Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 22:25:08 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Quoting, plus some comments about reading email
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 07:32 PM 4/22/05 -0400, Ted White wrote:
>From: "Elspeth Kovar" <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>

>> Unfortunately
>> most of us aren't good about giving the positive as well as the negative
>> and, on the other side, most of us hear the negative much more strongly
>> than the positive.
>
>Too true.   People should strive to overcome this tendency because much
>that is ultimately positive can come even from negative feedback.

Yep.  Anyone who has taken a writing class would be familiar with that
idea.  It can be hard to take people telling you all about the ways that
your work sucked rocks, but if you put it aside for a bit, then look at it
and the criticisms again, you find that the vast majority of them are well
justified and that if you work on correcting them the final result is a
huge improvement.

I've also found in office work that some job classifications attract people
who take criticism of work personally, and other where those are seen as
attempts to improve the product.  Managers are often the former, while
engineers are more often the later.  Tell a manager that his meetings would
be much better if he did A, B, and C, and you are likely to get a defensive
P.O.'d manager who will remember you and cause you problems.  Tell an
engineer that his program or device would work much better if he did A, B
and C and you are likely to get an engineer who considers what you said,
and perhaps implements it with a thanks for the help.  There are exceptions
in both of these of course, but in any given situation where I didn't know
anything more about the people, that's the way I'd have to bet based on
experience.

I agree with all that Elspeth said...and a lot of it is in RFC 1855 too as
being a good part of netiquette.

Before getting angry at what appears to be an insulting post, try to read
the offending message again, looking for any possible way to see it in a
good light sent by someone with good intentions.  Even if it wasn't meant
that way, the final result is likely to be better for everyone concerned if
you do.

I say stuff like that not only because I think it's true, but because I
need to remind myself to follow my own advice from time to time...

-- Mike B.
--
Tomorrow will be like today, only more so.