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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

It's not about "say this and you'll break someone forever." It's about getting the best out of those you manage by engendering trust and respect.

When you diminish someone's work or efforts (by any means; not simply by using the word "just"), you demonstrate to them that they can't confide in you, and should hide things from you whenever they can. As these events build up into a regular pattern, people learn that they can't trust you with anything important, and over time lose respect for you, and then your ability to manage them effectively is hampered. The team's performance is lower than it could be due to morale.

Your first line "Alternatively, if you’re not fit for work, then don’t be at work?" changes the contours of this topic into an either/or argument that absolves you of any need for empathy, which is worrying.

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It’s an assumption that you’ve made on your own.

I have been to over twenty weddings across my career, all from people I’ve shared a workplace with. I’ve bought baby shower gifts, I’ve been to graduations, birthdays, divorce hearings, rehab graduation, and more. I’d take a bullet for half the people in my contact list.

Work is work. You’re either there to work, or you go somewhere else. You think because you take a sick day, I don’t care about you? Have you ever known someone who never called in, and then one day they called in? That’s someone who needs to be checked on. But for someone who calls and says “hey, I’m taking a mental health day” or “hey, I got too fucked up last night and I can’t navigate the daytime world” those are different situations.

I respect my coworkers and colleagues enough to trust them to ask when they need help. If I say “hey, I need you or someone who can do it soon to just go through all the issues tagged merge and see which owners are here today” or something like that, then that person might say something like “ok, just to clarify, is there any simpler way to do that than by going all the tickets and then going through MS teams?” (ofc not, that would actually make sense)

“Just” is a signal of simplicity. To have apprehension about it is itself a signal of anxiety. These are workable factors.

What’s not workable is for you to say I have no empathy just because I have enough respect to treat my subordinates like adults and not coddle them.

> “Just” is a signal of simplicity.

You are missing a point overall I think - “just” signals simplicity, but it also signals dismissal of the difficulty the other person (receiver of “just”) is having. In that situation, to ask them to “just do it” will not help close the gap on why you think it’s simple and the other person has difficulty.

Because of your dismissal, they would not ask you again about it and could be apprehensive of exploring and closing that gap further themselves, especially when the “just” statement is made in a more public setting (eg. team meeting).

Whenever someone uses “just” as a way to signal simplicity and the other person does not concur, there exists a gap. The more someone dismisses another person’s difficulties, the bigger that gap. “Just” statements offer a solution which can help make progress. But who’s helping address that gap and how? Food for thought.

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