calling people out on their shit (in real life jesus not here please not here)

i did this today. feel better. i'm bad at it. someone went out of their way (literally scrambled out of a car to stop me as i'm walking down main street) to tell me something negative ( this was months ago) and it turned out that they had no idea what they were talking about. they made it sound like someone had said something very negative about me and my store TO THEM and they couldn't wait to tell me about it. i didn't have time to go into it there on the street. maria followed up later and it turned out that nobody had actually said anything to THEM and they didn't know who had said it or who they had said it to or what was said! they said they would "look into it" and then never got back to us. drove me insane. took me months of inner fuming to finally bring it up. okay, via facebook message, but still...

they apologized. i got it out of my system. but man is it ever torture for me to do that. and really i should always just do that. as soon as possible. i'm still learning. i have nothing to fear from anyone. i really don't. i have to remember that. i never need to feel awkward if i've done nothing wrong. (i'll just keep repeating this to myself...)

I've been wanting to do this to someone for a while now, but always end up thinking better about it. Apologies if this comes off as vague, but this IS a public forum, so...

I somehow wound up on the email list of an irl acquaintance/writer who frequently sends out these random thinkpiece-y type things that he writes. Many of them are kinda tedious and inconsequential, but others veer into territory that is...not offensive or derogatory, at all, but certainly annoying and, from where I'm standing, politically wrongheaded and ill informed. I'm friendly enough with this guy that I feel the need to be polite, but certainly don't know him well enough to feel comfortable telling him he's full of shit and here's why.

I know, I know...just don't read the emails, right? I did end up sending one mildly snarky reply to one f his emails that I suppose still coulda been taken as humorous (though I meant it) and it was never addressed any further, so maybe I kinda did make one small stride towards calling out. This s all very stupid, I realize, but I can't pretend that the promise of further callings-out wouldn't be enormously personally satisfying in a petty kinda way.

there was this woman with a jesus necklace so i told her that if god was real he would hate her and then i spit on her child, it was SO liberating i love you guys

oh sorry thought this was r/atheism

i could be better at this, more for minor things though. i usually just persist with things like i dunno, flatmate messiness, or whatever, cos i can't be bothered doing the confrontation, and i feel too awkward/weird. it's not even fear of confrontation, just lack of desire to have a tricky conversation or upset the apple cart.

ppl's shit is so rarely that important to me tbh. i release all my pent-up w/e by abusing other drivers behind the safety of my windscreen and ranting about football, actual day-to-day interactions with ppl very rarely leave me bothered or agitated, even when they're 'difficult'. their problem, not mine, *walks off whistling*

I started this new anonymous twitter account to bring corporate indie fuxxors to task, seems to be going quite well, very liberating.

ppl's shit is so rarely that important to me tbh. i release all my pent-up w/e by abusing other drivers behind the safety of my windscreen and ranting about football, actual day-to-day interactions with ppl very rarely leave me bothered or agitated, even when they're 'difficult'. their problem, not mine, *walks off whistling*

you're lucky if there's nobody whose "shit" directly impacts you!

well it does i just maybe don't care i guess? lol public sector maybe?

The only people I really interact with irl are the people I work with and the customers who come into the shop. Neither group is it really appropriate for me to have an honest exchange of views with.

well it does i just maybe don't care i guess? lol public sector maybe?

i'd still sort of care if it is actually affecting my day/what i do.

i also get annoyed about in principle stuff like laziness or whatever at work, but i suppose it's sort of my job, and i tend to mention this.

stuff in a flatshare i seldom if ever mention, again though it particularly affects me, it's not really possible to just dismiss as other people's problems if i am picking past their dishes or the fridge stinks of uncovered food, or whatever.

I find it v v hard to nicely broach these things with people, straight-forwardly without adding baggage. I think because I let them go on for too long so there's all this anger and resentment built up. Trying to be better about raising ish earlier while they're still questions in my mind, like, MIGHT this bother me? and not bitter, bitter foregone conclusions.

i guess i could be wrong, but i think i'm pretty good at this

historically terrible at this. to the point where I rarely did it at all bc I was so petrified. a *little better* now, in the past year. but I still spend a great deal of time weighing how big of a deal the thing is and whether it needs to be raised at all, so enough time passes that it stops being a problem on its own.

orbit otm about broaching without baggage. I've learned not to overexplain why I'm raising the matter in the first place. Just make a plain statement, and send it out there as is. No embellishments. Becuase the more I talk the more I end up apologising for the other person and diffusing the whole thing before it starts, which is just, pathetic.

most of the time it's this ppl's shit is so rarely that important to me tbh. so it's not hard to do when there is no other choice but to confront someone on their shit.

Can we agree that doing this on FB is, like, total bullshit if it's personal stuff? This has happened to a relative of mine in once case and a friend of the family's in another. Irksome.

it's world class awful when people do it and it has nothing to do with them
for instance, "excuse me but you're raising your kids the wrong way!" or w/e personal affront they've imagined

i'm referring more to the phenomenon of calling people out on a private and personal level, not publicly or out of turn (this is where a lot of embarrassing mistakes are made imo)

if this conversation is about calling people on their shit that has nothing to do with you, i got nothing to say

oh yeah i'm just talking about where someone does/says something (you know not life-threatening just annoying/enfuriating/stupid) to YOU and whether you let it go and fume about it or actually confront the person. i'm not big on confrontation. but this example above just bugged me since it happened. i finally saw this person on the street and decided to send a message. not a public message.

yeah I find those situations still mildly terrifying, tbh

Deciding whether to call someone out depends entirely on your relationship with that person. Even when it is the right thing to do, it is full of difficulty and peril. It is no wonder that most of us choose to do it only rarely. Society is full of submerged frictions and unspoken thoughts. That's just the way it is. If it weren't, we'd all be at each others throats much of the time.

calling people out on their shit on twitter

wait so are you guys talking about "this specific behavior is affecting our relationship in ___ specific way" conversations?

If only we had the presence of mind to phrase things in such coherent ways

easier than passive aggressively and silently growing to hate someone, don't you think?

easier than passive aggressively and silently growing to hate someone, don't you think?

This is my work mo. And really there is just one person at work I hate so it's much easier to go with than some sort of confrontation.

i'm talking about: this person who i know casually went out of their way to tell me about someone complaining about me - and it was deflating because it was the end of a great weekend at the store and there was a big festival in town and everyone who came in my store was really happy - and it turned out that she didn't know ANYTHING about it. nothing. the person hadn't complained to her. she just REALLY wanted to tell me about this supposed complaint (she's a town politics/business person). i just thought it was a shitty thing to do. get your facts straight.

and sometimes i think you just HAVE to say to someone - even months later - you know what, that really upset me. and it was irresponsible. i take my store seriously. and it really bummed me out.

x-post

basically, i just don't want to see this person and kinda hate them! so i needed to get it out and now i'm okay. they know how i feel. they apologized. when i see them i will feel okay. i think.

i have silently grown to hate most of my co-workers, i think this is better than airing any grievances.

xp - Sounds like you did the right thing.

Bonus: you will likely always have the upper hand with this person because you behaved fearlessly, which is good for business?!

i've been considering doing this to someone who has created no end of chaos in my workplace (i.e., telling multiple part-time employees that the full-time employees don't like them), and whom i will likely never see again, half as genuine advice to her, and half as cathartic ranting.

Rather than start a new thread on "being called out on your shit," I may as well post this here.

I'm wondering if there is a proper way, in any social situation (ILX included), to ask people to please (politely, as as privately as possible) call YOU out on something that you may have said or done that is upsetting. The only scenario where I have managed to do this is in my classes, where I give the students a little speech about the classroom as a "safe space" and how if you are upset by anything that is said in class by anyone INCLUDING ME THE INSTRUCTOR to please come to me with your concerns. In settings where I don't have a, shall we say, captive audience, though, how does one accomplish this?

I'm asking because there are situations every now and then where I worry that I might have accidentally offended someone, typically by something stupid like making a dumb joke that I later fear might not have been taken in the way it was intended. Other times, it is more obvious: about a year ago I accidentally referred to a colleague who had told everyone up front that they preferred the pronoun "they" as "she" and then awkwardly launched into the kind of sputtering apology that only ever serves to draw further attention to the slip up (my colleague graciously smiled and told me it was okay). But what I am really getting at is that we are all constantly learning and not always conscious of how our language may be coming off to other people--something that, as someone who was a closeted gay man for quite some time, I understand all too well--and I want to be able to hear from people when I may have unwittingly said or done something injurious. Part of the problem here likely has a lot to do with the fact that "call out culture" has become such a thing, particularly on social media, that I fear that many people are conditioned to respond to even the politest correction as an outright attack, which in turn probably keeps many reasonable people from speaking up when they want to or actually should.

Thoughts? Advice? Experiences?

I've cut back on self-deprecating jokes (maybe not on ilx) but sometimes shaping dialogue with anecdotes about how you've learned from feedback can lead to a more open environment. Making sure to listen to others, and crafting specific questions that are both respectful and direct, means they'll be more comfortable doing the same.

Said it elsewhere, but the end run of being a better communicator isn't to not make mistakes, but to move toward recognizing missteps by observing reactions, and eventually realizing you've said something incorrect before anyone even reacts.

Just don't, as they say on twitter, jump into a whirlpool of clarifying your words as you shrink into a corncob

Cryptosicko —

Often I’ll ask my students to (anonymously) write on a post-it and drop into a closed box (or complete after I leave the room) a short note answering a question like “how can I better respect you as students?” Or “what cultural blind spots or notable omissions does my curriculum or practice have?”

Cryptosicko —

Often I’ll ask my students to (anonymously) write on a post-it and drop into a closed box (or complete after I leave the room) a short note answering a question like “how can I better respect you as students?” Or “what cultural blind spots or notable omissions does my curriculum or practice have?”

Thanks mh and soda.

I've also done the thing with my students where, maybe a month or so into the class, I allow them to write me anonymous notes on what they would like me to do less, do more or simply start/stop doing at all as relating to anything in the course. I like your idea of having something ongoing, and still anonymous, though. Will definitely keep that in mind.

And yes, as mh said, it probably is a matter of observing reactions and not overreacting to them (as I possibly did with my one colleague that I mentioned above). I should add that it is not like I am constantly saying offensive/problematic/insensitive things and then having to apologize for it, but rather, in my somewhat paranoid way of assessing myself in social interactions, I am often sorta wondering if I have *completely unknowingly* said things to upset people, which may not even be the case at all.