Ask HN: Do You Cuss in Meetings?
6 by paulriddle | 8 comments on Hacker News.
Something I've noticed is that if nobody cusses and tries to be professional then it means that meetings are going to be boring, filled with anxiety and generally have dense atmosphere. Because certain essential emotional realms are not explored. If swearing is a big deal, then most likely there isn't much genuine laughter as well, people are afraid to speak up, no criticism, no valuable feedback, engineers are easily intimidated by the higher ups into tighter deadlines, no comradery, etc. It is such a good heuristics that I'm tempted to conclude that no cussing means a room filled with losers. I don't mean gross language, I mean something like occasional fuck here and there. I'm Russian, and this is the experience I have with Russian people, but I think it also applies to American and European cultures. In general Russian people are more emotionally reserved, and the language doesn't help either, because there are no equivalent words for "you" and "guys". I think cursing is some kind of mental barrier. If it is not broken, then there is an array of social problems that most likely will remain unsolved. It's kind of like first sex in a relationship, if you don't have it early then the relationship will probably go sour. I've seen entire room go dumb to almost comical level and be unable to decide whether the task is going to take 1.5 days or 2 days, as if that mattered at all. Because of bad emotional energy, engineers were afraid to say 2, because then there is a question why not 1.5 or even 1, but it's not really a question, it's pressure and intimidation. Explaining why in honest terms even without cursing is not within the domain of acceptable things to say. I know it sounds weird. It's just that there are vastly different meetings, some are productive and positive where cursing is not a big deal, and some are a game of trying to save face and look good, without there being any need to do so.
6 by paulriddle | 8 comments on Hacker News.
Something I've noticed is that if nobody cusses and tries to be professional then it means that meetings are going to be boring, filled with anxiety and generally have dense atmosphere. Because certain essential emotional realms are not explored. If swearing is a big deal, then most likely there isn't much genuine laughter as well, people are afraid to speak up, no criticism, no valuable feedback, engineers are easily intimidated by the higher ups into tighter deadlines, no comradery, etc. It is such a good heuristics that I'm tempted to conclude that no cussing means a room filled with losers. I don't mean gross language, I mean something like occasional fuck here and there. I'm Russian, and this is the experience I have with Russian people, but I think it also applies to American and European cultures. In general Russian people are more emotionally reserved, and the language doesn't help either, because there are no equivalent words for "you" and "guys". I think cursing is some kind of mental barrier. If it is not broken, then there is an array of social problems that most likely will remain unsolved. It's kind of like first sex in a relationship, if you don't have it early then the relationship will probably go sour. I've seen entire room go dumb to almost comical level and be unable to decide whether the task is going to take 1.5 days or 2 days, as if that mattered at all. Because of bad emotional energy, engineers were afraid to say 2, because then there is a question why not 1.5 or even 1, but it's not really a question, it's pressure and intimidation. Explaining why in honest terms even without cursing is not within the domain of acceptable things to say. I know it sounds weird. It's just that there are vastly different meetings, some are productive and positive where cursing is not a big deal, and some are a game of trying to save face and look good, without there being any need to do so.
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