The correct, socially-acceptable amount of padding

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

Taryn East writes:

I still find it a much easier atmosphere to work in – if you don’t have to go through backflips of pleasantries just to say something without accidentally insulting the other person: not because what you’re saying is insulting – but because you failed to put in the correct, socially-acceptable amount of padding…

Compare:

“hi there, how are you, hope your holiday went well. By the way, you know a few weeks back you borrowed my stapler. I was wondering – if you have finished with using it, that you might possibly find some time to bring it back? If that’s ok. thanks a whole bunch.. love to the kids ”

vs

“hi, could I please have my stapler back? “

People’s willingness for this kind of unpadded conversation varies with person and culture, and even inside a culture the amount of variance is easy to underestimate. I was very surprised when BetterCodes launched and I gave them feedback, and they were very hurt by the feedback. The guy who was doing a lot of coding was German, and German’s have a reputation for preferring blunt feedback, yet the guy was personally stung when I documented the problems I was having. You can read everything I wrote, I’m fairly sure there was nothing personal or mean-spirited in any of it:

Alpha-stage launch for Better Codes

I have joined Bettercodes.org

Bettercodes is buggy

Bettercodes.org has a quiet blog

When I launch a new site, I prefer honest reports about the bugs, but Bjoern felt that I was being overly harsh by posting bug reports on my own blog. Personally, I would have been delighted if someone went to that trouble for my new site. And I’m an American and we are suppose to be fragile and overly sensitive compared to Germans.

So, I find, one often has to pad one’s remarks with a lot of boilerplate apologies, if one wants to avoid offending people. The exception is when you know someone fairly well, but then the relationship comes under the rules of friendship, and friendship is always a big closer to Crocker’s rules than non-friendship.