Calling People On Their Shit

Epistemic status: reflective

I've been doing this thing lately where I give people constructive feedback on things that they do that I don't like.

It's an investment in them, and it's a sign of trust. If I didn't think I was going to stick around, it wouldn't be worth the time and pain. If I didn't think they would listen, it wouldn't be worth the time and pain, plus there would be a risk that they'd hold it against me in the future.

On the other hand, if the behavior is bad enough that, given the option, I'd just walk out if it continued -- well, in that case, I have very little to lose by bringing it up. It's still an effort, but there's not much risk. If they don't listen, the door is waiting.

And yet, it's still scary. Opening up Slack to type, "Hey, when you did X, it made me feel Y. I would prefer it if Z," is  a heart-pounding, distracting, productivity-draining experience, even when I've gotten four recruiter emails in the same day and I know for a fact I can get up and walk out and never come back if I want to. It's not like taking the nuclear option is fun, after all.

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But it's gotten less scary as I've started doing it more, especially with people who have taken feedback from me before. I don't do it often, though; I can count the number of times in the past year on one hand.

I still haven't criticized anyone directly in public. Criticizing someone publicly has vastly different ramifications and subtext than giving them quiet feedback. It says: "This behavior is so unacceptable that I had to tell you about it in front of other people, to be sure they knew I did not condone it." It says: "This behavior is so unacceptable that I am willing to massively defect on you by making you look bad in front of other people." It says: "This behavior is so unacceptable that I am willing to risk that I'm the bad guy here in others' eyes." It's useful in some situations. Mostly I hope I don't get into one of those.

(Criticizing ideas, of course, in private or public, is routine behavior! It's part of doing business. But, I'm somewhat surprised to realize, giving coworkers constructive feedback really isn't, for me or for other people that I've seen.)

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Related to this, I've become a much angrier person over the past year or two. I hold more space in my mind to complain about things, and so my upset feelings about them fester, instead of being dismissed to the void of space. In a way, it feels right for this to happen now: I'm more self-righteous because I have more certainty in the empirical data I've seen. I used to be ignorant of the right way to do things, so there was no reason to be angry when they weren't done. Now I know. And so it's not okay anymore.

But it's not the most pleasant feeling, either.

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I don't have a great conclusion to this. I'm happy that I've gotten better at this, the way I'm always happy to have become stronger. I'm sad that there's accompanying pain. And I'm interested to see that this data confirmed what I'd previously believed about the anger I saw in older coworkers -- to some extent, it comes with experience. And I continue to believe that channeling that anger constructively, rather than inflicting it on others unfiltered, is a moral imperative.