Are you being tongue in cheek about a possible reaction, or does that behavior actually seem confrontational?
I feel like the wording given spoken with an appropriate tone (somewhere between matter of fact and conciliatory) would be direct but very reasonable. If things deescalate, great - and if the employer reacts aggressively, it's a win as well - you found out early they don't tolerate people sticking up for themselves. Time to bounce.
I was being tongue in cheek, but there is a problem of sexism where a man will talk over women. If those women assert themselves they're often not seen as assertive or powerful, but pushy and bitchy and shrill. When black people do it they're seen as aggressive.
Stopping people talking over others makes life better for everyone - you don't want to exclude people (men or women) because they don't want to bother shouting down an over-confident asshat.
When black people do it they're seen as aggressive.
Aggressive or "Angry". It takes a bit of conversational judo to avoid such an appearance. I'm a big black guy. (6'2", 255 pounds) It rarely goes well for men like me if we're perceived as angry or aggressive.
When someone starts talking over me, I become not only quiet but still. As close to motionless as possible. I even slow down my rate of blinking. Remaining silent and motionless forces all attention in the room onto the person who is speaking.
It makes them and anyone else in the room acutely aware that this person just cut you off and has breached standard etiquette. At that point, the pressure to be polite usually kicks in "Oh, I'm sorry. You were saying?"
This is a really great communication hack! It's a pretty poor comment on society at large that you've had to mitigate your communication based purely on how people judge your appearance, but thank you for sharing it.
If one is aware of the biases of others, they can be used to one's advantage.
This happened a little over 20 years ago.
I was shopping at the mall, near Christmas and the place was packed. There were some really long lines and I said to my friend "Watch this", then walked over to some items that were near the item that I wanted to buy. I started picking up, examining and putting back small items that were on the shelf. I was sure to do it in a way that showed I was putting each item back in its original position before moving on to the next one.
In under 90 seconds, a salesperson approached me and asked if I needed help. I said "Yes, I'd like to buy this" and reached for the item I wanted. He proceeded to take the item, carry it to an unused register, ring me up and complete the sale. I was out of the story in 5 minutes while the other people in line had barely moved.
My friend (who is white) looked at me and asked "What just happened there?" and I explained to him that I was taking advantage of racist perceptions to improve my own shopping experience.
Can you explain to me what racist perceptions that were, and why you got what you wanted? I don't have experience that would help me decode that situation...
I didn't understand all of this at the time, I just knew that it worked. Later, when I worked in retail, I learned why.
Retail employees aren't supposed to stop shoplifters. They are expected to take opportunities to turn potential shoplifting incidents into sales.
I used the perception that the salesperson had of me as a young black male to my advantage. I picked things up and was conspicuous about putting them back in the exact same place to draw attention to myself. I was behaving in an incongruous manner, not necessarily a suspicious one. Basically, I was doing something different than the other people there and that got someone's attention. I thought that they'd assume I was looking to shoplift and someone would come over to "help" me while other customers were still waiting. I was right. Ringing me up right then and there guaranteed that the sale took place instead of sending me off to wait in line where I might just walk out.
>I picked things up and was conspicuous about putting them back in the exact same place to draw attention to myself. I was behaving in an incongruous manner, not necessarily a suspicious one. //
Based on your description you behaved in a suspicious manner.
People don't browse like that in general but shoplifters do - you didn't behave like a "young black male" [ie like any random person] you behaved like a person that the security guards have seen stealing things before, you pick up lots of items, look around a lot, have an accomplice to act as lookout/provide distraction/carry-goods. Small items are great as you can pick two, palm one and then make a show of replacing the other. Similarly in an area with high value goods a shoplifter will "browse" lots of items as they're waiting for their moment whilst a shopper, particularly getting a large-ticket item, will go straight for the item as that's why they came.
Now it might be that they noticed that behaviour initially because you were profiled as suspect based on racial prejudice, but as soon as you enact the behaviour then the response was response to shoplifter behaviour rather than racial prejudice.
I'd be interested if anyone knows about use of CV to flag potential shoplifters based on standard behaviours?? Seems the tech is there to do that.
It's my contention that my demographic information is why my behavior was regarded as suspicious.
Had I been a middle aged white guy, it would have been seen as the behavior of an interested customer.
To just put it out in the open, this was a Radio Shack. I have been going to Radio Shacks since I was about 7 years old and looking through all of the hobby electronics. Over the years, I discovered that I could get the attention and assistance of a salesperson at will.
Doesn't the fact you can get the attention at will disprove your hypothesis? It's the behaviour that gets the attention, otherwise you wouldn't be in control. If it weren't the behaviour then you'd get approached as often when you don't do as when you do.
As I said before it could be that you get observed more because of your demographic, but if you can perform a behaviour that gets direct attention then it's not your race or other aspects of your appearance that's causing the staff action.
Just stand where you are and start swearing loudly will work too, you'll get a member of staff, they'll say "can I help you" - it's the usual attempt in a commercial environment to be non-confrontational when really one means "you look suspicious, why are you here" - you then say "please ring this up for me". Chances are they see that will get you out of the store ASAP, which would be their intention during the approach.
I work in a store, it's really obvious when people don't follow standard purchasing/enquiry patterns.
So you consider the behaviour to be normal? It's very difficult to behave normally when focussing on a particular behaviour, most people are not very good actors IME.
Would be interested if you can recreate this as a demonstration; also a video showing the behaviour would be great, I'd certainly attempt a duplicate.
>What would be perceived as customer interest as a non-minority customer is perceived as suspicious as a minority customer. //
I perceive problems with this line of thinking - for example any young solo male at the store I work at is suspicious. Does that mean I'm ageist and sexist? No, just that this demographic is contrary to the normal use of our services; moreover the only major theft we've had was by someone in this demographic.
We might fail to notice someone else stealing because our attention is elsewhere whilst with people in that demographic our attention will be much more tightly focussed; according to our records this has never happened however.
In your opinion is it wrong for us to behave in this way?
Depending on how you define "normal".
If you mean acting like everyone else, then absolutely not.
My goal was to be incongruous.
If you mean acting calmly and naturally, then yes. I wasn't nervous because I knew that I wasn't doing anything wrong. I wasn't doing anything that would get me in trouble.
We might fail to notice someone else stealing because our attention is elsewhere whilst with people in that demographic our attention will be much more tightly focussed; according to our records this has never happened however.
If you are watching the young males, how can you be sure? What kind of inventory shrinkage do you have?
In your opinion is it wrong for us to behave in this way?
We all have our biases. Whether or not it's wrong is debatable but if you miss a shoplifter because you were focusing your attention on the wrong person, that is your fault.
You can pick 2 items if they're small, put one back to attempt to appear like you didn't take anything; works with clothing too. Suspicious behaviour looks suspicious.
It's not fair that you have to do this; yet I'm glad you have found a way to mitigate the cost of unfair treatment, and I hope people will curtail their biases in future.
About the not-blinking, though --- that seems like staring, which I would guess would get lumped in with the body language that gets called aggressive. (I'd guess that blinking more makes you look surprised and wounded, which is the effect you are going for in this scenario)
How often do you do that? Does it work consistently? I'd like to try it and see if it works - I have a problem where when I'm at dinner with my family, the two old men in the room (my dad and uncle) will shout over the other three people at the table, excluding us from the conversation. I wonder if this technique would work, but I have the feeling they wouldn't even notice.
I thought the point was to demonstrate you're not being violently aggressive [with your voice at least] and to get the person to have to pay closer attention, ie move in, at which point they risk escalating too much if they continue being very loud.
This to me is a defusing technique rather than an attempt to increase the other persons anger and to humiliate them.
Guess it depends on what you want to get out of the situation: you could adopt a quiet voice and non-threatening demeanour but be highly offensive with your language and probably achieve the ends you mention quite well.
I do the same thing. There really isn't any point escalating the situation when someone is clearly being out of line and unfairly interrupting you. It almost always devolves into a shouting match. And then drama ensues, and someone has to mediate to resolve, and so on, etc.
I've also seen others that react in different ways. Some of them react a little too-hastily to being interrupted with some sort of hostile comment (even after doing it others), and don't adapt to the situation. There are some discussions that are lively and very back and forth.
Really, at the end of the day we're all just there to solve problems with good solutions. If you have a good idea, as long as no one is actively blocking/ignoring it, it needs to be considered.
I have a problem of talking over friends [in two-part conversation]; primarily because I've already established what they're saying and so I skip to my turn - mostly I can catch it and slow down the conversation on my end to match their pace of delivery.
It's kinda like when I can't remember a word, or a person, usually my wife - or a close friend - will have established who it is or what I'm talking about, the word doesn't need filling in to convey the meaning to that particular person.
It also turns up with acquaintances who might broach a topic I'm familiar with, they take a slow pace to allow me to follow - but interrupting demonstrates I know what they're on about and allows them to up the density of the conversation. I see this as beneficial; others detest it I'm sure.
>Stopping people talking over others makes life better for everyone //
Why let someone gabble on if the whole group already is at that level of understanding on the subject though; is that really better?
Thinking and vocalizing being asynchronous processes, "people talking over others" isn't always as straightforward as it may seem.
At what point do you determine that someone is talking over someone or that the person being talked over just attempts to dominate the entire conversation?
I understand this is a problem. But any unassertive person has these problems. And being called 'shrill' or 'aggressive' can be fine at work.
Shouting down is not the solution. Its better done by expressing annoyance, immediately, when talked over. Maybe white males learn this early on the playground. But anybody can learn this.
"we promoted Bob because he makes good decisions and motivates others to follow him. We didn't promote Ann because she's trying to enforce her suboptimal decisions by using her authority"
Maybe, but DanBC is likewise only highlighting one option.
In my experience, that is by far the less likely. Leaders are called leaders because they lead people who choose to follow. If you're forcing others to follow, you're not a leader, you're an authoritarian. I haven't met many of the latter, but plenty of the former, none of which I would describe as "assertive".
When breaking the reviews down by gender of the person evaluated, 58.9% of the reviews received by men contained critical feedback. 87.9% of the reviews received by women did.
Men are given constructive suggestions. Women are given constructive suggestions – and told to pipe down.
There’s a common perception that women in technology endure personality feedback that their male peers just don’t receive. Words like bossy, abrasive, strident, and aggressive are used to describe women’s behaviors when they lead; words like emotional and irrational describe their behaviors when they object. All of these words show up at least twice in the women’s review text I reviewed, some much more often. Abrasive alone is used 17 times to describe 13 different women. Among these words, only aggressive shows up in men’s reviews at all. It shows up three times, twice with an exhortation to be more of it.
>Maybe white males learn this early on the playground. But anybody can learn this.
You're missing the point. The point is the -exact- same behaviors are seen through a cultural lens.
In 2003, Frank Flynn taught a Harvard Business School case study on Silicon Valley entrepreneur Heidi Roizin to a class at Columbia. Her story is epic: After graduating from Stanford's Graduate School of Business in 1983, she founded an early Silicon Valley software company before becoming president of Software Publishers' Association and later serving as Vice President of World Wide Developer Relations for Apple. Then she became a venture capitalist and Stanford lecturer.
But when those Columbia students read her story, only half of them knew her as Heidi Roizin. The other half read the same story with a changed name: Heidi became Howard.
The students reacted very differently to the same protagonist, depending on the perceived gender.
"Although [students] think [Heidi is] just as competent and effective as Howard, they don't like her, they wouldn't hire her, and they wouldn't want to work with her," Flynn later said. "As gender researchers would predict, this seems to be driven by how much they disliked Heidi's aggressive personality. The more assertive they thought Heidi was, the more harshly they judged her (but the same was not true for those who rated Howard)."
In short, men are liked for being assertive, while women are disliked.
> but there is a problem of sexism where a man will talk over women. If those women assert themselves they're often not seen as assertive or powerful, but pushy and bitchy and shrill
I don't think that's a problem with sexism, but with how a person does it. If you're used to talking over others, you usually do it in a "smooth" way, when other people make pauses, or you say something very relevant. On the other hand, when someone gets annoyed that they can't finish, them being annoyed is off-putting, and they also often say things like "let me finish first" when you already know what they will say, so they come off as struggling to gain power and influence.
Edit: I think, on the other hand, that making people communicate faster and dynamically search for the optimal speaker makes communication more efficient and is better for everyone. No shouting needed.
If it's not intentionally sexist, it's not sexist at all. Sexism is discrimination because of someone's sex. Any other claim of sexism is irrelevant and a classic statistical error, the Simpson's paradox. It's as silly as saying that doctors are sexist because they prescribe more contraception pills to women than men.
> Often times when you think you know what they are going to say, you are wrong, putting words in their mouth.
Yes, sometimes, but in average the effect is positive (i.e. the communication is more efficient).
Sexism has to be intentional? You're redefining the word simply so you never have to deal with it. It doesn't even jibe with your own definition ("Sexism is discrimination because of someone's sex."). People do many things unconsciously, and systems push people toward certain actions without engaging the conscious consent of those involved (a fancy way of saying we humans often take the easy path rather than the thoughtful path).
You can certainly be an asshole without being intentional about it :) Try and argue that's not possible!
Right, "intentional" was not the correct word. What I mean is that sex has to be the primary motivator/discriminator of the action (whether the motivation is conscious/intentional or subconscious), not just a statistical artifact, as in your example with interrupting people and women tolerating that more.
I once had an interviewer intentional preface with "I always come off a bit hostile" and I was tempted to just stop right there. If you appear hostile in interviews and you know you appear hostile in interviews because people keep telling you that, why are you even still in the interview loop? Technical interviews are already stressful enough without the added stress of a hostile inverviewer.
Yeah, that's poor wording on their part. It would be better to say something along the lines of, "Let me know if I get too aggressive - sometimes I really get into these whiteboard problems and I appreciate your feedback."
In this particular anecdote it didn't appear to be aggressiveness that the interviewer could control so much as a social cue/interaction issue of some sort (possibly autism-spectrum) presenting as brusqueness/disinterestedness. (Of course, that's giving said anecdotal interviewer the benefit of the doubt, because it certainly came across, at its worst, as general rudeness and an impression that even performing an interview at all was a waste of that person's time and effort. If that were the case it was even more a question of whether it was a good idea that said interviewer should be involved in interview loops.)
I realize in software we have to deal with plenty of people on the autism spectrum and/or with various sorts of social skill deficiencies, but technical question whiteboarding has enough difficulty that you probably don't also want to throw in such a difficult social interaction test in the same interview. (Not to mention that some of these social interaction/spectrum issues can lead to pedantry in a technical interview that maybe biases the technical interview in a poor way.)
"I'm getting some hostile vibes. Have I upset you or am I mistaken?"
It'll either give the guy a reality check or speed things along. No sense in us wasting our time.