Aspies For Freedom

This is long but I thought I’d share this conversation that I had with my friend last night. It is a about navigating social culture of the workplace.
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Silky: This week I hurt the feelings of a nice co-worker. She sent an email to my boss and me, saying she noticed an error message on the computer. So, I researched the problem and sent my boss an email with the data I gathered.  

Silky: My note began with: “This error message is generated each time this program runs. It is not new.  Diagnostic: 0035 invalid name (then I went on with screen shots of technical details).  Apparently this lady felt I was saying it/she was unimportant, that she was bothering us with foolish things.
"It is not new" was purely among the list of data to assist the boss with problem diagnosis to rule out the cause being from a recent change.

Silky: People put a lot of empty social padding at the beginning and end of emails. Most the time I don’t see a reason to. But when I do get the sense that some is expected, I’m not sure which phrases fit. It’s annoying to feel like just trying to deliver facts is a mine field

FRIEND: Social padding is not empty, any more than crankcase oil is useless.  

Silky: I’m angry and frustrated that I have to dilute important data that I want to present clearly, by muddling it with social goo-isms.

FRIEND: It is not diluting important data.  It's adding additional data in another dimension. This is a fundamental error, complaining that social norms are foolish and empty, but responding in upset ways when you detect a violation of a social norm or personal preference directed at you.  Reducing personal upset is why we have social norms.  It's a different level of complaint to say you don't know how to communicate those components of data, or to say that you don't understand how to process their data, than to say it's not data.  Saying it's not data devalues NTs as humans.  (We talked about this before.)  Saying that social niceties are empty is translated as "your humanness isn't valued."

silky: I understand that social niceties are good and that I enjoy getting stroked, yes.  I just feel some things should be exempt. Data is sacred. When I am being a text book, reciting data ... my goal is to be concise, accurate and clear

FRIEND: But didn't you tell me you needed context to understand how to process the information from a textbook? This is like that. The "social padding" is the introductory context presentation to allow the reader to understand how to process the "computer log" that follows.

silky: I have this vision of Spock saying "Thank you so much for asking me, Captain. You could not have known this stuff but that doesn’t mean you aren’t great at your job.  Here are the readings you need:  54378 68q  64837 in 10 seconds. Thank you again and have a wonderful day. You're the best!!!”

FRIEND: I need to show you episodes of The Next Generation, with Commander Data.  

silky: I’m wasting time on repeated redrafts of what should be simple notes due to fearing they'll take every version the wrong way

FRIEND: There is no substitute for practice.

Silky: when I complimented the boss on “doing a good job” you said it wasn’t appropriate. Is that only because he is not the same level in the office hierarchy?

FRIEND: yes, it is only because of the hierarchy thing. See, there are rules, and data.  You just need a codebook.

silky: I’ve noticed certain of my "informal" work phrases really need to be retired from over use

FRIEND: can you create a list of equivalent terms by class of communication, and remember to cycle through them on a regular, pseudo-random basis?

FRIEND: Select _from ("you rock," "that's great," "I owe you," "fantastic")
If count(praise, past_month) > 4, then goto select_from
praise = select_from

silky: lmao you got me to perk up when I thought you were giving me a math formula of how many phrases they need to hear per time period

FRIEND: generate the lists... I can help you with sorting.

silky: I don’t want to sound like one guy who said "cool beans" 50 times a day

FRIEND: think about the desired distribution of phrase usage as a exponential, and satisfaction with a phrase repeated over a short time period as a decaying exponential
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So, last night I printed past emails and marked with highlighter all the social goo phrases my co-workers use.  Things like “I apologize”, “Thanks for your help”,  “I owe you”, “Take care” “you rock”.  Next I sorted the mail into hierarchy categories (Boss, his boss, peers, and strangers).

Already this has allowed me to see a pattern of typical phrases for various situations and what fits the level of office rank.  Just thought I might share this in case it helps someone else.

Hmm, I learned to add a few little things to office e-mails to make them a bit more friendly sounding but looking at the e-mails that were sent to me.

So I start with "Hi" if it's someone I don't know or "Hi (name)" if it's somebody I do. Then I'll say something like "I've got a case here where such and such is happening and wonder if you would please help...."

I always end with something such as "regards" or "kind regards" or "best regards". I wouldn't bother with "you rock" or "cool beans" or suchlike except under very rare circumstances. Making e-mails really gooey isn't something I like to do so I just make them polite.

Thank you Tenacious. I've been surprised at how much starting with "Hi" does seem to soften things into a more friendly tone.  Or to use their name.  Thank heavens our office doesn't do the horrible practice I recently heard about from others: ending work emails with "hugs".  ewwww

Maybe in this case, it was not just the data centred mail you wrote, but more the triangle You, Boss, She.

I guess you work 'with computers', more precisely you program. That is what I do. My mails are mostly technically as well. I do not even write a name to address or my own as a signature, because the mail program has this information already. And by writing something to someone I express a certain intention. Never heard a complain about that so far. I fancy that those other programmers and computer scientists are used to read concise information, so why not write like that?

But ok, in the world out there, some people just feel better if some knickknacks are woven into the writing, so why not supply them if you have such a list of phrases.

Thank you Yigal.  Her reply email sounded hurt and petulant. She said she didn't realize the error was "not new", apologized for wasting our time and that would not bother us again.  HER boss then stepped in and thanked her for letting us know about the error and said that her future input was important to us, which is apparently what I was supposed to have said. Mabye she was sitting there wagging her tail waiting on a "good dog" for reporting an issue and felt slapped down by the way I worded it.  Like I said, "it is not new" wasn't any sort of social implication. It was merely a fact which assists in finding the cause.  

Now I'm thinking that maybe people expect the first sentence and the last sentence to always contain a personal message so they assume anything in those slots is directed at them in a personal social way. (?)

I too used to not bother to put the person's name in the note or sign my own, since the email header contained that info.

To me, it sounds more like she was annoyed that you knew more about it than she did, and her boss just stepped in because she was upset - even many NT's don't use social info in their emails.

These sorts of situations don't always mean that you've done something wrong - sometimes they just happen.

Is it possible she doesn't know enough about problems of this type to know that 'its not new' is relevant troubleshooting information?

It tends to be somewhat easy to start an email off with "Hi" or "Good Morning" or such. I like putting a closing remark like "enjoy", or "thanks for your time" or something. I'm not certain it helps, but I try. Signing an email or letter is not so much about actually giving the person your information as it is telling the person that you are giving them your information. I usually don't need an email header or signature line to find out how to contact someone, especially in the same office. But it is nice to see the signature line that shows it is okay for me to contact that person if I need to.

I had not thought about it that way.

IMO if I receive an email from someone, I assume that they are giving me information, even if they don't sign it.

It just seems friendlier if they sign it, that's all.

hugs ???.... how unprofessional.

I just wanted you to know you've got a really good friend there. They are a keeper.   Mom

I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say <hugs> - that's rather overdoing it. "Best regards" or "Kind Regards" or "Regards" would be the most friendly I would get.

I think it would be great if this kind of social communication either didn't exist or actually had DEFINED meaning attached to it (for example, if there was a limited number of phrases to put with your signature that had a ranking from most to least formal). As it is, padding out communication with stock phrases doesn't seem to clarify social relationships very much, let alone communicate useful information.