Hacker News Reader

Comment by skinkestek | Hacker News Reader

Not OP but everything that is not written is scary.

Suddenly you have someone telling you what you told them and starts wondering: did I really promise that?

(Written doesn't prevent people from trying that trick, as one particulariy brilliant but not very pleasant guy tried to tell me: "yes, <my name> that is what you wrote [in the mail] but not what you meant." However, in these cases I have a written record and I am confindent with myselves and that nasty person can bugger off.)

Not saying one should never talk to people on the phone but when one are stressed out and stretched out thin it is not high on my wishlist.

View on HN

I hate phones as well but I've developed myself a ritual for alleviating th burden of anxiety-causing calls. Maybe this helps someone else as well:

1. Take pen and paper

2. Write a brief script how to start the call. Just sufficient amount of notes that you have a clear and concise agenda

3. During call take notes

4. If you don't understand something, repeat for the other party what they've said. Not in a way that it can be understood you agree with them as this can become a really problem with business dicussions, but using phrasing as "Can I repeat what you said so I am clear on this. According to you..."

5. At the end of the call, if there are topics that should be handled by you or the other party, review what was agreed topic by topic.

I generally find people appreciate this structured approach in calls. At least it reduces most of the anxiety from my part to minimum.

This is pretty easily solved.

"Hey XYZ, it was such a pleasure speaking with you today. I'm going to shoot ya an email in a bit just to follow-up with everything we discussed. Have a great day!"

Or - if that scares you still - just shoot them an email anyway to follow-up and recap without preluding. It gives them the opportunity to change/add/whatever in-text, and they can't say you said something differently because you can point to the email and say - no, we said this (And you didn't correct me).

Skip the conversation over phone/skype, and it will work even better. Worked fine for me for 20 years (since 1998), until Covid, when Zoom become the new norm.

What you do is write notes (or use the meeting transcription) and after the meeting send the important points around in an email as minutes of the meeting.

That way you still have a written record to refer to.

Depending on your local laws, it might be legal to record calls. Do so and then after the call listen to it again and take notes - that'll allow you to track what's been said.

This prompted me to finally look at Australian law on the point. It varies by state: some allow you to record if you’re a party to the conversation, others require consent or similar, but all of the latter have an exception for if you’re protecting the lawful interests of one party, which sounds to me like blanket permission to record.

Kinda like how snakes are protected in Australia and it’s illegal to kill them unless you or your family or such are in immediate danger from a snake, which basically means if you see a snake you can kill it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com