• 2 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 28th, 2023

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  • atomicorange@lemmy.worldtoFunny@sh.itjust.worksPoliteness
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    3 months ago

    I once had a (male) boss tell me (female) that to be successful as a leader in our engineering industry as a woman, you have to be a bitch. He was trying to encourage me to be less polite and more confident, but he also made it clear exactly what he thought of those confident women. I think he was trying to be a good mentor but it fucked me up, because I don’t consider myself a bitch, nor do I want to be one. It took me a long time to realize he was wrong, and that I can be a kind person and confident at the same time.

    On the flipside, I was once given feedback that I’m “too direct” in emails and it came across as rude. What I realized was, it wasn’t the directness, it was the lack of friendly communication around it. You can say “I know the answer to your problem, do this thing” as long as you add in “Hi so-and-so, thanks for the great question! Here’s my brief reasoning, so I recommend you do this thing.” One is “bossy”, the other is friendly and acknowledges the recipient is an equal asking for advice, instead of an underling who should obey you because you said so.




  • I worked at an aquarium store in high school and owned saltwater tanks for decades. Some fish do get something like the zoomies where they will dart around the tank. I had a wrasse that would get excited in way that didn’t seem frightened but more like playful.

    I don’t know about “tag” per se, but they do sometimes have territorial sparring which is more like swimming up at each other quickly and trying to chase each other away from their spot, without it ever really getting violent. If one of them didn’t chicken out though I imagine fins would get bitten.

    My clownfish would come up and nibble my hand if I put it in the tank and I could scoop her up from underneath with one hand. It was not so much playful though, she probably just associated my hand with food so she’d hang out as close as she could get until I gave up the goods. Clownfish have instinctual behaviors that encourage them to rub up against anemones, so maybe she was treating me like her weird semi-aquatic anemone buddy.