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Are you stuck in movie logic?

(usefulfictions.substack.com)
239 points eatitraw | 1 comments | 17 Nov 25 12:06 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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duderific ◴[17 Nov 25 23:36 UTC] No.45959722[source]▶
I had a colleague who I sensed was giving me the cold shoulder. Just kind of cutting off attempts at friendly conversation, whereas before our relationship had been fine.

As the author suggests, instead of just letting it fester, I caught him at an opportune moment and asked him if I had done anything to upset him (I suspected maybe a not-tactful-enough code review may have been the culprit.) He just denied that anything was wrong, other than that he wasn't sure how to relate to me because our circumstances are so different (I'm quite a bit older than him and have a family, although it hadn't been a problem before.)

Unfortunately this interaction just made our relationship even more awkward, and it never recovered. He ended up leaving the company about six months later.

In summation, simply getting things out in the open is not necessarily the cure-all the author suggests it is.

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engeljohnb ◴[18 Nov 25 01:34 UTC] No.45960410[source]▶
Clearing the air has gone well for me before, but it usually goes poorly.

And a lot of the time the air is foggy because I prefer it that way. I know my supervisor doesn't like me. I don't see it as a problem to solve, for now I want the "movie logic" because it's more comfortable than candor.

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1. BizarroLand ◴[18 Nov 25 21:42 UTC] No.45972568[source]▶
Yep. Communication is a two way street. You can find the right words to say and say them all you want but if the receiver doesn't receive the words the way you mean them then it's all for naught.

Further, you cannot control how the receiver receives your words.