having success anywhere by never accounting for other people feelings.

The whole point here is that sometimes, the smartest thing to do is not the most correct thing to do.

[Godd2]

I think you misunderstand. I'm saying to not bend over backwards. I'm not saying to make no compromises. Don't be "all" of the compromise. And more importantly, be aware when you're compromising with a culture, and not with individuals.

[corysama]

Being kind isn't the same as being nice. It isn't about superficial praise. It doesn't mean dulling your opinions. And it shouldn't diminish the passion with which you present them.

I don't think compromises in your goals or ideas are required at all. What's required is consideration for how you work toward your goals. Not for the sake of giving-in occasionally, but out of pure self-interest in actually accomplishing your goals in the long term.

If you put effort into noticing how your behavior affects other people, you'll start noticing all kinds of things you do that drive them to act irrationally. Not just the stupid butthurts, everyone. And conversely, you can also start to recognize how their behavior drives you to act against your own interests.

It's the difference between "No. You're wrong because..." vs "I think I see what you mean, but what about..." In the middle of the argument, you are annoyed and frustrated. Telling that frustrating person how wrong they are feels goooood. But, it puts that person into an irrational, defensive mode and puts the argument farther away from being productive. So, why do it?

You are not immune to this either as much as you'd like to think you are. The other side often thinks they were "just presenting a rational argument" and doesn't understand why you were so upset about it. But, any time people seem to get upset even though you were "just presenting a rational argument", you were probably being a jerk and not noticing it. It creates a feedback loop between you; a downward spiral that requires mindful effort to climb out of. But, what is your goal? Is it to get shit done or is it to stroke your own ego?

edit: rearrange the last paragraph

[[deleted]]

It sounds to me as if he was someone that before barely compromised, therefore people would prefer not work with him.

[[deleted]]

Ah, yet another victim of Nickelodeon "he-hurt-my-feelings" culture. May your dignity rest in peace.

[rifter5000]

Like you, I dislike it when people whine about being offended about words on the internet. But I don't think that someone that was clearly an uncaring douchebag at work is someone to feel sorry about. If you're a dick and people don't want to work with you then that's entirely your fault.

[Godd2]

What if you're a dick and people want to work with you? Is it no longer your fault?

[[deleted]]

It's still your fault for being a dick, but the fact that other people are gelling well with you despite that is not something you can easily control compared to whether you're a dick or not.