Calling a spade a #$#@@ shovel 6

[patprimmer]

In some of my posts here some seem to get their knickers in a knot for directly calling something exactly and bluntly what it is rather than sanitising it.

In the code of ethics thread by tctctraining, I just called using market knowledge gained from your employer theft. Let me make it clear, there have been no reactions there to date, but I only just posted there.

A few weeks ago I referred to deliberate inaccuracies on time sheets as fraud. That got a very defensive response about justification that involved denial as part of the justification.

I will try to explain the difference between calling something bluntly, exactly what it is vs whether or not it is justifiable.

A real life example.

All through school I played several codes of Rugby. I mostly played in the front row of the scrum, often as rake or hooker. No sniggering please.

When packed down with both arms interlocked with the props you are very vulnerable to someone who has a loose arm and decides to try to gouge your eyes.

When someone is fouling you in such a way, it is very hard for the referee to detect the offense and you need to suffer or retaliate.

Your four courses of action are to:-

1) Complain to the ref. Almost always totally ineffective and actually encourages an escalation of the fouls on you.

2) Throw you head rapidly up out of the scrum and clast your face as you bring your knee up hard into the opposition players face. You will most likely break the nose of the wrong player on the right team. You may or may not get penalised by the ref.

3) The fingers trying to gouge your eyes often end up in your mouth. You can bite them very and I mean very firmly.

4) Suffer in silence.

The only two effective methods are fouls. Are they justified, Are they ethical.

Years of experience taught me 3) was the most efficient and effective option.

Some people who never had their face mauled while packed down act all discussed, but how can they judge.

To sanitise it is not facing facts squarely.

I learned to call it exactly what it is then decide whether or not it was also justified under the circumstances.

In my opinion, santising things distorts the assessment of justification.

Regards
Pat
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[MikeHalloran]

Sanitizing also prevents equitable distribution of blame.

Telling the stark truth is much easier, more efficient, and I think more effective than keeping track of whose ox is to be protected and whose ox can be gored at will.

The only caution I would offer is that sometimes, perhaps often, the obvious and easy targets are actually the least deserving of your ire, so some civility, and especially some considered delay, will serve you well.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[rowingengineer]

I am all for calling a spade a spade. unfortunately to call a spade a spade first of all you must have clear water, which is very hard to achieve in a forum.

Even in real life I get in trouble for "telling it like it is". however when asked "Do you think my ass looks big in this?" I know what to answer.

while some might get there knickers in a knot about your comments i think that they are fair and just, weather asked for or not that is another question.

as to how people respond, I think it all depends on your age, when you are young you care what others think, when you get older you stop caring. at some stage you reach a point when you decide to tell others what you think even though they didn't ask.

As for the course of action I with you on (3. Justified? yes, ethical? yes. But the real question is would you stop your own team mate from doing it if he was on your team, that is a real test of ethics.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that them like it

 

[zdas04]

You know, I've just stopped reading those sorts of threads. I've been slapped around a couple of times too many for calling a whiny, sniveling child a "whiny, sniveling child". There are folks at eng-tips.com who will rally around someone who they perceive is under attack and I got tired of being called to task by people with the sensitivity of a butterfly and the real-world sense of mental patient.

You know at the end of the day if you answer the question "does this dress make me look fat" with "I don't think it is the dress" very few good things will come to you. It is best just to say "NO!" with a straight face and total sincerity. It's even better to avoid hearing the question at all.

David

 

[msquared48]

So... Does David Spade call David Spade's spade a spade?

Or... Does David Spade just shovel off the spade subject as so much #$%^?

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[SomptingGuy]

I have to walk a fine line in my work. Calling a spade a spade is simply not possible in most cases. I have a long history of finely-honed diplomacy, when answering stupid or obvious customer questions. The hardest (and often most rewarding) task is trying to point out a blindingly obvious mistake in an innocent way.

- Steve

 

[patprimmer]

SG

I learned long ago not to say to customers, what prat did that as he might be sitting opposite you.

However when people ask questions here from complete strangers, they must expect a variety of answers, some of which might be very straight forward.

I am not talking here about being rude, what I am talking about is in an ethics forum squarely calling something what it really is and then seeing if it is still justified rather than watering it down with flowery language to make it easier to justify even if it really is not.

Regards
Pat
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[PEDARRIN2]

It is always fun to watch who will tell the emperor he has no clothes as opposed to the syncophants who tell him he looks nice in his new suit.

Its the same thing - only to somebody who has authority.

 

[jmw]

So, when the big boss asks you how you are settling in at the new factory to which he has enticed you with honeyed words (but damn little else) and is expecting that you will be back to full steam ahead pretty damn quick and you think he wants a real answer, think again.

The truth isn't always expected or appreciated.

Turning round and saying that you are just twiddling your thumbs until IT get's their finger out and hooks you up to the intranet doesn't go down well.

Never speak ill of IT... they hold the company to ransom.

A lesson learned - there is a time and a place for directness.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[patprimmer]

Just to be perfectly clear.

I am talking about being blunt here in the ethics forum, not when dealing with customers or colleagues in the workplace or dealing with relationships.

Questions like does this dress make my bum look big are a whole different story.

How frank to be with your boss or customers is also a whole different ballgame and depends on many factors including their character and how well you know them.

It is possible to be frank and polite and sensitive, well sometimes it is.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

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for site rules

 

[livingston]

I think that sometimes the posters don't realize how asinine their questions are and an 'honest' and blunt responses feels like it comes from left field. Hurt feelings blah blah blah. If nowhere else but here, honesty should be respected if not appreciated.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I had an appraisal recently with my most recent manager, someone I've worked with a lot and have great respect for. He asked me for a frank and open discussion about all of my colleagues. That was fun.

- Steve

 

[MartinSr00]

Identifying something correctly can well clarify one's own thinking. For example, instead of "fudging" on your time card, you're defrauding your employer. Clear thinking makes us better people. This kind of thinking needs to go on inside each of our heads.

But sharing your innermost thoughts with anyone can destroy important relationships. Loss of those relationships can easily be a net loss to you. In short, as we run off at the mouth, we can become way less effective. Now after an "honesty" episode and some vigorous push back from the recipient, we can rail at the world and label them for the fools and sycophants that they sometimes are -- but in the end, as they say in the vernacular, "You be screwed".

Honesty, without regard to the listener or the message can be a sin. It also can result in a huge philosophical mistake -- honesty (like, for example, liberty, food, and leisure), is a limited good -- a certain amount of it is highly beneficial. But too much makes one a boor, a sociopath, a glutton, or a sloth. Integrity is a little bit more complex than running around telling everyone their offenses in their most reduced of forms. Proportionality is also demanded.

Total honesty clouds matters of degree. A person who takes a pencil home in his pocket and leaves it there is a thief just like Bernie Madoff. But society cannot function, and it's not honest, to say merely because they can be described by the same word makes their offenses equal. Yes, objectively they're both thieves, and neither is right, but if you condemn them equally, you're almost giving Bernie a free pass, and the pencil thief a sanction very much out of proportion to his or her offense.

In the end, it should be about justice. Justice is an unlimited philosophical good -- the more you have, the better off we are.

Your point is clear, and it would be better if more erred a little more toward honesty and didn't use euphemisms to hide their most filthy of impulses. My only point is that excessive honesty, a limitied good, can compromise justice, an unlimited one.

 

[ColonelSanders83]

As far as I can see, the questions were asked in the ethics forum therefore they were looking for the ethical answer. In all the responses I have seen from Patprimmer he has always given a short, concise, and ETHICAL answer. The justification of ethical crimes is not ethics, but rather politics.

Frankly, whiney and defensive retorts to a response regarding an ethical question should be red flagged and removed. It is an ethics forum, not a way to agree with other rule breakers about the rules being broken.

 

[jgailla]

Pat,
I agree with you and I have seen some of the straightforward responses you have given. Straight shooting in this context is a good thing.
zdas, same thing.
We can all agree that telling your wife she's fat or telling a client that he's a moron is a stupid and immature thing to do.
I get pretty annoyed with some of the posters in here who are whining. There are a lot of people who think that the world owes them a living and it makes me angry. These people need to be called out as much as possible on the off chance that they might eventually learn to be a decent person.
Of course, the primadonnas will just get mad instead of thinking they might be wrong.

 

[TheTick]

Is it a "spade" or is it a "manual shoveling device"?

 

[ScottyUK]

Just tell it how it is. Too many people devote too much time and effort into prettying up things which are better left ugly.


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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

 

[casseopeia]

I have long been accused of lacking diplomacy skills. The older I get, the more I don't give a rat's a$$.

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[JLSeagull]

Phrases like "people skills" and "political correctness" are not closely associated with engineers. Still some can be thin skinned, especially when their normal time sheet practices are labeled as fraudulant.

Life.

 

[TheTick]

As much as I would like to believe there is no harm in telling anyone anything that is true, that is not the truth.