<story><title>On Corpspeak</title><url>https://goodreason.substack.com/p/on-corpspeak</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hnuser847</author><text>&amp;gt; America has a very work-centric culture. Within a few minutes of meeting someone, people typically talk about their family or work.&lt;p&gt;I specifically make a point to not ask the dreaded &amp;quot;what do you do?&amp;quot; question. In my experience, that question is an absolute energy killer. Most people do not like what they do for a living, so asking them to talk about it brings the mood down. Plus there&amp;#x27;s the whole &amp;quot;sizing up&amp;quot; aspect of that question that&amp;#x27;s very off-putting to me, as if we need to know how much money people make before we decide how we feel about them.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d much rather talk to people about their hobbies, travels, creative pursuits, kids, etc. - the things that people are actually excited to talk about.</text></item><item><author>SamuelAdams</author><text>&amp;gt; A lot of Americans tie up a lot of their emotions in work success.&lt;p&gt;For anyone else still wondering &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; corpspeak still exists, this is it. America has a very work-centric culture. Within a few minutes of meeting someone, people typically talk about their family or work.&lt;p&gt;I guess I&amp;#x27;m just disappointed at the world I&amp;#x27;ve inherited. Why are people so afraid of direct conversation? Why is hearing bad news &amp;quot;too much&amp;quot; for some people? I remember a quote from a comic strip saying &amp;quot;people would rather hear an outright lie than an uncomfortable truth&amp;quot;. Which is true, but I wish American work culture didn&amp;#x27;t need to hide from the truth.&lt;p&gt;To me part of being a professional is being able to have direct, pragmatic conversations. You learn to keep your own emotions in check and focus on the discussion at hand. Look at the larger picture of the meeting &amp;#x2F; your work &amp;#x2F; whatever is being discussed.&lt;p&gt;What would it take to change work culture to be more pragmatic?</text></item><item><author>pclmulqdq</author><text>I really hate this kind of language, but it is really useful in an American corporate context, as I have recently realized while doing an executive MBA program.  A lot of Americans tie up a lot of their emotions in work success.  A lot of other Americans don&amp;#x27;t care about their co-workers, and don&amp;#x27;t want to put in the effort to figure out how to actually respect people (calling cheap places to work &amp;quot;discount&amp;quot; is a good example of this).  Sometimes, the same person is in both groups.&lt;p&gt;The way to usefully make both groups work with others is to use language that is devoid of meaning and, in particular, lacking value judgments.  That way, you can say &amp;quot;Steve, can you explain the learnings from your recent project?&amp;quot; and mean either, &amp;quot;Steve, you fucked up, what are you not going to do again?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Steve, your project went great, what tips can you share?&amp;quot;  That way, Steve can feel recognized for his achievements even when Steve did something that was really stupid.  Steve&amp;#x27;s colleagues have an emotional barrier, too: they won&amp;#x27;t feel bad for Steve if you are calling out his failures, and they won&amp;#x27;t feel bad for themselves if you are saying that Steve did something exceptional.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really fucked up how we have created this sanitized dictionary, but it&amp;#x27;s too effective in a corporate context not to use it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MockObject</author><text>I enjoy discussing my work. If someone asked me about my hobbies, I&amp;#x27;d stare blankly, wondering if they really want to hear that I go to the gym, or the hours I spend on obscure corners of Wikipedia, or doing math for fun. For small talk, stick with questions that folks are asked constantly, and that everyone has a ready and rehearsed answer for.</text></comment>
<story><title>On Corpspeak</title><url>https://goodreason.substack.com/p/on-corpspeak</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hnuser847</author><text>&amp;gt; America has a very work-centric culture. Within a few minutes of meeting someone, people typically talk about their family or work.&lt;p&gt;I specifically make a point to not ask the dreaded &amp;quot;what do you do?&amp;quot; question. In my experience, that question is an absolute energy killer. Most people do not like what they do for a living, so asking them to talk about it brings the mood down. Plus there&amp;#x27;s the whole &amp;quot;sizing up&amp;quot; aspect of that question that&amp;#x27;s very off-putting to me, as if we need to know how much money people make before we decide how we feel about them.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d much rather talk to people about their hobbies, travels, creative pursuits, kids, etc. - the things that people are actually excited to talk about.</text></item><item><author>SamuelAdams</author><text>&amp;gt; A lot of Americans tie up a lot of their emotions in work success.&lt;p&gt;For anyone else still wondering &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; corpspeak still exists, this is it. America has a very work-centric culture. Within a few minutes of meeting someone, people typically talk about their family or work.&lt;p&gt;I guess I&amp;#x27;m just disappointed at the world I&amp;#x27;ve inherited. Why are people so afraid of direct conversation? Why is hearing bad news &amp;quot;too much&amp;quot; for some people? I remember a quote from a comic strip saying &amp;quot;people would rather hear an outright lie than an uncomfortable truth&amp;quot;. Which is true, but I wish American work culture didn&amp;#x27;t need to hide from the truth.&lt;p&gt;To me part of being a professional is being able to have direct, pragmatic conversations. You learn to keep your own emotions in check and focus on the discussion at hand. Look at the larger picture of the meeting &amp;#x2F; your work &amp;#x2F; whatever is being discussed.&lt;p&gt;What would it take to change work culture to be more pragmatic?</text></item><item><author>pclmulqdq</author><text>I really hate this kind of language, but it is really useful in an American corporate context, as I have recently realized while doing an executive MBA program.  A lot of Americans tie up a lot of their emotions in work success.  A lot of other Americans don&amp;#x27;t care about their co-workers, and don&amp;#x27;t want to put in the effort to figure out how to actually respect people (calling cheap places to work &amp;quot;discount&amp;quot; is a good example of this).  Sometimes, the same person is in both groups.&lt;p&gt;The way to usefully make both groups work with others is to use language that is devoid of meaning and, in particular, lacking value judgments.  That way, you can say &amp;quot;Steve, can you explain the learnings from your recent project?&amp;quot; and mean either, &amp;quot;Steve, you fucked up, what are you not going to do again?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Steve, your project went great, what tips can you share?&amp;quot;  That way, Steve can feel recognized for his achievements even when Steve did something that was really stupid.  Steve&amp;#x27;s colleagues have an emotional barrier, too: they won&amp;#x27;t feel bad for Steve if you are calling out his failures, and they won&amp;#x27;t feel bad for themselves if you are saying that Steve did something exceptional.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s really fucked up how we have created this sanitized dictionary, but it&amp;#x27;s too effective in a corporate context not to use it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gofreddygo</author><text>&amp;gt; talk to people about their hobbies, travels, creative pursuits, kids, etc.&lt;p&gt;This backfires when you have more hobbies or travels than the other party.&lt;p&gt;Also interests don&amp;#x27;t usually align (e.g &amp;quot;I spent last month looking for that one elusive comet from my DX-7512 telescope. here.. see this photo. What about you ? Umm. well nothing much&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s better to gradually start with some topic where opinions are likely to align.&lt;p&gt;For small talk I do realize how important (and how easy once you&amp;#x27;ve run this with 4-5 people) it is to find a hobby I enjoy, and pick sharable stories around it and back it up with some artifacts (like photos on my phone).&lt;p&gt;I think it would help to come up with clusters of topics that are well aligned. Pick a topic from one cluster and see how it works, if not pick one from the next. If it worked, pick another one from the same cluster.</text></comment>