The Awkward Silence

7:42 AM

Morning!

It's been freezing here last night.

Mithical

Same. Not literally, but less than ten degrees off.

Oh, here the water on the roof of the shed is actually frozen. And it's not thawing quickly. Which is fun, because usually there would be a whole flock of birds bathing there now, and they're all discovering that's not happening today XD

Mithical

7:58 AM

sliiiiiide THONK

Morning!

@Mithical actually... yes :P

hi @CaldeiraG !

8:25 AM

Good/Gloomy morning

@ips cat?

@Ael gloomy? what's wrong?

@Tinkeringbell Anxiety. My annual meeting with my manager is comming (this week and the next) and I don't want to do it ^^

Ah, that makes sense. Do these usually go okay?

8:41 AM

I only had one so far, so it's hard to tell

Well, if the previous one went okay or well, that's at least a little bit of hope.

True

Though this time I had "objectif" to achieve and I don't think I did well with those. But I didn't really care about most of them, so that explain it

Like, my job is to automate tests but a lot of my objectif were oriented toward "talking to other people". So that didn't go well with me

Ah, yeah... we have those objectives too. At least I get to pick my own, though my manager would like me to pick different ones XD

I needed three this year, so I put in another SAFe training, increasing code knowledge, and watch a few videos on basic AutoCAD things.

He was steering me towards more 'talking to other people', 'networking', 'consultancy' too

@Tinkeringbell I do really hate those kind of objectifs.

The "watching some videos" objectif seems nice :)

At least, not hard to do and achieve

Yeah, they're not my favorites either. While good communication skills are a reasonable objective (if there's been serious problems in the past), I don't think 'networking' or 'consultancy' are all that useful if I still lack basic things to do my job excellently.

Nope, it should be one that I can do fast and easy, which is great. It's also useful because right now I often struggle a bit with all the buttons the program has, and often end up just pushing buttons and seeing what they do XD

8:54 AM

@Tinkeringbell Well, "pushing buttons and seeing what they do" is the best way to learn IMO :p Though you better not have a "nuclear weapon" button in the middle of it :p

Hahaha luckily, not. It's also a slow way of finding things out, I think the team would appreciate if I watch the videos and be a bit quicker ;)

@Tinkeringbell IMO, "networking" tasks are just fine if you are good at it/enjoy it. But for the rest of the people? It's just a waste of ressources and energy

@Tinkeringbell That's understandable

@Ael True. And while 'networking' is okay-ish to do in an office environment, where you're already on display and someone will stop by from time to time to introduce themselves... I am refusing to put my own spare time into e.g. video calls with random strangers.

Anyways... back to you and your problem? Or would you rather be distracted?

@Tinkeringbell It's nice to hear about other people experience, so I'm fine either way :)

:D well, for your objectives, even though you think you might not have done so well, it might help to at least have a list in your mind of times you did do something that could be interpreted as 'an attempt' or 'a good example'.

I've introduced plenty of bugs in the past year (if it wasn't for code review), so based on that alone you would say I didn't really meet my goal of 'become a better programmer'.

But, I also became more able to recognize smells and bugs in other people's code, and ask critical questions. So I used that instead ;)

9:03 AM

Making a list is a good advice. I definitively should do that :)

As a side note though, I don't see how "become a better programmer" could not happen if you spend at least 30% of your work time doing it

And I did do well in the "written communication" part of my work. Just not really the "oral communication" one

Well, oral communication is a bit harder if you're working from home, but maybe you've called coworkers when written communication was slower?

Shared your screen?

I definitively did that :)

But I believe my manager wanted me to organise more meeting where I would talk about tests and QA. But I dislike meetings so if I have to convey things I would usually just write it down and send it to people instead of calling them (but I have nothing against them calling me if they want to)

Ah, yeah... that's a bit harder to sell, but if you've sent more of those e-mails that's still something, I guess.

Talking of networking: I just have a random stranger send me an email asking me to call them to talk about QA. So instead of ignoring them (that is my usual technique) I ask them to tell me about them by writing. Now, I'll see what they do

:D That sounds like a good start :)

9:15 AM

From now on, I'm gonna go "if you want a favore/money from me, you are gonna use the communication technique I like most"

Hahaha that might work, it might also backfire, so be careful ;) Most often, work is 'give and take', not just 'take' ;)

@Tinkeringbell Yeah but this is about outside people so I don't really care about them. I wouldn't do that with coworkers since I am literally payed to work for/with them

And by "outside people" I mean "outside people that we do not work with and don't care to work with"

Basically, they are sell people contacting me

Ah, okay that makes a bit more sense :)

So yeah, if you want to sell me something, you don't it my way

Yep, that makes sense :D

I just ruined my brain productivity for today.

9:41 AM

@Tinkeringbell Because you chatted with me or something else?

Something else. I read a news article about a vaccine that's being developed...

They're saying it's 70 percent effective

Ah yeah, reading news will do that to you (unfortunately :/ )

Because they did a trial with 20.000 people, and of the vaccinated people only 30 got covid, and of the placebo group, 101

Now I'm wondering...

Catching covid or not, for now, seems to heavily depend on a few factors: a.) your own behavior, b.) the behavior of people you come into close contact with and c.) the amount of infectious people walking your area.

Then those numbers, out of a group of 10.000 each, seem much less relevant if not put in to a context as I imagined above?

9:57 AM

@Tinkeringbell From what I know, the idea is to take enough people so that the context stop mattering (but I'm not sure I understood your question)

Yeah...

I wonder if 10.000 is enough for that though, it seems very little to me.

Especially considering that... I've heard from multiple people that they entered such a trial because they know someone else that did so? If a lot of people do that, then don't you by definition get some 'cliques' of trial users?

Oh well.

I should've studied medicine if I wanted those answers XD

@Tinkeringbell Yeah, it's not much. But I believe it's just the beginning of the tests and the numbers will be more reliable as the numbers increase

Q: Is it customary in the US not to say "bye" after a phone call?

(cont'd) I am not talking about harassment - just the fact that you may be approached in a quite direct way. I once went to buy some batteries in Paris and when coming back after 5 minutes my wife was already being courted by a smiling guy. He saw me, smiled to both of us and went his way. — WoJ 2 mins ago

"Saving faces is an important part of the social game" I agree with your update (being French), the only comment I would have is that the dating scene is much more direct than in other countries (and less direct that in even others). This is not your case as she is not trying to pick you up in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (since you know each other) but for the non-French readers you may be surprised at how direct the dating is. — WoJ 2 mins ago

Extroverted Main Man

0

I am French and we end our phone conversations with the equivalent of a "bye". I noticed however that in most of the US movies or TV series (especially the police/action ones), the callers just hang up after the last "meaningful" exchange. Is this is the norm or just a movie trick to keep up with...

10:12 AM

This is a very good question which I asked myself a few times as well - and I am curious of the answers (I do the same in France). Now, I am French and it took me quite some time and hand waving to understand how you manage to make the turn with just these two arrows (not to mention that we drive on the other side as in the UK and Australia). My wife was watching me with curiosity when my hands were doing the maneuvres. — WoJ 1 min ago

@ExtrovertedMainMan off-topic? Whether or not something is a movie trick to keep up with the drama?

@Tinkeringbell :P

10:27 AM

@Tinkeringbell I think it's okay here even though it could have also been posted on TV&Movie stack

people seem to get cultural references from TV shows which.. are not very accurate

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Q: How do I tell a teacher, in a private lesson, that he or she tells me to do something that is not exactly what I need in the present moment?

@Ael Hmm. I left it a comment, I think it should at least include 1 scene where such a thing happened so people can see the example in action and should not mention the words 'is this a movie trick' anymore to be a reasonable question her.e

I think right now, especially the bit about 'is this a movie trick' is off-topic for IPS and will distract answers, it's one of those 'copious amounts of details that detract from the actual question' if you ask me....

> an answer might be forgiven for addressing matters tangential to the question if the question itself obscures the actual problem.

source

I've had it happen over single words in what I thought I had written as a good question with a clear premise and strict limits, so I'm not confident people will actually be able to ignore a whole sentence with a question mark at the end :/

On that note, I should go through the tags and see which ones relate to phatic communication. I see at least 'saying goodbye' and 'greetings', which could be one tag.

Extroverted Main Man

11:01 AM

0

How do I tell a teacher, in a private lesson, that he or she tells me to do something that is not exactly what I need in the present moment? An example: I go to a teacher. In this case it is via Zoom. We talk and do some exercices. Then she or he tells me to do a certain exercise. This is supposs...

conversations

12:14 PM

Is needn't used anywhere in favor of the didn't need?

Books where the character speaks with an accent are the only place where I can remember seeing that used, I believe.

> "Needn't" might be slightly old-fashioned and not as common as the alternatives, but it is alive and well in most English dialects including American English. However, you needn't use it.

I just find it weird i guess XD

I think I would too ;)

it came up on the discord server of my friends XD

we were discussing with our english teacher at the time (11th grade) and we disagreed needn't was a word XD

12:41 PM

It isn't a single word :P

It's a contraction of need not , which are two words :P

12:53 PM

yeah

you get it :P

both word exist, not them together XD

sort of

1:04 PM

Depends on how languages treat contractions, does a contraction mean two words are contracted into one complete word, or does it mean two words are contracted into something shorter? :P

:P

you're confusing me :)

Q: Normal in US to end phone calls abruptly?

1:52 PM

looking for phone call in M&TV returned this question:

6

In US movies it often happens that a person talks to someone on the phone and then hangs up after the relevant things are said without any further greeting like "goodbye" or "see you", "talk to you later" or whatever. Is this normal behavior in the US or is this only in movies to keep dialogues ...

realism

Possible duplicate over on Movies&TV. Also this: TV Tropes - TV Telephone Etiquette — CaldeiraG 3 mins ago

> In South Korea, when a phone conversation is over, the callers simply hang up. Saying goodbye is not needed, although they may make a certain "Hmm" sound, indicating that they're about to hang up

from the TV Tropes website

2:08 PM

Hmm. I'm more and more tempted to actually vote to close that question, until it includes an 'actual problem'.

reddit.com/r/portugal/comments/jzg1cc/qualidade_portuguesa

@Tinkeringbell i agree

2:59 PM

Post is currently hot! With 10 comments in the last 3 hours: Is it customary in the US not to say "bye" after a phone call?

Oh shut up, that post isn't hot at all, it just needs editing.

3:10 PM

@Tinkeringbell XD

@ips cat if you may :)

5:14 PM

table support is being worked on!