Nah, it would just hurt their feelings and make them defensive. The only way for them to improve is to have a private heart to heart discussion about the ways they’re being irritating, and if they genuinely listen and want to improve. If they’re obstinate and think they’re doing nothing wrong, unfortunately there’s no practical way to change their mind.
Yep. I wasn’t aware that I had a habit of just ending a conversation with co-workers and walking away (and honestly believing and remembering it had finished) when it was getting into difficult or emotional territory.
Several years later I found out I had undiagnosed autism, but at the time, was confronting but extremely helpful when the supervisor scheduled a meeting with me and a co-worker to make me aware of that behaviour, and especially that this particular co-worker considered it extremely rude and disrespectful towards her. It had never occurred to me that walking away might be taken that way, but also more importantly, that those conversations weren’t actually finished.
The co-worker felt much better after learning that it wasn’t disrespect towards her, but me apparently not being able to deal with difficult or emotional conversations, and my brain appearing to completely excise those memories of the end of those conversations at the same time as removing me from the situation.
If I’d found out about it by social media, or overhearing others calling me a misogynist (probably because it was the female coworkers that tended towards emotional or confronting conversation) or weird, I can imagine getting instantly defensive and me not believing them, or thinking that they were over exaggerating, misinterpreting etc. Basically, that the problem was them, not me.
It would have been an impossible leap, while feeling attacked “socially” and indirectly, for me to realise on my own, and then admit, that my brain was doing something weird and unusual, and that I couldn’t trust it’s recall in those situations.
Nah, it would just hurt their feelings and make them defensive. The only way for them to improve is to have a private heart to heart discussion about the ways they’re being irritating, and if they genuinely listen and want to improve. If they’re obstinate and think they’re doing nothing wrong, unfortunately there’s no practical way to change their mind.
Yep. I wasn’t aware that I had a habit of just ending a conversation with co-workers and walking away (and honestly believing and remembering it had finished) when it was getting into difficult or emotional territory.
Several years later I found out I had undiagnosed autism, but at the time, was confronting but extremely helpful when the supervisor scheduled a meeting with me and a co-worker to make me aware of that behaviour, and especially that this particular co-worker considered it extremely rude and disrespectful towards her. It had never occurred to me that walking away might be taken that way, but also more importantly, that those conversations weren’t actually finished.
The co-worker felt much better after learning that it wasn’t disrespect towards her, but me apparently not being able to deal with difficult or emotional conversations, and my brain appearing to completely excise those memories of the end of those conversations at the same time as removing me from the situation.
If I’d found out about it by social media, or overhearing others calling me a misogynist (probably because it was the female coworkers that tended towards emotional or confronting conversation) or weird, I can imagine getting instantly defensive and me not believing them, or thinking that they were over exaggerating, misinterpreting etc. Basically, that the problem was them, not me.
It would have been an impossible leap, while feeling attacked “socially” and indirectly, for me to realise on my own, and then admit, that my brain was doing something weird and unusual, and that I couldn’t trust it’s recall in those situations.
Absolutely, thank you for sharing your story, it shows a really good example of conflict resolution.