[gitonup]

> Your boss, asking for a project to be finished early, may be an overdemanding boor – or just an Asker, who's assuming you might decline.

I don't pay for the Atlantic and thus am limited by paywall, but this ignores power dynamics.

[scott_w]

Only if you’re a Guesser ;-)

Seriously though, it depends on the boss and the relationship you have with them. It can really fall into either camp and it might even be situational with the same person!

I would say that, generally, I would prefer to be direct in these relationships unless you both know each other really well. It does make things easier for all involved.

[closewith]

> Seriously though, it depends on the boss and the relationship you have with them.

Those are the power dynamics the GP is referring to.

[scott_w]

That wasn’t the intention of what I wrote. I was referring more to how people speak. It’s very common in British English to phrase a request as a question. The “relationship” I refer to isn’t “they’re your boss,” it’s “how do you and your boss communicate,” which is a different thing altogether.

That’s not to say power dynamics can’t exist, just that it’s not a thing you can apply to every conversation or situation.

[closewith]

> The “relationship” I refer to isn’t “they’re your boss,” it’s “how do you and your boss communicate,” which is a different thing altogether.

No, they're impossibly intertwined and cannot be treated separately.

> That’s not to say power dynamics can’t exist, just that it’s not a thing you can apply to every conversation or situation.

To the contrary, it's not something your can ignore in any conversion between subordinate and a boss, which is the point the GP was trying to make.

[scott_w]

For your hypothesis to work, it would mean it’s not possible for me to tell my boss “no.” Yet I do this all the time without repercussion. Trying to boil every relationship down to “power dynamics” is outright childish.

Do my boss and I have a formal relationship based on expectations we have of each other? Yes, absolutely. Are there consequences if I repeatedly go against those expectations? Yes. Are we friends? No. Does that give him unlimited control over me? Also no. Are there consequences for my boss repeatedly going against my expectations of him? Yes. Are they the same?

Are there people out there that abuse the position of boss to extract unreasonable concessions? Undeniably, yes. Is this relevant to a discussion of your boss asking if a task can be finished sooner? Not in the slightest.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

[closewith]

> Do my boss and I have a formal relationship based on expectations we have of each other? Yes, absolutely. Are there consequences if I repeatedly go against those expectations? Yes. Are we friends? No. Does that give him unlimited control over me? Also no. Are there consequences for my boss repeatedly going against my expectations of him? Yes. Are they the same?

What you are describing is what we call power dynamics, the effect of a power differential on the dynamics of a relationship.

> I hope this clarifies things for you.

This seems oddly passive aggressive and dismissive. I wonder would you speak to me this way if I was your boss, or the CEO of your company, or the majority owner.

[__turbobrew__]

Power dynamics are definitely a factor. There have been many scandals around people in power asking subordinates to sleep with them, and it appears that the majority of the (Anglo) public now considers this morally wrong.

[caminante]

This analogy nails the problem.

The theory is predicated on askers being OK with a "no" and will move on.

This doesn't hold up for me.

I don't think you can refuse advances, a request from your boss to cancel your dinner to finish a presentation, etc. without repercussions.

[jackbravo]

You can read the original forum discussion that inspired this article: https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-bet...

[neonate]

These both work for me (copied from the top):

https://web.archive.org/web/20250831074424/https://www.theat...

https://archive.ph/GBZBf

[bee_rider]

It’s conventional around here to share these sites. But they are basically unauthorized copies of the articles, right?

IMO it is totally fair and fine to just respond to the part of the discussion that the publication decided to make publicly available.

[pseudalopex]

> IMO it is totally fair and fine to just respond to the part of the discussion that the publication decided to make publicly available.

This wastes the time of people who read the article.

[bee_rider]

The publicly accessible article is the article, it isn’t the reader’s fault that the publisher decided to only make a little bit of it accessible to us.

[pseudalopex]

> The publicly accessible article is the article

No.

> it isn’t the reader’s fault that the publisher decided to only make a little bit of it accessible to us.

It is a commenter's fault if they comment on an article they did not read.

[fyltr]

a link to the non-paywalled article is at the top of the hn post