> How about if the direct has absolutely no interest in talking about anything because they are just trying to do their job, which is going fine? Because that's 99%, maybe 100% of these meetings I've ever had.
Easy, send a message prior to the meeting "Hey, I have no topics to cover this week, so let's skip it and save the time".
It is good to connect at a personal level. Talk about your weekend, family, hobbies. This might happen naturally in an office setting, but with everyone remote on zoom, it's helpful to make it a habit. For most people these human connections are super supportive.
You can't force it though. Some people don't work that way. A manager must adapt to each style. I have employees who like to talk for hours about everything, so I'm happy to do it. I also have one employee who is very matter of fact, only brings up a specific issue if they need me to do something about it and that's it. I know nothing about their life outside work but that's their preference so that's ok too. They are one of the highest performers in the team, it's just their style.
> When you do daily standups or mandatory everyone says something type stuff, it does something damaging psychologically.
Yes, very much. The most stressful times I've had at jobs were when I felt necessary to have an update every day at a silly standup. I'd have a panic attack most late afternoons about having enough "content" for tomorrow morning standup. That is super toxic.
I'm ok with daily standups, as long as it is clear it's just a moment to mention anything you want the team to know or rant about something that's annoying you, but it's perfectly ok to say "nothing to update" most of the time.
Currently I manage a team and we do daily standups. I'd rather cancel them, but the team wants to do them so we do. I often say I have no updates partly because it's true but also to set the example so the team members don't feel any pressure to give updates unless there is a specific detail they want to share.
> because honesty has most of the time just yielded me useless work in the long term
Are you sure it's useless work, or growth opportunities?
A good manager will be handing growth opportunities to you often. I had one employee once who for every new opportunity just rolled their eyes and asked if they have to do it? I'd tell them the work was not strictly required for their current role, but if they wanted to grow their visibility in the company and thus promotion support, it could be a good opportunity. They never wanted to do any of it so never did, never got any visibility and thus never any promotions. Up or out, so eventually they were out.
I feel like I have got promoted fast enough. More than what is considered a "terminal level". I do say yes to high value growth opportunities so that is not the case. In fact I think because of how I act during 1 on 1s is helping me with that, because I am causing no headaches to my manager with honesty.
Basically I am just trying to figure out how I can cause no extra work to anyone and being optimistic to my manager about everything while really I am not.
But it means that I am brainstorming bulletpoints that I think are best to achieve that beforehand, and it is performative.
This is why, as someone who works in security and encryption and has implemented web server TLS stacks and such, I still oppose the "always-https" idea.
TLS is awesome, one of the most valuable developments in Internet history. But, it is important to undewrstand that it is a double edged sword. Requiring a CA, which in practical terms means requiring a publicly known CA, is a choke point of freedom.
> It's a good balance to care about science while still maintaining a human brain with independent thoughts.
What do you think science is? The whole point of science is questioning assumptions and applying data gathering and independent thought to analyzing that data.
Having argued these topics for decades, I think that a lot of people just truly can't foresee the inevitable consequences. I don't know why, the consequences seem obvious but because they are not spelled out, many people say it won't happen.
> The first kind think "This is the law, we must follow it" and the other kind think "This law doesn't make sense, we must change it".
Indeed. I can't understand the people who blindly believe any law is good just because. Stop, think. Is the law good? What's good about it? What's bad about it? Can it be abused? Then maybe it should be changed?
I advocate that every law should have an annual review to catalog every case where it has been applied. How many were sensible positive outcomes? How many were unintended consequences? How many were clear abuses of the letter of the law? Every legislator should vote on the record based on that annual review to either renew or cancel the law.
> I can't understand the people who blindly believe any law is good just because. Stop, think. Is the law good? What's good about it? What's bad about it? Can it be abused? Then maybe it should be changed?
I think many people have an expectation that (all) laws are just and needed because... somehow they're the law.
In reality, laws can be unjust, unnecessary, biased, and completely arm-wrestled together by people strictly following an agency of their own. Other laws are put together by sheer ignorance and lack of thinking beyond mere good intentions. The first question shouldn't even be "is this law fair" but "was this law made fairly".
It creeps me that people treat laws as axioms whereas they're just polished and reinforced opinions. Sure, many laws we can agree on, and many others that don't agree on aren't worth changing, but you should always question the law and question where it came from before choosing to accept it.
I can see the same pattern with technology such as the various digital restrictions management (DRM) schemes.
There are so many laws on the books that reviewing all of them every year is completely impossible. Doing what you propose would require the government to be greatly shrunk and simplified (which, to be fair, I'm not necessarily against).
Personally I would put myself somewhere between your two "kinds of people". Many individual laws are bad and should be changed, but the rule of law itself is a good, stabilizing force that should generally be respected. If people only followed laws they 100% agree with then that would be chaos, therefore even bad laws deserve at least a modicum of respect.
> There are so many laws on the books that reviewing all of them every year is completely impossible.
Oh well, so maybe there are too many laws, let's simplify.
That is only partially tongue in cheek.
I'd say if there is no time to review and vote to keep or cancel a law, it is automatically cancelled. If it was important maybe someone will reintroduce the legislation later. Fewer laws are better, we should consolidate around laws with the most bipartisan support and scrap the rest.
But also in how I envision the system, if a law is repeatedely affirmed year after year, it should receive an increasing TTL. The formula should also have some modifier for which party controls legislature at the time. So if some law is reaffirmed multiple times under legislatures controlled by different parties, it's probably a fairly uncontroversial law, so we can increase the refresh rate to 3 or 5 years (avoid multiples of 4 since that is election cycle). Over time, the TTL can increase and perhaps there should be a way to eventually promote it to a permanent law, but that should have a very very high bar.
One can dream.. of course it won't happen, so back to your country controlled by a few oligarchs grifting for their personal profit.
> I advocate that every law should have an annual review to catalog every case where it has been applied.
I like this idea but frankly I don't trust our lawmakers to do a fair assessment of this. Maybe there's an independent, non-partisan committee that does this.
> I like this idea but frankly I don't trust our lawmakers to do a fair assessment of this.
Absolutely true. But at least it would force every legislator to put their name yay or nay on every law every year. There are few things that politicians hate more than having to be on the record for supporting or rejecting something.
Then we all could review the full list of laws they voted for or against and vote accordingly.
1:1s are not about addressing issues, most certainly not any issues that need addressing immediately.
If you have an immediate issue, open an incident or file a top priority bug, or whatever is the process at your company.
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