On sarcasm and trust
I’ve been a fairly sarcastic person for as long as I can remember. As far back as elementary school, my mother would tell me to cut down on the sarcasm - at this point it’s as much as a habit as cracking my knuckles, maybe even more so. Probably related to this is my tendency to sound like I’m being sarcastic even when I’m not. I think part of this is just my tone and mannerisms, and part is that sarcasm is a reasonable assumption given how frequently I employ it. I’ve been told that the more people get to know me, the more they’re able to tell when I’m being sarcastic or serious, but misinterpretations do happen.
I’ve also been a rather negative person throughout my life. Part of this seems to be an innate personality trait, but working in operations, where the stories we tell are ones of disasters and near-disasters and lambasting technology on Twitter is how we bond with people, has certainly encouraged this behavior in me. Over the years, these two habits combined such that any given thing I say is likely to be sarcastic and/or snarky. It’s not one of my best traits, and at various points in time I’ve committed to trying to be a more positive person in some rather vague sense, and while I am much more genuine and less negative than I was five or ten years ago, I’m certainly no Pollyanna.
A week or so ago in the office I made a snarky offhand remark about a required training course. This quickly turned into more snarky and loud remarks, as tends to happen when I have strong feelings about things. I’ve mentioned before that I spent the formative years of my career in Corporate America. There were a lot of required trainings (and meetings, and webinars, and “team building” activities) and I can’t think of a single one of them that was of any real value to me. Because of that, any time I hear about a required training or anything similar, my mind goes straight back to all those corporate webinars nearly 10 years ago. So out of this knee-jerk emotional reaction came some thoughtless remarks. While I had valid historical reasons for feeling this way, I didn’t consider my surroundings and how my words might come across to people in my present work environment, not my past ones.
Getting feedback about this (in a wonderfully safe, constructive, and supportive manner) made me think about how much my past experiences and my negativity around them are affecting me.
Back in 2013, Julie Pagano wrote a post titled I think I’m in an emotionally abusive relationship…with the tech community. Like her, I’ve had every single one of those negative or abusive behaviors happen to me at some point in my professional past. These days, when we spend so much time at work, and our circle of friends often overlaps a great deal with our colleagues, as the boundaries between work and not-work begin to blur, the relationship metaphors start to seem pretty apt. And just as with an abusive romantic relationship, an abusive professional relationship can compromise our ability to trust.
The word trust comes from the old Norse traust meaning help, confidence, protection, or support. It’s hard to work in an environment without trust. Maybe you can’t ask for help without being ridiculed. Maybe your peers or superiors don’t show any confidence in you. Maybe you don’t have enough support or resources to do your job properly. Either way, it starts to wear on you. And if you spend enough time in environments without trust, where you can’t take for granted that your company or your colleagues support you and genuinely want to help you, you start assuming that all work environments are hostile ones. And if you’re a woman and you’re being gaslit, you’ll stop trusting yourself as well, whether that be your own judgement about a situation or your technical abilities.
I was on a panel at Velocity just a few weeks ago discussing burnout that opened with Christina Maslach explaining the six mismatches that lead to burnout. Without going into quite as much detail as she has, the six mismatches are:
control, if you don’t have the authority over your work environment to be effective or in line with your values
reward, if social or material recognition isn’t in line with what you think you deserve
community, if you don’t feel that you’re really a part of the company or team you work with
fairness, if you don’t appear to be treated fairly or equitably
values, if your values, goals, and beliefs don’t line up with those of your colleagues or company
workload, if there is a mismatch between what is expected of you and what you can actually accomplish
The more areas that are mismatched or misaligned, the more likely someone is to be burnt out. I don’t think it’s a secret that I’ve struggled with burnout several times over the course of my career so far - I’m all too familiar with every one of these six mismatches. And when those mismatches keep occurring, trust erodes. Cynicism and pessimism become coping mechanisms, because if you expect mistrust and misalignment from the beginning, you won’t be negatively surprised by them, as if the expectation of hurt will keep it from stinging quite so badly. Snark becomes a shield you hide behind because it’s easier to do that than to deal with being disappointed by another colleague or company.
The problem with this is that if you don’t open up, if you don’t allow yourself to be vulnerable and take risks, you won’t grow. You’ll stagnate. If you can’t trust that your colleagues are giving you feedback out of a genuine desire to help you progress and improve, you’ll ignore and write off that feedback, rather than accepting it and acting on it. If you can’t trust your work environment enough to admit you don’t know something and ask questions, you’ll miss out on dozens of learning opportunities. If I sarcastically write off anything that’s a required training as being corporate and useless, I’ll miss out on the valuable experiences put together by people working their asses off to be the opposite of that.
I’ve been happier the past 9 months at Etsy than I ever have been in my professional life. But there were so many expectations I built up for myself (I wanted to work here from when I first started reading Code as Craft three or four years ago (and now I finally do -- can you even believe it)), and there was so much distrust built up from places that weren’t so sparkly and blameless and beautifully aligned with my values and what I’m looking for, that part of me keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. My brain, not wanting to be hurt and disappointed again, keeps snarking to try and protect itself from that.
The snark is wearing away a bit, though. 9 months into working at Etsy, I am more excited to be here than when I started, I look forward more to going into work every morning, I even look forward more to being on call (even though my Jawbone is seriously judging my lack of sleep recently). That’s never happened before. I didn’t think the shiny new job smell could become more intense as opposed to wearing off. Old sarcastic habits die hard, but maybe they can actually die eventually.
Here’s some actionable things that I’ve been trying to do. Maybe they’ll be useful to you as well, if you’ve ever found yourself feeling burnt out* or just way too negative.
Less Sarcasm
I am trying to be less sarcastic in my day to day life. Having been on the other side of it as well, I know that it can be hard to have a conversation with someone who never seems to speak seriously or genuinely, or if you have to constantly guess at their tone, so I’m trying to cut down on it in my own conversations. And in the meantime (and because apparently my voice just sounds sarcastic even when I’m trying to make it not) I’ve started specifying my sarcasm or lack thereof if I feel the situation would benefit from added clarification.
More Mindfulness
I want to be more aware of my emotional reactions to things, to be less knee-jerky and reactionary. Rebuilding trust, breaking old habits, and forming new ones can all benefit from mindfulness and self-awareness. I want to be able to realize if a situation at work is actually bothering me, or if I just expect it to do so because of past experiences.
Accepting Positivity
On that note, part of growth and trust is realizing that the present is not the past. Situations that ended poorly before at previous jobs won’t necessarily be negative now, just like a new relationship can’t be held responsible for all the hurts from previous partners. I want to accept and appreciate the positive things that happen to me, whether that be feedback from colleagues or realizing I’m happy or just a computer actually cooperating (I’m getting proficient enough at #rubby scripting that I’m only hitting my head on my desk 20% of the time now!).
Reaching Out
Finally, I want to keep reaching out to people around me, to let myself be open and vulnerable, because that’s how I’m going to really grow. I want to actively work to develop empathetic and trusting relationships at work, and to make sure people feel comfortable reaching out and opening up to me as well - trust and communication are two-way streets.
Regaining trust - in others or in yourself - after it’s been broken is difficult, but essential. Trust and empathy go hand in hand, and empathy is the essence of devops.
*I am obviously not a mental health professional and this is not a substitute for professional advice. If you’re feeling burnt out or depressed or anxious, please seek out a professional - the right ones can be awesome. Also watch this excellent talk from Justin Lintz on anxiety in operations.