Hi, my name is not convexer and this is my garbage site. I created this site
because I wanted a place where I could be my full & terrible self without
worrying too hard about making a positive impression.
Topics of interest include personal shit, gender politics, regular politics,
and the modern workplace. I don’t really proofread my posts, so let me know if
I say anything that’s just wrong.
“If I have peed farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
:
Gotta have the last word
I have a coworker with whom every conversation is like this:
Coworker: “I think X”
Me: “I agree with X, but Y”
Coworker: “I agree with Y, but X”
You see how the last comment adds nothing to the conversation other than chatter?
It’s a classic dominance play—the point of restating the point isn’t the point itself,
so much as the assertion that the point should go unchallenged. This kind of back
and forth often goes on for hours in chat, with a new message every 5 or 10 minutes,
endlessly circling the wagons on a decision that we won’t be able to act on immediately
anyway, and then when decision time actually comes around, we have to revisit all
the same tedious arguments just to get started.
Me: “I agree with ‘Y, but X,’ but Y.”
I complain about my job all the time, but the truth is there’s a lot to be grateful for,
first and foremost that I have a job, and moreover it’s in the field that I studied,
and I get to use my special knowledge for good at least sometimes. I was chatting
with a mentee who reached out over LinkedIn yesterday and she told me that my
career was her “life dream,” which was a crazy slap of perspective. I used to be
her age and think I would never land a “real” job or be able to afford the things
I can now afford, but how quickly we learn to take things for granted!
