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Bel's thoughts

#451 · February 3, 2023, 8:12 am

Hello Bel,

If you had his work already prepared you could have sent him that and then asked again for the email.

Or, at least, I'd have made it clearer that his work was going to be done:

Sure thing, it's almost done, and sending it to you right away.
In the meanwhile, can you please forward...

This way you make sure that his stuff his covered by you, which is both "fairer" and also puts more pressure on him to give back and stay win-win.

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#452 · February 3, 2023, 9:19 am

Thank you so much, Lucio.

You are right, I have to admit I interpreted his email badly.

And your proposed email is just so good. It subcommunicates win-win.

In particular, using

In the meanwhile, can you please …

to subcommunicate win-win and “waiting one step to do another” is really invaluable. I’m going to make it a standard.

Mine instead subcommunicated “I am escalating this”.

I think he may have sent me his email as a sort of unconscious “test” to see if I would continue in win-win or if I was in any case going to remain calm. It’s possible he just had an insecurity of his on his work being all done.

EDIT: in the end I just followed your advice, that I read here on the forum for lots of situations, of clarifying on the phone: I called him now, told him everything was prepared and taken care of on his side, and then asked him to send me the email.

He said he would do so immediately, as “he had not opened it”.

So in the end the decision to call on the phone instead of with texts/emails saved the day again.

It’s really invaluable advice, because text/emails just favor unneeded escalations, while phone calls let people clarify “no big deal” with tone of voice, which is what I did.

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#453 · February 3, 2023, 9:52 am

Nice one, Bel!

Always good to see things ending on a positive note.

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#454 · February 3, 2023, 11:34 am

Quote from Bel on February 3, 2023, 9:19 am
In the meanwhile, can you please …
to subcommunicate win-win and “waiting one step to do another” is really invaluable. I’m going to make it a standard.

Yeah, exactly, that sub-communicates:

I'm doing my part for you and will show the results, your work and interest are being taken care of, and my side of the win-win is being upheld, Now... Can you do the same for me please

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#455 · February 3, 2023, 4:39 pm

We could title this:

How to use "In the meanwhile" to reestablish win-win when the other is "testing/pushing" for win-lose

I remember you suggested me to use "In the meawhile" various times, including in the very first thread I started here.

It's very helpful to understand now the idea behind it.

It makes the difference between using it once and using it when needed.

It works both to reassure one is taking care of his end, and to remind one has already

Now I understand it can work to subcommunicate what you point out here above also in cases where the "other end of the deal" has already been taken care of by me.

As in this sequence of events:

I did the work
I now ask to be paid
my clients answers: "sure, can you come to me/do this other thing?"
I answer:

We'll see each other soon/have that other thing taken care soon, in the meanwhile could you please make it so that the invoice be settled?

Subcommunication:

I already took care of my end, now please go on with yours before we go on in this relationship.

The difference between saying that literally (which is likely to sour the relationship) and using "in the meanwhile" is incredible!

In my opinion, if not already present, this use of "In the meanwhile" is PU worthy!

EDIT: Using "In the meanwhile" seems to me the best solution to "you do that first" or "you do this also" contests.

In theory, I see three possibilities:

submitting: "ok, I'll do it first / I'll also do this, then wait for your end"
escalating: "no, you're doing it first"
using "in the meanwhile", ie subcommunicating "this is win-win, not a contest / I already did my part".

#456 · February 3, 2023, 4:49 pm

I am slowly realizing that, both in some posts here on my journal here, and in real life, in the last days I have been subconsciously starting to escalate lots of ambiguous situations.

Here above was the thing with the senior lawyer, before that was my post on guilt trips, and now today - just to share - I also escalated with the doorman:

Doorman: Hey wait, I have bad news for you!
Me: Well, sometimes they're for me, other times they can be for someone else.
Doorman: But today you're going to get them twice.
Me: We'll see.

And then this awesome person gave me two monthly condo expenses bills.

What a showdown :)

BTW, thinking of possible better replies:

Doorman: Hey wait, I have bad news for you!
Me: Don't be a pessimist, I'm sure we can turn it around!
Me: Never good news from you eh?
Me: I'm sure they'll turn out to be better than you think.
Me: But I want the good one first.

My personal winner:

Doorman: Hey wait, I have bad news for you!
Me: I'm sure they'll turn out to be better than you make them seem.

More seriously: I now have realized that my "starting to escalate everything" and "interpreting everything bad" is linked to me having resumed interactions with one relative of mine.

I think I'll have to stop and take distance again, as I don't seem yet capable of remaining detached, and this is souring my entire worldview.

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#457 · February 4, 2023, 2:23 am

I'd go with the "don't be so negative".

The "I'm sure you..." feels a bit too passive-aggressive and high emotional involvement to me for this case.

To me, that's bad not only for the power move, or at least, not only from a strictly social power perspective -which it is as well, of course, since they self-frame as the bearer of bad news and lower status and/or respectful people would instead avoid that and/or power protect at least rather than revel in the pleasure of delivering bad news-.
But they're also bad from a mental empowerment point of view -tangentially, it's why I can't stand TV and can't live with people who watch TV at home-.

Such as, they frame as negative for you, what may not -and should not- be negative at all.

So I'd have taken the bills, and said "how are these supposed to be bad news, don't be so negative please, I like positivity in my life".

Or if you wanted to go even harder:

How are these bad news, you know there are wars and starving people in the world, let's all get be a bit more mindful and grateful for what we have

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#458 · February 4, 2023, 11:48 am

Thank you, Lucio.

I'll do just what you say if he plays this again next time.

#459 · February 6, 2023, 3:40 pm

Quote from B on February 6, 2023, 3:40 pm
Bella's recent job interview
Quoting Transitioned's article on job-interviewing:
Quote from Transitioned on December 28, 2022, 2:05 am
Some jobs are already allocated to somebody’s connection and you are there to make it look good. The consequence of this is that you don’t know the good interviews from the wastes of your time and so its about generating as many interviews as possible.
Bella recently had an interview that, I believe, exemplified this to the maximum.
Interviewer started saying hi and immediately got on the phone with somebody else.
Then the interviewer got back to Bella and the conversation went like this:
Interviewer: Ok so what where you telling me? So you should know this job is in [place outside the city]. Is it a problem for you?
Bella: Not at all.
Interviewer: But where do you live?
Bella: I live at ...
Interviewer: Ooohhh so that probably is too far.
Bella: Well, I already worked at [...] place which is near you.
Interviewer: I see. But you should also know this job pays [amount]. So maybe that's a little low for you, no?
Bella: I'm ok with it.
Interviewer: Well, in any case we have the distance problem. Ok thank you, we'll let you know.
I'm not quoting Bella verbatim, just to give the feeling I got from her telling me about this.
The interviewer was just looking for ways to disqualify her, from the start.
Fake job-interviews with sociopaths: a different level
Sociopaths, I now understand, do not only interview to make it look good for them to hire their candidate.
They can also, from personal experience, have additional agendas.
The most common are:
to gain intel on the competition
Expect lots of questions on your current job and situation, with no intention to hire you.
to make their employer lose time and resources while they are planning to move
Fake, prolonged interview sessions with lots of candidates usually end either in "no one qualifies", or in "I'll hire you, but then you'll come with me in my new business".
If the aim is to end with "no one qualifies", the sociopath interviewer is also going to be extremely invested into poisoning the well of his or her current employer to the widest possible number of job candidates: demeaning them, insulting them, speaking badly of the employer, and many other tactics are used to discredit the current employer of the sociopath.
In the sociopath's mind, after having decided to move, the aim is to cripple the employer (which is seen as future competition) as much as possible.
Putting a sociopath in charge of interviews is not likely to end well for anyone but the sociopath.
to sabotage and possibly destroy the self-esteem of candidates as much as possible
The sociopath not only views the employer as a competitor: he or she, more importantly, also view candidates as competitors.
Especially young, naive, inexperienced candidates.
So, a sociopath interviewing a candidate who is seen as potential future competitor is going to try to use the interview to destroy the self-esteem of the candidate as much as possible, to sabotage his job search and try to avoid that he may end up working in the sociopath's field.
The intensity of action to pursue this last aim, btw, depends in large part on the power-awareness of the candidate.
The more the candidate is aware that this may be an aim of the interviewer, and the more he is able to hold his own frame of self-esteem, the less probability that the sociopath interviewer will pursue this undercover aim, and the less intensity in pursuing it.
The sociopath instinctively understands that pushing too much on this with the wrong candidate may backfire.
Sociopath superiors: selecting the most manipulable candidate when interviewing, keeping you stuck while on the job, and sabotaging your future as much as possible when you leave
Assuming they really interview to hire, sociopath superiors are going to select not the most competent candidate, but the most manipulable.
So power-awareness acts as an inherent defense.
While on the job, then, seeing you as competition, they try to keep you stuck in your current job without possibility for advancement as much as possible, and for as long as possible.
Enter here: constant teacher frames, crippling you with invisible and unimportant tasks (ie install drivers on the computer, change the printer's toner, go to the post office, buy lunch), self-esteem sabotage, kiss up and kick down, and many more.
On the other hand, as soon as you leave and offer your 15 days' notice, they start seeing you as a future competitor and try to cripple your reputation with everyone inside the business and outside the business as much as they can.
On the side: the only cases where I saw sociopaths pushing for a colleague to be promoted (to a different department or out in another company) was when the colleague was power-aware and close to the common superiors.
In this case, the sociopath may try to get rid of the colleague by favoring his "advancement".
They still make themselves recognizable by asking back many times what they "gave". They only give if they are sure to get back, both in the immediate - getting rid of a competitor - and in the future - pushing for the "favor" to be "returned".

Bella's recent job interview

Quoting Transitioned's article on job-interviewing:

Quote from Transitioned on December 28, 2022, 2:05 am
Some jobs are already allocated to somebody’s connection and you are there to make it look good. The consequence of this is that you don’t know the good interviews from the wastes of your time and so its about generating as many interviews as possible.

Bella recently had an interview that, I believe, exemplified this to the maximum.

Interviewer started saying hi and immediately got on the phone with somebody else.

Then the interviewer got back to Bella and the conversation went like this:

Interviewer: Ok so what where you telling me? So you should know this job is in [place outside the city]. Is it a problem for you?
Bella: Not at all.
Interviewer: But where do you live?
Bella: I live at ...
Interviewer: Ooohhh so that probably is too far.
Bella: Well, I already worked at [...] place which is near you.
Interviewer: I see. But you should also know this job pays [amount]. So maybe that's a little low for you, no?
Bella: I'm ok with it.
Interviewer: Well, in any case we have the distance problem. Ok thank you, we'll let you know.

I'm not quoting Bella verbatim, just to give the feeling I got from her telling me about this.

The interviewer was just looking for ways to disqualify her, from the start.

Fake job-interviews with sociopaths: a different level

Sociopaths, I now understand, do not only interview to make it look good for them to hire their candidate.

They can also, from personal experience, have additional agendas.

The most common are:

to gain intel on the competition

Expect lots of questions on your current job and situation, with no intention to hire you.

to make their employer lose time and resources while they are planning to move

Fake, prolonged interview sessions with lots of candidates usually end either in "no one qualifies", or in "I'll hire you, but then you'll come with me in my new business".

If the aim is to end with "no one qualifies", the sociopath interviewer is also going to be extremely invested into poisoning the well of his or her current employer to the widest possible number of job candidates: demeaning them, insulting them, speaking badly of the employer, and many other tactics are used to discredit the current employer of the sociopath.

In the sociopath's mind, after having decided to move, the aim is to cripple the employer (which is seen as future competition) as much as possible.

Putting a sociopath in charge of interviews is not likely to end well for anyone but the sociopath.

to sabotage and possibly destroy the self-esteem of candidates as much as possible

The sociopath not only views the employer as a competitor: he or she, more importantly, also view candidates as competitors.

Especially young, naive, inexperienced candidates.

So, a sociopath interviewing a candidate who is seen as potential future competitor is going to try to use the interview to destroy the self-esteem of the candidate as much as possible, to sabotage his job search and try to avoid that he may end up working in the sociopath's field.

The intensity of action to pursue this last aim, btw, depends in large part on the power-awareness of the candidate.

The more the candidate is aware that this may be an aim of the interviewer, and the more he is able to hold his own frame of self-esteem, the less probability that the sociopath interviewer will pursue this undercover aim, and the less intensity in pursuing it.

The sociopath instinctively understands that pushing too much on this with the wrong candidate may backfire.

Sociopath superiors: selecting the most manipulable candidate when interviewing, keeping you stuck while on the job, and sabotaging your future as much as possible when you leave

Assuming they really interview to hire, sociopath superiors are going to select not the most competent candidate, but the most manipulable.

So power-awareness acts as an inherent defense.

While on the job, then, seeing you as competition, they try to keep you stuck in your current job without possibility for advancement as much as possible, and for as long as possible.

Enter here: constant teacher frames, crippling you with invisible and unimportant tasks (ie install drivers on the computer, change the printer's toner, go to the post office, buy lunch), self-esteem sabotage, kiss up and kick down, and many more.

On the other hand, as soon as you leave and offer your 15 days' notice, they start seeing you as a future competitor and try to cripple your reputation with everyone inside the business and outside the business as much as they can.

On the side: the only cases where I saw sociopaths pushing for a colleague to be promoted (to a different department or out in another company) was when the colleague was power-aware and close to the common superiors.

In this case, the sociopath may try to get rid of the colleague by favoring his "advancement".

They still make themselves recognizable by asking back many times what they "gave". They only give if they are sure to get back, both in the immediate - getting rid of a competitor - and in the future - pushing for the "favor" to be "returned".

Lucio Buffalmano has reacted to this post.

#460 · February 6, 2023, 4:07 pm

Thank you for sharing this, Bel!

Also added it as a link to the interviewing article now.

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