| 1. An acquaintance on facebook recently posted about how he thinks obesity is a disease and he finds obese people gross. This cost him some friends and the esteem of some other friends. Being honest that you hold positions which are repugnant to other people can generate needless conflict. There's also the moral question of being an asshole towards a large class of people needlessly, but I'll leave exploring that as an exercise to the reader. 2. Recently I ran into abberant behavior with our database that freaked me the fuck out (it shut down saying it recieved a ctl+c, but none was given), and disclosed this to my superior. It freaked him the fuck out. Now I'm being provided pressure in a way that doesn't help, and somewhat hinders, my ability to do effective work. Omitting this when giving a status report until I had more information would have been better. 3. I recently spent a lot of time with an ex, a relationship which has longstanding fractures. I made a passing comment that made her hoppin' mad, and she brought it up with me pretty maturely (+/-), but then devolved into a lot of "you always _____ and I hate it, who even does that!" statements. I saw very clearly that I could respond: "this is a bullshit way to talk to me, you haven't seen me in three years and you have no idea what i always do or don't do, and fuck you and your high horse." That would've been the really authentic, honest response. Instead I bit my tongue, managed the conversation back to the specific thing I had done and how I could avoid doing it again moving forward. The next day I was able to say (also honestly) that I appreciated that she'd gotten better at articulating ways in which I hurt her, but I really didn't appreciate the way she did it. By not disclosing how I felt in a timely manner, I saved my vacation. These are all examples of when substantially less disclosure either did or could have improved outcomes. Outright lies I tell on a regular basis: "Hey, it's good to see you!" (read: I want you to find this interaction pleasant.) "Yeah, things are going well." (read: Things are objectively terrible right now I'm not interested in talking about it) "I'm really excited about this sprint, I think we're gonna get a lot of good work done." (read: I'm getting yelled at because our work isn't done yet but stress doesn't effectively motivate good intellectual work.) "If you need help, please feel free to ask me questions at any time, I don't mind at all." (read: It stresses me the fuck out being interrupted all the time but it facilitates my team being able to do their job, so I'll deal with it, and lying about it keeps other people from being responsible for my feelings.) |