I remember the face my boss made when I told him I would make one for me too when he was showcasing his manual. He didn't expect that and said it wasn't necessary.
Making these became trendy at my last company for a few months.
I didn't get it then, and I don't get it now. I guess I just don't see who has time for this kind of thing -- literally. I doubt very seriously anyone ever actually read these things.
Re: "no person will ever want to read this page": I have read the manual, I found it quite refreshing actually. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I was thinking of creating a manual of my own, and a curious thought occurred to me while reading your response (and other negative responses in this thread): the kind of people who are repelled by this sort of thing are probably not the kind of folks I'd enjoy working with, so that's actually a feature as far as I'm concerned. (Not making a negative evaluation about a group of people, just stating a personal preference and how such a "filter" as a personal manual might actually work to one's favor.)
Steve Pavlina has written on this subject[0], how broadcasting your true personality/values/desires will get you a lot more rejections, but will also allow you to connect with others who are a better match for you, who might have missed your authentic self if you had masked it instead.
He asserts that most people are so afraid of rejection (getting a "1" ie. a mismatch) that they settle for "partial matches" in the 6-7 range, but they'd actually be far happier if they had the courage to broadcast their true values because it's the only way to find the "10s".
Sounds great for people on the spectrum. However, neurotypicals either don't care about you at all, or care enough to converse with you until we learn your unspoken manual.
To me, it seems a little condescending to be told how to act toward someone.
On some level it is helpful to know your teammates, but on the other hand it can come across as self centered, like you think you're special and require special instructions for interacting with.
I'm sure you have good intentions in creating this, but if someone gave this to me I would instantly thing "oh man this person is going to be high maintenance"
You are judging someone’s life and directing them to find Jesus solely because their blog doesn’t communicate how rich their life is? JFC, I am so glad that I don’t share anything of myself in this space.
Yeah, I got the same feeling - 4/5 of the text is worded as global imperatives, and almost nothing puts his own weaknesses and peculiarities into context.
It seems like a contract required before interaction rather than a helpful guide to understanding him.
That's one of the reasons I liked "Working with Claire" [1]: It is full of open subjectivity ("I hope", "I believe"), is very clear yet polite ("please ...").
Exactly, it would be more valuable if the manual said things like:
"I can come across as a dick sometimes but that is because I like to test certain stances on issues by vigorously defending them, I assure you I'm open to changing my mind if you just keep pushing, actually I feel like you are taking my intelligence more serious if you do. Not many people appreciate this, but somehow discussion makes me feel good" or
"I actually can get pretty pissed if I feel that you are insulting my intelligence (which I'm sometimes overly sensitive to), it is where I seem to get my sense of self worth from. I may over-argue my point of view then later realize you were right and apologize." or
"I act all cool and hipster but I'm actually constantly stressed when I travel and it makes me make poor choices and not pay attention to important things like 'Did I take my pass from the ATM 15 min ago?'." or
"I'm very shitty at keeping context in mind and often jump on the wrong details in a conversation, please have some patience." or
"I really really cannot agree to disagree, it keeps nagging at me, I want to talk it out until someone "wins". Yeah I've been called a dick for that." or
"I get stuck where there is no obvious best choice in just about any situation because I cannot make a choice based on gut feeling (it feels like weakness), I need logic and it makes me swing back and forth on questions like 'subway or Uber?', really annoying when you travel with me." or
"I do appreciate jokes that are slightly inappropriate, and I feel like often at work I have to self-censor."
Or you could just sum it all up as "I'm deeply unpleasant, and I'd say that I'm sorry that you have to work with me, but I actually don't have any interest in your emotional state."
:) Well, there is a kernel of truth in all of them, but I think my colleagues are quite fond of me nonetheless. I think that I have my analytical mind to thank for that more than my innate capacity for detecting and dealing with emotions in others though (never mind my own).
“Working with Claire” is an interesting comparison. I’ve been trying to think through why I reacted better to it than the main article.
Ultimately, “Working with Claire” seems more aimed at me, the reader / notional employee. E.g. it starts concrete, talking about meetings we’d have together. And it has helpful info about how she tends to work and the kinds of things she might do. In theory, it means I wouldn’t have to work out things like “How much info does my new manager expect?”
Self-reflection is a big part of these personal READMEs. But it’s also important to work out which bits of self-reflection are useful to the reader. For me, that’s where the main article didn’t quite hit the mark.
The "My expectations when we work together" looks like it's copied directly from a HR boilerplate example somewhere. It sounds nice but I wouldn't know how to action any of that.
Also if you are my peer, you setting expectations like that is inappropriate.
Saying "action," purposely, as a verb like that is somewhat common. It's business-speak much like "leverage" as a verb, though that one's become so common as to go unnoticed.
Try to bring it down to 10 lines or less. Your presumption to the attention and memorization of this document is way over the top. If you feel like you have to communicate something like this in writing you could at least be charitable and pare it down to the absolute minimum.
Other than that: the whole thing comes across as hopelessly naive with respect to how humans interact, it misses the fact that people that dislike each other on a personal level may be forced to work with one another and it misses the 'office politics' angle.
If I was assigned to a team to work with you and you handed me this document I would in turn hand in my resignation with reference to your document and that would be that, any organization that tolerates this kind of bs is not one that I would want to work for.
change the whole thing to be about you, almost a trouble shooting manual, not some idealised world of of your interpersonal interactions. Pretty much tell people what your personality is like, what you are trying to improve, and possible problems people might have with you
It's impersonal, sterile, generic (what does a corporate word like "excellence" actually mean in practice?), and simultaneously intrusive and lacking in empathy for readers.
What you have written is actually a list of demands.
Not likes. Not tendencies. Not polite requests. Not values you hope to share with others by meeting them half way, possibly clumsily but with good faith.
Demands.
There is no social context in which a document like this is appropriate.
I had this reaction to the title, but reading the piece after I found it to be general points for all interactions among people rather than particular instructions for interacting with you (which I agree would be off-putting).
I've skimmed your post, and I honestly feel like the content is not the main issue here, but the fact that it was written and published. You could share how you prefer to interact with people if the need arises, preferably by addressing them directly about the points that are relevant for your interactions, and without giving them the impression that you've handed in a list of preferences.
That's a good point, yes. I didn't intend to publish it first, but put it out there to learn from the feedback I'm getting. It's interesting how differently people who don't know me (see this entire discussion here) react compared to people who know me or have worked with me before. That's super helpful since future co-workers will most likely fall in the first group.
Yes! The fact that someone would write a doc like this for their own introspection and growth - great! The fact that you would publish it or supply it as a prelude to interaction - weeeird. But again, I've made similar gaffes. Will probably make more.
> I'm sure you have good intentions in creating this, but if someone gave this to me I would instantly thing "oh man this person is going to be high maintenance"
To play devil's advocate, the concept is only as condescending as a resumé or nutrition label is. To an extent, this is already done when introducing oneself and (at least in my collegiate experience) one's pronouns and triggers. Perhaps your feelings reflect your personal criteria for unnecessary information rather than anything objectively condescending?
Now speaking for myself, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I would certainly like an efficient and upfront method to assess a person's capabilities and mental state without having to waste time with pleasantries or wade through a social mine field. The more information the better.
On the other hand, it's likely that this personal resumé of sorts will be another layer of buzzwords and prattle to muck through as composing one evolves from a discovery process to a status competition.
I did not get that impression from the text at all — I wonder whether it was revised or whether it is because I am Swiss myself so maybe it fits within MY norms.
In particular, I did not get the impression that the text makes any demands from co-workers that the author would not mutually grant them himself.
Can you point out specific examples of language you found self centered or high maintenance?
I agree. I showed it to a couple of teammates and the universal opinion was that if someone handed us something this pedantic, we'd be making sure to minimize any interaction with or reliance on this person. Especially reliance on...I can only see an endless variety of "you didn't read my required document and interact with me strictly in my self-approved manner, therefore I feel entitled to ignore you/condescend to you some more/report you to HR/ruin your day (or whatever negative I deem appropriate)". Life is too short.
@davidbauer Ugh. These commenters stress me out. In fact, there's potentially an argument that filtering out such personalities actually helps cultivate a good/healthy environment for you personally.
To my eyes the comments read like pattern matches on low-level grammar and lexical choice. RFCs are even more egregious users of imperative language, but I don't see many people getting their jimmies ruffled about that, so I wonder what kind of social background and circumstances could make simple grammar features feel like a strong signal of character to people.
As a point of contrast, if discussion brought up things like the following, I would instead feel eminent warmness and inclusiveness:
- There is not a social norm encouraging people to write "Me Manuals", so what factors might bring such an idea to salience?
- Cultivating such a document and sharing with people exposes a lot of vulnerability. What does this act itself communicate? (Cooperative intent? Perfectionist tendencies? Bravery? Narcissism?)
- How would a document like this parse out under various different cultural and corporate norms?
- What are the failure modes of trying to communicate nuances of human cooperation through low-bandwidth channels of explicit delineation?
- Engaging witch such a document also engages our Kahneman System 1 cognition strongly. What can we glean about our individual biases by the snap-judgements and intuitions we feel reading the article?
- Are there historical or anthropological analogies we can draw to a "Me Manual" practice that could shed light on how such it may operate?
Et cetera. Personally, the author's article pushes my priors about him/her in the direction of earnest, open, optimistic, defaulting to cooperation vs competition, and perhaps having perfectionist tendencies. My base-rate estimate for this personality is semi-low, but the article feels like a pretty strong signal, so overall, I would feel cautiously hopeful about working with the author.
These are becoming a trend and I think they can be useful if they are sincere like the one here. Especially as a way to onboard to new projects or teams in a remote/hybrid world.
The challenge I've seen regarding user manuals however is that people immediately discount them. They aren't willing to sit down and think about how they want to operate as an individual. So they poorly write one instead of giving it effort. Managers think it's burdensome and don't take the time to even read them. Lastly, those who write down how they want to operate sometimes do not operate in their integrity. They ultimately have to live with it, but it does create confusion when you give someone feedback based on their user manual and it's not well received.
As a career-long remote employee. I think it's a beautiful initiative if given the time and thought.
This specific user manual screams product manager having issues with engineering manager counterpart.
Yeah this user manual goes a bit too deep. It could easily be 1/3 the size and focus on what you said.
I think the author forgot to include the "me" part of these sections as generalized tips are not personal. EX: how to give me feedback -> 3 ways I enjoy getting feedback.
I was hoping this would be more like a car or airplane manual. “Failure to maintain adequate vitamin C levels may cause scurvy. Go to service center if this happens. Maintain blood pressure within limits (see specifications).” Etc.
My boss at my previous company created one of these with the intention of being “helpful”. It basically stated you should address me in this manner, use this form of communication etc. I asked him if he would be ok with me also creating a similar user manual telling him how I should be communicated with. He said it would be ok, as long as it did not contradict his user manual.
IMO, these seem to me to be a friendly way of dictating process to others.
Tongue-in-cheek title aside, I really do believe that it's helpful if a lot of people do write down some sort of user manual for themselves. These can be a great starting point for having conversations on how to best work together and spot potential areas of conflict in advance. In no way should these be seen as dictating the rules.
I probably wouldn't call it a "user manual" since that implies a list of the "correct" way to work with a person. Why not just call it a list of personal values (and preferences)?
Based on the comments here, I don't think people are getting much cheekiness from the title. As I mentioned in another comment, it might be useful to change the name, since I think a lot of people are seeing "How to work with me" as a pretty direct command to "do these X things."
If you would be my manager or a person highly skilled in one area, I will probably try to not talk with you at all as much as possible.
Just as an example:
> Ask for help: I love giving input, but only if I know it can still make a difference.
So let's say I have an idea and I need some help. Do you I know that if I ask for your help you will make a difference. Maybe you will agree with me so there is no difference there to be made. Also further down you want me to find the proper time to ask for feedback: not too early and too late. Suddenly I need to be aware of you and the time when I should talk or not with you.
Nice, but typically a manual written by oneself, I could write something similar about myself. But ask my wife to write one... I bet it will be quite different.
Cool, and then let's make it harassment to ignore the instructions in somebodies user manual (not just ignoring their pronoun preference), so everybody has to learn the user manual of all their colleagues by heart.
I choose to know some people better than others. Nobody has the right to demand my time and waste it with being forced to "know about" their fake persona they want to present.
You are also clearly imagining things, I never said I would be against getting to know people or colleagues. I am against enforced individual rulebooks.
Wow, I’m gobsmacked at your example. Are you really arguing that transgender people are somehow abusing and disrespecting others by asking to be acknowledged as they wish to be? Would you be ‘abused’ if I mentioned my same-sex spouse and it violated your assumed reality?
You can ask and it is polite to adhere to the wish, but you can not demand it.
Ultimately you have no right to intrude on my brain, sorry.
"Would you be ‘abused’ if I mentioned my same-sex spouse and it violated your assumed reality?"
Probably not because I could see that your spouse has the same sex as you, so it wouldn't violate my perception? I don't get the point of your example.
The point of the "publicly state you believe in something that is obviously not true" is a symbolic subjugation of the person made to do it. It is "swearing in" to the ideology. Like Gallileo announcing publicly that the sun revolves around the earth.
Lol wtf - you don't think people have a right to their own thoughts and perceptions? I have no words. A mess indeed - but not on my side. Enjoy your next brainwashing session, as that seems to be your thing.
I mean, or we could not catastrophize and slippery-slope this. Given the eye-rolls and push-back just on evidence here, I don't think this idea has legs. I wonder how much of this is generational. Like "how freaking entitled are these kids now?" Publishing manuals on how to talk to them. Not saying I fully believe that, but it's the obvious "get off my lawn ya damn kids" reaction.
I support people's rights to write user manuals for themselves. The idea is even amusing to some degree. I just don't want to be forced to read them, and especially not be accused of not adhering to the rules in the manual.
And yes, I admit the word "snowflakes" popped up in my head.
People attack me, and you ban me. Classy as always. I even took the time to patiently explain what I meant, except for the one guy who was just spouting insults. Even to him I merely explained that he doesn't understand what I meant.
How is that "taking threads into flamewar hell"?
How many threads did you have to go back in my timeline to make the claim that I "always do that"? I clicked several pages and found nothing, even defending your own Sam Altman from insults in one of them.
I banned you for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop, in the light of your long history of breaking the site guidelines, ignoring our requests to stop, and getting banned for it.
None of that depends on what other people did, though you're certainly right that they shouldn't have attacked you (and we'll ban them, too, if they keep posting like that).
If you don't want to be banned, it's not that hard to read the guidelines and follow them. The vast majority of users here manage that just fine.
I don't want to get locked into hostility here! It's nothing personal, and if you genuinely want to use HN as intended, there are always ways to correct the situation. We just need reason to believe that you do in fact want to use HN as intended and that the pattern of breaking the guidelines won't keep happening in the future.
I did nothing that is against the guidelines, and you did not repeatedly ask me to stop whatever (I honestly don't even know what you mean). I think you are just projecting something.
I did nothing in this thread that is against the guidelines whatsoever. And not in my previous comments, either.
The only thing I did I guess is to voice an opinion or inconvenient truth that you personally don't like. I can see no other explanation for it.
Perhaps it is the comment on the "personal pronouns", because you belong to the group of people pushing that new ideology. But I did not even say you should not indulge people's request for their pronouns, just that people should not be forced to use them against their own convictions. As I explained, there is a clear analogy to the pronouns issue from the "personal manual", that is why I chose to mention it, because it is a well known issue.
Honestly, I just don't know what personal issue you seem to have with me.
It's hard to think of a more obvious violation than that one. Moderating such comments has zero to do with your opinions. We don't know or care what your opinions are.
I think it is a pretty reasonable response to the type of comment that was directed at me. ("you, sir, are a fire. in dumpster. omg."). I don't think you will find a single instance of me insulting anybody without them directing hate and insults against me.
Yet somehow you protect those people and not me. Sorry I can not respect you for that.
You seem to be saying it was ok for you to break the guidelines because someone else did it first. That's not how it works. It always feels like the other person started it and did worse, so that approach is a recipe for a downward spiral: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang&da...
If you feel like you're personally being singled out for more stringent moderation, that's an illusion. I don't recognize your username (nor most usernames on HN). It's true that I banned you where I only warned the other user (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856521) but that's I looked up the history and saw that you'd been warned (and indeed, banned) more than once before, and because your account was considerably more abusive overall.
If the other user continues to break the site guidelines we will end up banning them also.
Agreed. One thing that just occurred to me is that this title does give the author the freedom to entirely dictate the contents of a guide on "how other people should act". Nobody will disagree with the contents since they say it's a personal thing of theirs, though judging by the thread the disagreement the title already instills might be worse.
Title editorialized. Original title is "How to work with me".
To quote dang from 12 hours ago:
> It's against the HN guidelines to editorialize titles like this. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
OP is the author. When an author submits the item to HN it is common to do like here, writing a HN specific title for the submission that is different from the title on the page itself.
It's true that when it's clear that the submitter is the author, we often leave their preferred title in place.
But the submitted title in this case ("Every person should come with a user manual. So I created one for me.") was baity and therefore against the site guidelines, so we reverted it the way we normally do.
I like the idea, but this manual is not very good. It told me almost nothing about the person. Instead it seemed to sound a bit like a corporate manifesto of how one should conduct oneself.
I won't hold back (as you asked): it seems to me that the most likely reason someone would write something like this is if they had a lot of bad experiences that they ascribe to failures in the principles described in the document.
I think it's unlikely that most people would read this, or even if they did that they would use it to guide their interactions with you.
The document also makes you sound like a condescending person to me (though it's difficult to judge without knowing the greater context).
If my analysis is correct, a different way around the bad experiences is to detach from them and learn to recognize the unfortunate situations as they come up early on. But if they are too frequent the problem could be your attitude.
It's missing the most important section: "Known Bugs".
I don't think the average person knows themselves well enough to write a user manual, myself included. This is an idealized version of how he thinks about himself. Reality could be very different.
I'd be much more interested in a guide written by his wife or parents.
I was thinking of doing something like that, but not in a professional context. Just a post somewhere, a way to talk about my personal quirks in a comedic self-deprecating manner. To be quite frank, the way you did it, and in the professioal context in which this is framed, no amount of revisions will make you not sound like a jerk. This might function in a non-work environment.
I just don't think that's a very good idea. Not because I think you wrote anything wrong (you didn't), but that's just not how interpersonal relationships work.
Fair. Interesting that you think something like this could work in a non-work context, but not in a work-context. Curious: Do you have the same reaction to the one by Rands that inspired me to write mine? https://randsinrepose.com/archives/how-to-rands/
Most of the document you linked is about management practices, presumably written by someone in a management position. This sets the tone. The last topic is more similar to what you wrote, but it is much shorter and to the point. How to Rands is framed as a declaration of management philosophy, and, as such, sounds entirely appropriate. Yours is more personal in nature. If you are in a management position, it may be a good idea to let this transpire in your writing as well.
duplicating my comment because I accidentally answered to the wrong person and I can't delete the other
Most of the document you linked is about management practices, presumably written by someone in a management position. This sets the tone. The last topic is more similar to what you wrote, but it is much shorter and to the point. How to Rands is framed as a declaration of management philosophy, and, as such, sounds entirely appropriate. Yours is more personal in nature. If you are in a management position, it may be a good idea to let this transpire in your writing as well.
224 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 272 ms ] threadI didn't get it then, and I don't get it now. I guess I just don't see who has time for this kind of thing -- literally. I doubt very seriously anyone ever actually read these things.
...and no mentally stable person ever needs to write a page like this
this just screams "i'm a narcissist, these are my rules. wanna talk to me? obey the rules!"
Re: "no person will ever want to read this page": I have read the manual, I found it quite refreshing actually. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I was thinking of creating a manual of my own, and a curious thought occurred to me while reading your response (and other negative responses in this thread): the kind of people who are repelled by this sort of thing are probably not the kind of folks I'd enjoy working with, so that's actually a feature as far as I'm concerned. (Not making a negative evaluation about a group of people, just stating a personal preference and how such a "filter" as a personal manual might actually work to one's favor.)
Steve Pavlina has written on this subject[0], how broadcasting your true personality/values/desires will get you a lot more rejections, but will also allow you to connect with others who are a better match for you, who might have missed your authentic self if you had masked it instead.
He asserts that most people are so afraid of rejection (getting a "1" ie. a mismatch) that they settle for "partial matches" in the 6-7 range, but they'd actually be far happier if they had the courage to broadcast their true values because it's the only way to find the "10s".
[0] https://stevepavlina.com/blog/2014/09/ones-and-tens/
I think that sort of judgement breaks HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
On some level it is helpful to know your teammates, but on the other hand it can come across as self centered, like you think you're special and require special instructions for interacting with.
I'm sure you have good intentions in creating this, but if someone gave this to me I would instantly thing "oh man this person is going to be high maintenance"
It seems like a contract required before interaction rather than a helpful guide to understanding him.
That's one of the reasons I liked "Working with Claire" [1]: It is full of open subjectivity ("I hope", "I believe"), is very clear yet polite ("please ...").
[1]: http://growth.eladgil.com/book/the-role-of-the-ceo/insights-...
"I can come across as a dick sometimes but that is because I like to test certain stances on issues by vigorously defending them, I assure you I'm open to changing my mind if you just keep pushing, actually I feel like you are taking my intelligence more serious if you do. Not many people appreciate this, but somehow discussion makes me feel good" or
"I actually can get pretty pissed if I feel that you are insulting my intelligence (which I'm sometimes overly sensitive to), it is where I seem to get my sense of self worth from. I may over-argue my point of view then later realize you were right and apologize." or
"I act all cool and hipster but I'm actually constantly stressed when I travel and it makes me make poor choices and not pay attention to important things like 'Did I take my pass from the ATM 15 min ago?'." or
"I'm very shitty at keeping context in mind and often jump on the wrong details in a conversation, please have some patience." or
"I really really cannot agree to disagree, it keeps nagging at me, I want to talk it out until someone "wins". Yeah I've been called a dick for that." or
"I get stuck where there is no obvious best choice in just about any situation because I cannot make a choice based on gut feeling (it feels like weakness), I need logic and it makes me swing back and forth on questions like 'subway or Uber?', really annoying when you travel with me." or
"I do appreciate jokes that are slightly inappropriate, and I feel like often at work I have to self-censor."
"I'm 40 but I like 9gag and memes."
Ultimately, “Working with Claire” seems more aimed at me, the reader / notional employee. E.g. it starts concrete, talking about meetings we’d have together. And it has helpful info about how she tends to work and the kinds of things she might do. In theory, it means I wouldn’t have to work out things like “How much info does my new manager expect?”
Self-reflection is a big part of these personal READMEs. But it’s also important to work out which bits of self-reflection are useful to the reader. For me, that’s where the main article didn’t quite hit the mark.
"Working with Claire" signals: This is an article about what it's like to work with me.
"How to work with me" signals: This is a set of rules I expect to be followed if we are to get along.
I am just immediately rubbed the wrong way by the latter, while I'd be willing to approach the former with an open mind.
Also if you are my peer, you setting expectations like that is inappropriate.
I'd rather work with someone who's honest about how they operate than with someone who uses action as a verb.
Other than that: the whole thing comes across as hopelessly naive with respect to how humans interact, it misses the fact that people that dislike each other on a personal level may be forced to work with one another and it misses the 'office politics' angle.
If I was assigned to a team to work with you and you handed me this document I would in turn hand in my resignation with reference to your document and that would be that, any organization that tolerates this kind of bs is not one that I would want to work for.
What you have written is actually a list of demands.
Not likes. Not tendencies. Not polite requests. Not values you hope to share with others by meeting them half way, possibly clumsily but with good faith.
Demands.
There is no social context in which a document like this is appropriate.
Did you write this for your managing role at NZZ? Or as a freelancer? Or ...?
Sounds like a lot like on-line dating profiles.
Now speaking for myself, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I would certainly like an efficient and upfront method to assess a person's capabilities and mental state without having to waste time with pleasantries or wade through a social mine field. The more information the better.
On the other hand, it's likely that this personal resumé of sorts will be another layer of buzzwords and prattle to muck through as composing one evolves from a discovery process to a status competition.
Let's stick to business cards, shall we?
In particular, I did not get the impression that the text makes any demands from co-workers that the author would not mutually grant them himself.
Can you point out specific examples of language you found self centered or high maintenance?
To my eyes the comments read like pattern matches on low-level grammar and lexical choice. RFCs are even more egregious users of imperative language, but I don't see many people getting their jimmies ruffled about that, so I wonder what kind of social background and circumstances could make simple grammar features feel like a strong signal of character to people.
As a point of contrast, if discussion brought up things like the following, I would instead feel eminent warmness and inclusiveness:
- There is not a social norm encouraging people to write "Me Manuals", so what factors might bring such an idea to salience?
- Cultivating such a document and sharing with people exposes a lot of vulnerability. What does this act itself communicate? (Cooperative intent? Perfectionist tendencies? Bravery? Narcissism?)
- How would a document like this parse out under various different cultural and corporate norms?
- What are the failure modes of trying to communicate nuances of human cooperation through low-bandwidth channels of explicit delineation?
- Engaging witch such a document also engages our Kahneman System 1 cognition strongly. What can we glean about our individual biases by the snap-judgements and intuitions we feel reading the article?
- Are there historical or anthropological analogies we can draw to a "Me Manual" practice that could shed light on how such it may operate?
Et cetera. Personally, the author's article pushes my priors about him/her in the direction of earnest, open, optimistic, defaulting to cooperation vs competition, and perhaps having perfectionist tendencies. My base-rate estimate for this personality is semi-low, but the article feels like a pretty strong signal, so overall, I would feel cautiously hopeful about working with the author.
it reads more like a guide on working for you, less a guide for working with you.
these should give people the context and "why" of working with you, not the prescriptive steps required.
the use of "we" everywhere is the tell here. the readme is about you, not me.
The challenge I've seen regarding user manuals however is that people immediately discount them. They aren't willing to sit down and think about how they want to operate as an individual. So they poorly write one instead of giving it effort. Managers think it's burdensome and don't take the time to even read them. Lastly, those who write down how they want to operate sometimes do not operate in their integrity. They ultimately have to live with it, but it does create confusion when you give someone feedback based on their user manual and it's not well received.
As a career-long remote employee. I think it's a beautiful initiative if given the time and thought.
This specific user manual screams product manager having issues with engineering manager counterpart.
it just screams desperation
I don't want to learn 35 rules and their context. Give me the five most important points that make you tick.
I think the author forgot to include the "me" part of these sections as generalized tips are not personal. EX: how to give me feedback -> 3 ways I enjoy getting feedback.
IMO, these seem to me to be a friendly way of dictating process to others.
And I don't think you intend that :)
If you would be my manager or a person highly skilled in one area, I will probably try to not talk with you at all as much as possible.
Just as an example:
> Ask for help: I love giving input, but only if I know it can still make a difference.
So let's say I have an idea and I need some help. Do you I know that if I ask for your help you will make a difference. Maybe you will agree with me so there is no difference there to be made. Also further down you want me to find the proper time to ask for feedback: not too early and too late. Suddenly I need to be aware of you and the time when I should talk or not with you.
What do you think about this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jtUll4ZrOw
You are also clearly imagining things, I never said I would be against getting to know people or colleagues. I am against enforced individual rulebooks.
Ultimately you have no right to intrude on my brain, sorry.
"Would you be ‘abused’ if I mentioned my same-sex spouse and it violated your assumed reality?"
Probably not because I could see that your spouse has the same sex as you, so it wouldn't violate my perception? I don't get the point of your example.
The point of the "publicly state you believe in something that is obviously not true" is a symbolic subjugation of the person made to do it. It is "swearing in" to the ideology. Like Gallileo announcing publicly that the sun revolves around the earth.
what right do you actually claim to protect your perceptions? lordy, what a mess.
And yes, I admit the word "snowflakes" popped up in my head.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: since you have a long history of doing this and are continuing to break the site guidelines, I've banned the account.
How is that "taking threads into flamewar hell"?
How many threads did you have to go back in my timeline to make the claim that I "always do that"? I clicked several pages and found nothing, even defending your own Sam Altman from insults in one of them.
None of that depends on what other people did, though you're certainly right that they shouldn't have attacked you (and we'll ban them, too, if they keep posting like that).
If you don't want to be banned, it's not that hard to read the guidelines and follow them. The vast majority of users here manage that just fine.
I don't want to get locked into hostility here! It's nothing personal, and if you genuinely want to use HN as intended, there are always ways to correct the situation. We just need reason to believe that you do in fact want to use HN as intended and that the pattern of breaking the guidelines won't keep happening in the future.
I did nothing in this thread that is against the guidelines whatsoever. And not in my previous comments, either.
The only thing I did I guess is to voice an opinion or inconvenient truth that you personally don't like. I can see no other explanation for it.
Perhaps it is the comment on the "personal pronouns", because you belong to the group of people pushing that new ideology. But I did not even say you should not indulge people's request for their pronouns, just that people should not be forced to use them against their own convictions. As I explained, there is a clear analogy to the pronouns issue from the "personal manual", that is why I chose to mention it, because it is a well known issue.
Honestly, I just don't know what personal issue you seem to have with me.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's hard to think of a more obvious violation than that one. Moderating such comments has zero to do with your opinions. We don't know or care what your opinions are.
Yet somehow you protect those people and not me. Sorry I can not respect you for that.
If you feel like you're personally being singled out for more stringent moderation, that's an illusion. I don't recognize your username (nor most usernames on HN). It's true that I banned you where I only warned the other user (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856521) but that's I looked up the history and saw that you'd been warned (and indeed, banned) more than once before, and because your account was considerably more abusive overall.
If the other user continues to break the site guidelines we will end up banning them also.
To quote dang from 12 hours ago: > It's against the HN guidelines to editorialize titles like this. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
But the submitted title in this case ("Every person should come with a user manual. So I created one for me.") was baity and therefore against the site guidelines, so we reverted it the way we normally do.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The document also makes you sound like a condescending person to me (though it's difficult to judge without knowing the greater context).
If my analysis is correct, a different way around the bad experiences is to detach from them and learn to recognize the unfortunate situations as they come up early on. But if they are too frequent the problem could be your attitude.
I don't think the average person knows themselves well enough to write a user manual, myself included. This is an idealized version of how he thinks about himself. Reality could be very different.
I'd be much more interested in a guide written by his wife or parents.
Put this on GitHub and let your co workers submit issues for the problems they have with you and pull requests for changes they want you to make.
I'm starting to like this instruction manual idea more and more now ;)
I just don't think that's a very good idea. Not because I think you wrote anything wrong (you didn't), but that's just not how interpersonal relationships work.
Sorry, dude.
Most of the document you linked is about management practices, presumably written by someone in a management position. This sets the tone. The last topic is more similar to what you wrote, but it is much shorter and to the point. How to Rands is framed as a declaration of management philosophy, and, as such, sounds entirely appropriate. Yours is more personal in nature. If you are in a management position, it may be a good idea to let this transpire in your writing as well.