Aside from the reflexive “yikes, dude” that this gives me, I wouldn’t trust the content itself. A manual written by someone who’s worked with you for years would be far more valuable. But my first impression of a person who hands me something like this is going to be “what past interpersonal disasters have you wrought that led you to put time into something like this?”
…case in point is a current coworker of mine, who gave me something like a verbal version of this manual when we started working together. He almost immediately began acting completely opposite to what he said. Turns out his spiel was more aspirational than honest. Seems like he was trying to convince me to like him before his behavior steered me in the other direction. Not that I can’t work with the guy, but I had to learn my own ways to get around his quirks—ways which were certainly not outlined in his introduction.
I think there's an important distinction between this and one post the author mentions he was inspired by, the "How to Rands" post [1].
From How to Rands:
> The following is a user guide for me and how I work. It captures what you can expect out of the average week working with me, how I like to work, my north star principles, and some of my, uh, nuance. My intent is to accelerate our working relationship with this document.
"How to Rands" is not saying "you need to do this to work with me." Rather, it's describing some of his preferences, behavior, etc.
I think a rename of OP's title from "How to work with me" to "How I like to work" or even just "About how I work" might more clearly communicate the author's original intent. (if I understand David's intent correctly, that is!)
I know there are some who do these things with honest intents, but I must agree with you based on experience...
I saw this primarily with managers and higher-ups who clearly used this as some form of pre-emptive signaling device, kinda like a Twitter Bio. It's creating a paper trail that serves your narrative in performance reviews, often indirectly through priming or "anchoring" people with an early impression. It ticks all the boxes – yet it doesn't come in a format that's usually under scrutiny – "why would anyone deceive in a user manual?". It's catnip for middle management.
I also find the "manifesto" format of this piece off-putting, and am not sure how I would take it if it were presented to me up front by someone who wanted me to work with them.
That said, many of the points seem (from eyeballing) seem quite reasonable, and to touch on certain (sadly) highly prevalent anti-patterns in the modern w$rk culture (especially these days, when anyone remotely competent can catapult to a senior-sounding position within a couple of years, without much in the way of actual people and business process experience to match).
For example, the items on:
- expecting others to read your mind and/or take hints (sometimes sanctioning them for not doing so)
- dragging people into meetings that aren't effective or especially relevant to them (as if their time is infinite and worthless)
- assuming everyone is on the same "channel" as you (in regard to social media, answering texts at crazy hours, etc)
Seem to be basically on point, and sadly, do not go "without saying" in the modern work universe (given how frequently these basic points of decency are overrun or ignored, in some environments).
The title is off-putting but I can't fault the text.
In reference to your coworker, at least you can suggest to him where his behaviour deviates from his ideal? Seems much better than starting from scratch.
Did you give him this kind of feedback after some time passed and thing crystalized? It may be unpleasant to hear since it ruins his self-image, but as person who actually made the effort and tried to put together some, even if flawed, self-manual... he may appreciate the honesty/bravery on your side and content, at least in long run.
I would consider doing so, if not for the power structure at play. His opinion of me has a lot of influence on whether I get a paycheck or not, so unfortunately that’s not a risk I can take.
To me, it seems a little condescending to be told how to act toward someone.
On some level it is helpful to know your teammates, but on the other hand it can come across as self centered, like you think you're special and require special instructions for interacting with.
I'm sure you have good intentions in creating this, but if someone gave this to me I would instantly thing "oh man this person is going to be high maintenance"
Yeah, I got the same feeling - 4/5 of the text is worded as global imperatives, and almost nothing puts his own weaknesses and peculiarities into context.
It seems like a contract required before interaction rather than a helpful guide to understanding him.
That's one of the reasons I liked "Working with Claire" [1]: It is full of open subjectivity ("I hope", "I believe"), is very clear yet polite ("please ...").
Exactly, it would be more valuable if the manual said things like:
"I can come across as a dick sometimes but that is because I like to test certain stances on issues by vigorously defending them, I assure you I'm open to changing my mind if you just keep pushing, actually I feel like you are taking my intelligence more serious if you do. Not many people appreciate this, but somehow discussion makes me feel good" or
"I actually can get pretty pissed if I feel that you are insulting my intelligence (which I'm sometimes overly sensitive to), it is where I seem to get my sense of self worth from. I may over-argue my point of view then later realize you were right and apologize." or
"I act all cool and hipster but I'm actually constantly stressed when I travel and it makes me make poor choices and not pay attention to important things like 'Did I take my pass from the ATM 15 min ago?'." or
"I'm very shitty at keeping context in mind and often jump on the wrong details in a conversation, please have some patience." or
"I really really cannot agree to disagree, it keeps nagging at me, I want to talk it out until someone "wins". Yeah I've been called a dick for that." or
"I get stuck where there is no obvious best choice in just about any situation because I cannot make a choice based on gut feeling (it feels like weakness), I need logic and it makes me swing back and forth on questions like 'subway or Uber?', really annoying when you travel with me." or
"I do appreciate jokes that are slightly inappropriate, and I feel like often at work I have to self-censor."
Or you could just sum it all up as "I'm deeply unpleasant, and I'd say that I'm sorry that you have to work with me, but I actually don't have any interest in your emotional state."
:) Well, there is a kernel of truth in all of them, but I think my colleagues are quite fond of me nonetheless. I think that I have my analytical mind to thank for that more than my innate capacity for detecting and dealing with emotions in others though (never mind my own).
“Working with Claire” is an interesting comparison. I’ve been trying to think through why I reacted better to it than the main article.
Ultimately, “Working with Claire” seems more aimed at me, the reader / notional employee. E.g. it starts concrete, talking about meetings we’d have together. And it has helpful info about how she tends to work and the kinds of things she might do. In theory, it means I wouldn’t have to work out things like “How much info does my new manager expect?”
Self-reflection is a big part of these personal READMEs. But it’s also important to work out which bits of self-reflection are useful to the reader. For me, that’s where the main article didn’t quite hit the mark.
I did not get that impression from the text at all — I wonder whether it was revised or whether it is because I am Swiss myself so maybe it fits within MY norms.
In particular, I did not get the impression that the text makes any demands from co-workers that the author would not mutually grant them himself.
Can you point out specific examples of language you found self centered or high maintenance?
Try to bring it down to 10 lines or less. Your presumption to the attention and memorization of this document is way over the top. If you feel like you have to communicate something like this in writing you could at least be charitable and pare it down to the absolute minimum.
Other than that: the whole thing comes across as hopelessly naive with respect to how humans interact, it misses the fact that people that dislike each other on a personal level may be forced to work with one another and it misses the 'office politics' angle.
If I was assigned to a team to work with you and you handed me this document I would in turn hand in my resignation with reference to your document and that would be that, any organization that tolerates this kind of bs is not one that I would want to work for.
It's impersonal, sterile, generic (what does a corporate word like "excellence" actually mean in practice?), and simultaneously intrusive and lacking in empathy for readers.
What you have written is actually a list of demands.
Not likes. Not tendencies. Not polite requests. Not values you hope to share with others by meeting them half way, possibly clumsily but with good faith.
Demands.
There is no social context in which a document like this is appropriate.
The "My expectations when we work together" looks like it's copied directly from a HR boilerplate example somewhere. It sounds nice but I wouldn't know how to action any of that.
Also if you are my peer, you setting expectations like that is inappropriate.
Saying "action," purposely, as a verb like that is somewhat common. It's business-speak much like "leverage" as a verb, though that one's become so common as to go unnoticed.
change the whole thing to be about you, almost a trouble shooting manual, not some idealised world of of your interpersonal interactions. Pretty much tell people what your personality is like, what you are trying to improve, and possible problems people might have with you
I've skimmed your post, and I honestly feel like the content is not the main issue here, but the fact that it was written and published. You could share how you prefer to interact with people if the need arises, preferably by addressing them directly about the points that are relevant for your interactions, and without giving them the impression that you've handed in a list of preferences.
That's a good point, yes. I didn't intend to publish it first, but put it out there to learn from the feedback I'm getting. It's interesting how differently people who don't know me (see this entire discussion here) react compared to people who know me or have worked with me before. That's super helpful since future co-workers will most likely fall in the first group.
Yes! The fact that someone would write a doc like this for their own introspection and growth - great! The fact that you would publish it or supply it as a prelude to interaction - weeeird. But again, I've made similar gaffes. Will probably make more.
I had this reaction to the title, but reading the piece after I found it to be general points for all interactions among people rather than particular instructions for interacting with you (which I agree would be off-putting).
@davidbauer Ugh. These commenters stress me out. In fact, there's potentially an argument that filtering out such personalities actually helps cultivate a good/healthy environment for you personally.
To my eyes the comments read like pattern matches on low-level grammar and lexical choice. RFCs are even more egregious users of imperative language, but I don't see many people getting their jimmies ruffled about that, so I wonder what kind of social background and circumstances could make simple grammar features feel like a strong signal of character to people.
As a point of contrast, if discussion brought up things like the following, I would instead feel eminent warmness and inclusiveness:
- There is not a social norm encouraging people to write "Me Manuals", so what factors might bring such an idea to salience?
- Cultivating such a document and sharing with people exposes a lot of vulnerability. What does this act itself communicate? (Cooperative intent? Perfectionist tendencies? Bravery? Narcissism?)
- How would a document like this parse out under various different cultural and corporate norms?
- What are the failure modes of trying to communicate nuances of human cooperation through low-bandwidth channels of explicit delineation?
- Engaging witch such a document also engages our Kahneman System 1 cognition strongly. What can we glean about our individual biases by the snap-judgements and intuitions we feel reading the article?
- Are there historical or anthropological analogies we can draw to a "Me Manual" practice that could shed light on how such it may operate?
Et cetera. Personally, the author's article pushes my priors about him/her in the direction of earnest, open, optimistic, defaulting to cooperation vs competition, and perhaps having perfectionist tendencies. My base-rate estimate for this personality is semi-low, but the article feels like a pretty strong signal, so overall, I would feel cautiously hopeful about working with the author.
I agree. I showed it to a couple of teammates and the universal opinion was that if someone handed us something this pedantic, we'd be making sure to minimize any interaction with or reliance on this person. Especially reliance on...I can only see an endless variety of "you didn't read my required document and interact with me strictly in my self-approved manner, therefore I feel entitled to ignore you/condescend to you some more/report you to HR/ruin your day (or whatever negative I deem appropriate)". Life is too short.
> I'm sure you have good intentions in creating this, but if someone gave this to me I would instantly thing "oh man this person is going to be high maintenance"
To play devil's advocate, the concept is only as condescending as a resumé or nutrition label is. To an extent, this is already done when introducing oneself and (at least in my collegiate experience) one's pronouns and triggers. Perhaps your feelings reflect your personal criteria for unnecessary information rather than anything objectively condescending?
Now speaking for myself, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I would certainly like an efficient and upfront method to assess a person's capabilities and mental state without having to waste time with pleasantries or wade through a social mine field. The more information the better.
On the other hand, it's likely that this personal resumé of sorts will be another layer of buzzwords and prattle to muck through as composing one evolves from a discovery process to a status competition.
You are judging someone’s life and directing them to find Jesus solely because their blog doesn’t communicate how rich their life is? JFC, I am so glad that I don’t share anything of myself in this space.
My boss at my previous company created one of these with the intention of being “helpful”. It basically stated you should address me in this manner, use this form of communication etc. I asked him if he would be ok with me also creating a similar user manual telling him how I should be communicated with. He said it would be ok, as long as it did not contradict his user manual.
IMO, these seem to me to be a friendly way of dictating process to others.
Tongue-in-cheek title aside, I really do believe that it's helpful if a lot of people do write down some sort of user manual for themselves. These can be a great starting point for having conversations on how to best work together and spot potential areas of conflict in advance. In no way should these be seen as dictating the rules.
If you would be my manager or a person highly skilled in one area, I will probably try to not talk with you at all as much as possible.
Just as an example:
> Ask for help: I love giving input, but only if I know it can still make a difference.
So let's say I have an idea and I need some help. Do you I know that if I ask for your help you will make a difference. Maybe you will agree with me so there is no difference there to be made. Also further down you want me to find the proper time to ask for feedback: not too early and too late. Suddenly I need to be aware of you and the time when I should talk or not with you.
Based on the comments here, I don't think people are getting much cheekiness from the title. As I mentioned in another comment, it might be useful to change the name, since I think a lot of people are seeing "How to work with me" as a pretty direct command to "do these X things."
I probably wouldn't call it a "user manual" since that implies a list of the "correct" way to work with a person. Why not just call it a list of personal values (and preferences)?
Hey, David! I'm surprised by how many people seem to be confused or irritated by you sharing this. I'm imagining that some people are hearing a demand that they have to read it, and then they're obliged to do as you prefer. And I also see you replying with a cheerful "Thanks!" to comments which I find myself judging as discompassionate. That inspires me. So I just wanted to say that it seems to me like you really value clear communication, collaboration, and trust, and that this document is your attempt at meeting those needs.
Would you say this is an accurate reflection of what you wanted to express sharing it here? Would love to hear it.
I'm sure note confused. The message is clear: the guy says: you'll work my way. 'cos you see, there are probably as many "user" manual as they are persons. Putting yours forward, full of imperative is exactly the opposite of mine.
If you want to work with me, never, ever, use the imperative, just ask gently and unless what you're asking is dangerous for me, I'll most of the time help you.
I had a boss who told me he was looking for the manual to work with me. He was actually looking for user manual, to use me (in his word it was not "use", it was "I'll help you to get the best of yourself")
Thanks. That is an accurate reflection, yes. I learned a lot from the fact that when I shared it in my personal network — with people who know me (some of which have worked with me before) — reactions were much more positive. So yeah, that much for me valuing context awareness :-) I've made some significant changes to the document based on the feedback I got here, and I think it now reflects better what my intentions were, even for people who have little to no context about it.
I was hoping this would be more like a car or airplane manual. “Failure to maintain adequate vitamin C levels may cause scurvy. Go to service center if this happens. Maintain blood pressure within limits (see specifications).” Etc.
I remember the face my boss made when I told him I would make one for me too when he was showcasing his manual. He didn't expect that and said it wasn't necessary.
I'm not against these types of documents in theory... I can see the use. But anecdotally, the two coworkers who've provided me with 'How to Work with Me' docs have been the most difficult, overly detailed micromanagers that I've interacted with. And on the other hand, all of the great colleagues I've worked with have just been personable, talented people who didn't come with an operating manual.
Counter point: I've written and consumed user manuals both in my private and professional life, and they're really very useful.
- It's a great ice breaker into the things they're actually interested in.
- Some people have a particular way they want to be addressed. Pamela, never Pam. Put it in one place and you're golden. (Ideally, someone would be able to put it as their Slack or Email handle and also be golden, but those are not always in the user's control at a company)
- How's the best way to get your attention if it's urgent? If it's not urgent but still time sensitive? If I want to make sure not to disturb you?
- What's your biggest office pet peeve (it's chewing ice for me; some people never realize that it could bug someone else)
- It's an easy and intentional way to disseminate your work history to your colleagues, who most likely won't have way to view it otherwise. (For example, knowing someone was a DBA gives you a potential point of contact for related questions)
I mean honestly, there's a whole bunch of shit that is considered "normal" in the work world that just should not be the way it is. The quarantines really opened (some) peoples' eyes to the reality that a lot of workplace "culture" is utter bullshit.
I could see a lot of people who are complaining here about TFA whinging 70 years ago when their secretary might push back on being sexually harassed.
Yeah, the document could have been written a bit better, but having open and honest communication about how to put people at ease and ensure they will be at optimal performance levels just seems like a good idea.
I think this sort of document is a good idea, but skimming over it, I think it needs to shift to more of a two-way description. The "How to discuss and argue" section does this. The "How to efficiently work and communicate with me" section not so much. Looking at these items:
> Default to action. Often it’s best to just do it. Most decisions are reversible, so it’s better to see how things work out instead of overthinking them.
> Act like an owner: Make your own decisions when you’re confident enough. Solve issues yourself when you can. If you need support or want your ideas challenged, I am always there to help.
These are good, but doesn't address the reason people don't do this: they anticipate getting in trouble for making a decision their boss or peers disagree with. I'd recommend re-framing this as a semi-formal commitment about how you'll respond.
"You should make decisions on your own" is often secretly "...but if they're not the decision I would have made, I'll be mad". To count this, you need to explicitly promise not to respond that way. "If I disagree with your decision, I'll address it, but I won't hold it against you for taking the initiative even when I would have chosen differently."
Basically, make it more two-sided: "I prefer you to follow these guidelines when in interacting with me and I commit to [trying to] response in these specific ways."
In some cases it's not necessary. I like nohello.net and don't think it needs to spell out "I won't get mad if you don't open with a hello". But when telling people to do things that may get them scolded, you need to promise not to scold them.
I like the idea, but this manual is not very good. It told me almost nothing about the person. Instead it seemed to sound a bit like a corporate manifesto of how one should conduct oneself.
Really surprised that a journalist like you doesn't understand the need for brevity. 98% of this "how to work with me" is actually "i like talking about myself". There is like half a sentence of semi-useful (probably aspirational) info on you and then paragraphs of philosophical meandering.
At least Patrick Bateman stuck with a single business card, you had to go and write a whole life story and print it on your digital business card that you presumably shove down everyone's throats.
Consider deleting immediately, i would never work with someone who wrote something like this. Cheers.
We did these at a previous company. I liked it in theory. In practice, though, it created way too much mental load and I often felt distracted by it. The ultimate challenge seems to stem from the "direction of need" when actual business needs to happen.
When somebody has a challenge and is reaching out, it adds an unnecessary level of complexity for them to communicate their problem while translating it into the form that the receiver prefers. Often, the reason they're reaching out in the first place is a lack of understanding about a problem. Adding the translation step often makes it harder for them to communicate, rather than more effective.
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I've also found that these documents both conflict with reality and are made redundant by people's actions.
* When people are writing these, they often write them from an aspirational aspect. They view their preferences through the way they'd ideally like to work, rather than the way they actually work.
* The major relationship pieces in these working with me docs become extremely obvious quickly.
As a manager, I enjoy these for new hires. They help me calibrate, but over time it simply becomes about the relationship and history that you've built up.
We also did these at a previous company. The process made me fairly uncomfortable, because it felt very egocentric and unrealistic. And in my experience everyone just ignored them and interacted with each other in the normal patterns that would have developed anyway.
If you prefer people to interact with you a certain way, you’re going to have to remind them of it regularly regardless. And if you want people to understand why you interact a certain way with them, you’re going to have to explain it in context when it happens. Ultimately our relationships are formed by our shared experiences and our lived reality, and no amount of referring to a document will change that.
I could definitely see how this would be useful for a manager, but in the context of writing one to be public for my fellow employees to read I did not enjoy the experience.
I was thinking of doing something like that, but not in a professional context. Just a post somewhere, a way to talk about my personal quirks in a comedic self-deprecating manner. To be quite frank, the way you did it, and in the professioal context in which this is framed, no amount of revisions will make you not sound like a jerk. This might function in a non-work environment.
I just don't think that's a very good idea. Not because I think you wrote anything wrong (you didn't), but that's just not how interpersonal relationships work.
Fair. Interesting that you think something like this could work in a non-work context, but not in a work-context. Curious: Do you have the same reaction to the one by Rands that inspired me to write mine? https://randsinrepose.com/archives/how-to-rands/
Most of the document you linked is about management practices, presumably written by someone in a management position. This sets the tone. The last topic is more similar to what you wrote, but it is much shorter and to the point. How to Rands is framed as a declaration of management philosophy, and, as such, sounds entirely appropriate. Yours is more personal in nature. If you are in a management position, it may be a good idea to let this transpire in your writing as well.
duplicating my comment because I accidentally answered to the wrong person and I can't delete the other
Most of the document you linked is about management practices, presumably written by someone in a management position. This sets the tone. The last topic is more similar to what you wrote, but it is much shorter and to the point. How to Rands is framed as a declaration of management philosophy, and, as such, sounds entirely appropriate. Yours is more personal in nature. If you are in a management position, it may be a good idea to let this transpire in your writing as well.
I think a lot of the negative reaction to this article comes from the title, which does sound condescending and at least a little odd. Here are some alternative titles that might not get clicks but also won't prompt a visceral reaction:
- On Work
- Some Thoughts on Work
- Thoughts on Collaboration (then take yourself out of it)
Another idea, just expand one of the points into its own document. I found the part on async communication especially interesting because in some ways it goes against a lot of conventional wisdom. Some anecdotes, details, or sociological research on the topic would make a pretty helpful document.
The content is different in spirit from the implication of the title, IMO. A document with this title is an unusual way to begin a collaboration or working relationship. On the other hand, I can see how it would be useful to know what's inside the document.
And it takes guts to write something like this, knowing that everyone who reads it and knows you will be comparing their own mental notes on how you actually work with how you say you work and view yourself.
Re: "no person will ever want to read this page": I have read the manual, I found it quite refreshing actually. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I was thinking of creating a manual of my own, and a curious thought occurred to me while reading your response (and other negative responses in this thread): the kind of people who are repelled by this sort of thing are probably not the kind of folks I'd enjoy working with, so that's actually a feature as far as I'm concerned. (Not making a negative evaluation about a group of people, just stating a personal preference and how such a "filter" as a personal manual might actually work to one's favor.)
Steve Pavlina has written on this subject[0], how broadcasting your true personality/values/desires will get you a lot more rejections, but will also allow you to connect with others who are a better match for you, who might have missed your authentic self if you had masked it instead.
He asserts that most people are so afraid of rejection (getting a "1" ie. a mismatch) that they settle for "partial matches" in the 6-7 range, but they'd actually be far happier if they had the courage to broadcast their true values because it's the only way to find the "10s".
It's missing the most important section: "Known Bugs".
I don't think the average person knows themselves well enough to write a user manual, myself included. This is an idealized version of how he thinks about himself. Reality could be very different.
I'd be much more interested in a guide written by his wife or parents.
Agreed. One thing that just occurred to me is that this title does give the author the freedom to entirely dictate the contents of a guide on "how other people should act". Nobody will disagree with the contents since they say it's a personal thing of theirs, though judging by the thread the disagreement the title already instills might be worse.
> We can’t be successful together if we’re aiming for different outcomes. If one of us feels our goals or motives aren’t aligned, we need to talk.
That is actually not true. When building a team it is important to learn what each individual seeks out of the "project". For example your goal might be to use the project as a way to get promoted. I might not care at all about getting promoted and instead my goal is to learn new stuff. Our colleague might be using the project as a way to push some new technology into broader acceptance in the company. Our other colleagues goal might be to bail half way through because they never wanted to be on the project in the first place. All four of us have different motivations and personal goals for this project--and that is totally okay!
It isn't a good idea to assume everybody has the same goal. It is a good idea to at least address this in the beginnings of team building. Knowing that you are trying to get a promo out of this would help me help you get that promo.
You're aiming for the same outcome in that example; it's just that your incentives for it aren't the same. That's okay.
Oftentimes different incentives imply different outcomes, though. I've been in environments where product's incentives were not "enable dev to get to work" but instead "create documentation/slide decks for upper management". So they were busy as hell, creating artifacts that did not help dev identify what problem they were solving (let alone what solutions might look like), and were extremely successful based on what they cared about, but meant that the dev teams had very little time or direction to be successful with, leading to low morale and high rates of burnout.
In the example you provide, if that leads to one person going off to play with new stuff while the rest of the team is focused on the project, that's a problem. Likewise if the person wanting to get promoted insists on taking on all the high visibility work (or worse, just taking credit for it), that creates a problem. As long as the desired outcome is the same and you can create a path towards it that aligns with everyone's incentives (project succeeds, people get recognized for their contributions, we use some new stuff along the way) you can be successful.
"How to work with me" sets the wrong tone at the start, giving orders. Maybe consider, "How I'd like to work with you", or "How we can best work together" or something.
They didn't ask if you were ready to receive the feedback!
Joking aside, that thing stood out to me. Would you ever say no, isn't it then a social obligation to say yes? Or if you do say no, that person is just supposed to leave whatever unsaid until a potential future opportunity and in the meantime they'll have to still work with you? It seems odd from both sides.
These are becoming a trend and I think they can be useful if they are sincere like the one here. Especially as a way to onboard to new projects or teams in a remote/hybrid world.
The challenge I've seen regarding user manuals however is that people immediately discount them. They aren't willing to sit down and think about how they want to operate as an individual. So they poorly write one instead of giving it effort. Managers think it's burdensome and don't take the time to even read them. Lastly, those who write down how they want to operate sometimes do not operate in their integrity. They ultimately have to live with it, but it does create confusion when you give someone feedback based on their user manual and it's not well received.
As a career-long remote employee. I think it's a beautiful initiative if given the time and thought.
This specific user manual screams product manager having issues with engineering manager counterpart.
Yeah this user manual goes a bit too deep. It could easily be 1/3 the size and focus on what you said.
I think the author forgot to include the "me" part of these sections as generalized tips are not personal. EX: how to give me feedback -> 3 ways I enjoy getting feedback.
At least Richard Stallman is an actual celebrity, of sorts, and goes on lecture tours. Have you seen the riders of big bands? They are formatted exactly the same way; do this, don’t do this, etc. People who have never seen these kinds of documents assume instead a personal relationship context, where this kind of language would be horrifying. But this would be assuming a personal relationship, where this is instead aimed at more business-like relationship of hoster and featured speaker. This document should be compared to the likes of “no brown M&Ms”.
I don’t think these kinds of documents are particularly useful unless they are to-the-point explanations of things about the person that significantly differ from the norm, which someone might actually have a shot at remembering in practice.
For example, “I love direct feedback. Please don’t sugar coat things with me.” or “I am sometimes very direct and it comes across as rude. That is never my intention, so please feel free to call me out on it when it happens.”
Even that though is less useful than the constant work of difficult, honest communication that is actually required to shape your interaction patterns with others. I worry that user manuals might be used to absolve oneself of that work.
This document is a nice piece describing the environment the author wants to work in, in my opinion, rather than being a user manual for the author. Maybe reframing it that way would engender a better response in readers.
All that said though, the response here is often verging into the downright cruel, and I am disgusted by a lot of it. Many folks are making sweeping proclamations about this person’s personality or character and/or directly attacking the author. I think there are things to critique here, but it’s hasty as hell to assume that this document gives you enough to judge an entire person, and a whole other thing to rip that person down with insults.
Making these became trendy at my last company for a few months.
I didn't get it then, and I don't get it now. I guess I just don't see who has time for this kind of thing -- literally. I doubt very seriously anyone ever actually read these things.
Nice, but typically a manual written by oneself, I could write something similar about myself. But ask my wife to write one... I bet it will be quite different.
I love the idea of these. Last time I heard of them I sat down to write one and couldnt get through more than 1 or 2 points before feeling like it was a incredibly self indulgent exercise that wouldnt actually be helpful to anyone.
I couldnt imagine sharing this with a coworker. Even if I did, I cant imagine they would read all of it and internalize it. Most people act how they act. They may adjust their behavior slightly when interacting with you but they are not going to adopt a whole new communication style or something complex just to work better with you.
The only person I feel like I could share this with without feeling like an ass would be my direct manager. And typically I have a similar conversation with them during one on ones in the first 6 months of working there.
But at the end of the day its a compromise. Managers are often good at managing and motivating in MAYBE one way. If your way of ideally being managed or motivated doesnt align with theirs then you will both have to find some middle ground. Or change teams/managers/companies.
I completely agree, and I felt the same way when we had to do these for a previous job. The whole process felt _embarassing_, honestly. And, in practice, just like you said, people just act how they act, and interactions with people were shaped infinitely more by that than by the user manuals, which afaik were never referenced by anyone once written.
I might appreciate being able to read this as a manager, and I would take what insight I could glean from it as a coworker. However, even as someone who tries hard to adapt my natural method of interaction to other people, I can’t imagine their poorly self-descriptive document is going to be more useful than a month of direct contact and honest communication.
Although the intention is great, I wonder if the act of creating such a document ironically constructs a barrier of expectations on the 'right' way of interacting with the said individual
I have worked with a few of these "readme" managers, and frankly, they are the worst people to deal with :)
I think it's very telling that this person says they're an introvert because people who have a need to write a manual for themselves are likely lacking in people skills (and probably shouldn't be managers).
This is like those personal READMEs, they try to present some sort of predictability for a human, who typically is inconsistent and emotional, coloured by what the strive to be or how they see themselves vs. the reality.
This document is written for the author and don't provide much value to the reader.
If someone handed me this when I first started working with them I wouldn't read it. If I was forced to I'd resent it, and them. I have a hard time imagining why you'd present this to a random you'd never met before, let alone someone you knew.
Sadly, this strikes me as a document that was initially as egocentric as the title implies, but was later groomed and manicured to be more palatable. The match/replace "we" language is there to support this.
To me, a lot of this reads more like some sort of "Team/Company Values and Culture" document than the user manual of a single individual.
Things like "Default to action" are pretty dependent on team/company culture and what you're working on. Your coworkers won't start defaulting to action just because you prefer it if their boss, their boss' boss, etc prefer cautious consideration. There's nothing wrong with preferring to work somewhere with a "default to action" culture, but presumably by the time someone is reading this you've already made the decision that the culture is a good fit for you. (Ditto for "There’s life beyond work". If that isn't the existing culture, then as a reader all it tells me is that you choose to work somewhere that doesn't share your values and we may be in for a bumpy ride.)
Similarly, the way it's written now "Mind the channel" reads like a mandate about team/company norms and culture. Despite being under the heading of "How to efficiently work and communicate with me", rather than explaining which channels of communication you prefer in which contexts, it makes a broad statement about what the reader should consider when communicating with anyone. IMO guidance on how to communicate with others in general, rather than you specifically, belongs in a team handbook and not your personal user manual.
"Don’t give clues" on the other hand is a good example of something that does seem to belong in a user manual. It explains something about you and tells the reader how to more effectively communicate with you. It doesn't make broad generalizations about how they should communicate with others in general.
In the end, I wonder whether this should be split into multiple documents - maybe a user manual (for people working with you) and a separate list of what's important to you in a working environment and company culture (for yourself when job hunting)?
In any case, for the user manual I think it would help to replace broad platitudes and decrees with statements focused on you. If a statement would make sense in a team handbook or similar, I think that's a sign that it may come across as inappropriate/presumptuous in your personal user manual.
Thanks for sharing this! I'm sure your team will benefit from the clarity with which you outlined your values and working style. Camille Fournier wrote a piece on "manager READMEs" that, if nothing else, is worth considering. I'm less opinionated about the practice, but I definitely am glad I read her article:
I like it. I thought it was pretty calm and reasonable. Maybe some things could be worded a little better, but I'm not sure why there are so many strong, negative reactions about it.
Good, like I don’t have enough complexity to deal with every workday, so I need one more thing to read and consider. No, what I need is quiet and less of everything. When we start working together we will learn how to work together. And I would not take into account your opinions about yourself and how you work, only your deeds. Because something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk.
Can anyone here give me an honest review of the doc I send people who reach out to me who I don't know? I definitely want to know if this doc comes off as condescending.
To be honest (as you asked for), it does come off as egotistical and a bit condescending. I would remove the "Thank you and sorry" and "The bar is high because my word carries weight" sections. The tone of sentences like "I'm insanely lucky to be where I am today", and "My word carries weight" is a bit self-aggrandizing.
Without those sections I think the rest is fine. If you want to introduce the whole thing to explain why it's necessary I would entirely leave yourself out of it because it comes off as self aggrandizing. I would just write something like, "I appreciate your interest in working at Loom. I can't simply pass your resume on if you contact me, because it isn't fair to my hiring manager. It makes it easier for everyone when I provide the below information up front because its saves us both time".
Given that this is a completely different context, one where someone is still outside the org and trying to get your attention to become their advocate it is a totally different vibe from TFA.
I don't see how 'humble, hungry and smart' will go together in most applicants, you'll be lucky to have one out of three, extremely happy to get two and all three is usually a question of broken self assessment.
Adding 'hungry' also seems to select for people in need, giving you an advantage over them in negotiations. As for humility: you will not find it in most sub 40 year olds, they don't know what they don't know yet. So this might cause good candidates to back out.
Finally, the extra heading 'We cannot hire within these countries' is superfluous, it is already covered by the previous heading.
Thanks for the feedback on humble, hungry, and smart. Tbh I do find that most people at Loom exhibit all 3 of these traits, but I could definitely be totally off due to people likely changing their behavior whenever I'm in a room or having a conversation with them (e.g. people on their best behavior).
> As for humility: you will not find it in most sub 40 year olds, they don't know what they don't know yet
This is interesting and very different from my experience. I feel like humility is actually the hardest thing to find in anyone (controlled for age and all). I haven't actually seen a clear trend line between humility and age.
> Adding 'hungry' also seems to select for people in need, giving you an advantage over them in negotiations.
Interesting I never really thought about it like this. Do you associate "hungry" with "desperate"? I've always seen them as completely distinct, but, if enough people see them as closely related, I probably should figure out how to qualify this.
I don't know the other people at Loom, so I'm modeling you after your typical scale-up with talented young people, the likes of which I see every other week or so on average, but it is definitely possible that Loom is in a different order all by itself.
Also, keep in mind that my viewpoint is Euro-centric and that just that alone could easily qualify to make up the difference.
As for terminology, eager might be a better term than hungry.
We hire people in the EU, so I definitely want your perspective!
> As for terminology, eager might be a better term than hungry.
So funny, I associate eager more with "desperate". Maybe this is a US vs. EU sorta thing. I'm going to noodle on this - thank you!
Comes off as very silly and insecure. It seems like it's written purely for you to curate your professional persona and to give people a good impression of yourself. A corporate kool-aid drinking work-a-holics version of a Twitter bio, just needlessly long and self-indulgent. At least Twitter bios are limited in length.
If you actually cared about the recipients of this document it would be half a page or shorter and have bullet points of your biggest weaknesses or eccentricities and other actionable info. You aren't Napoleon, nobody needs to read more than a half page about you, especially when most of what you have to say is meaningless corporate jargon.
I will gladly revise so I don't come off that way.
For the "work-a-loholics" comment, I certainly am a workaholic and you can easily find that online. I don't apologize for it, and I don't mind if others aren't but it will be a problem if that fact makes you salty. I'm doing a lot of shit, and I'm not sorry if that makes you insecure in yourself, although I do hope you work through that for your own benefit.
> have bullet points of your biggest weaknesses or eccentricities and other actionable info
The point of this document is to respond to someone who already wants to work with me and get signal through our hiring process to know if I should refer them in (ideally quickly). Highlighting my biggest weaknesses (something you can Google for - I'm very open about myself) feels off topic and doesn't seem to actually solve anyone's pain points (mine or the candidate's).
That said, I have been told that I can be long-winded in my writing, so it's valuable to get that feedback. I will take a stab at cutting as much fluff as possible - thank you!
> People prefer different channels of communication, often depending on context. Don’t communicate in the way that’s most convenient to you. Always consider whom you’re communicating with and what their needs and context might be.
Sure, but my needs should be somewhere in the equation too. If we are peers, it is reasonable to expect them to be as important as yours.
> I try to truly understand a position before arguing against it. Ask questions. Repeat back what I understood to be their point.
Does not leave space for you accepting someone elses position. Also, if primary reason you ask me questions is so that you can argue against, then it does not sound like symmetric cooperative debate seeking solution. Instead, it sounds like debate club where one needs to win by creating gotchas.
Again, I am back to one sided. There are a lot of expectations for other person to understand and tolerate your peculiarities. But little about you trying to actually understand them.
I think it would be more useful if it were more concise and practical.
> tl;dr Trust + Ownership + Mindful communication = Win
the tl;dr doesn't tell you anything.
The rest tries to reform the other person rather than indicate preferences. I would be more ok with one that says:
- I prefer emails to meetings. Don't invite me to meetings that could be emails
- I decline meetings without an agenda.
- respect my time and don't double book me. If you double book me, I may not come, dont act surprised.
- I voice my opinions and sometimes it might sound harsh. You can voice yours and I won't take it personally
This is neat, but it puts a certain spin on your personality that might give others pause, even if they would be totally okay with working with someone who just behaved as outlined in the doc. There's a whiff of being overly prescriptive, and prima-donna-ish. Of maybe being Aspergers / on the Autistic spectrum, which could be +ve or -ve, depending on who's hiring.
Overall, I think I would like to work with someone who is conscientious enough and introspective enough to take the effort to make a doc like this. On the other hand, I did have to suppress a bit of an eye-roll and I would wonder whether contextually they'd be annoying to work with or oblivious to subtler contexts and human interactions. But I've written plenty of communications that could cause the same questions in someone else, so...
Like many others I don't love the idea of a "How to work with me" manual because -- like much of this one -- they can come off as a one-way directive. However, context matters.
If a random person on my team or the manager of some other team handed this to me? No, no, and no. Huge red flag. But if I was joining a team for the first time and my manager handed me a manual of expectations and made it clear what they value, what they expect, and how they see the world, that would be a treasure trove for my career. After all, managing my career is essentially managing my manager.
That being said, this document... isn't that. I appreciate the intent, but like many have said, it can be a little self-indulgent :)
I won't hold back (as you asked): it seems to me that the most likely reason someone would write something like this is if they had a lot of bad experiences that they ascribe to failures in the principles described in the document.
I think it's unlikely that most people would read this, or even if they did that they would use it to guide their interactions with you.
The document also makes you sound like a condescending person to me (though it's difficult to judge without knowing the greater context).
If my analysis is correct, a different way around the bad experiences is to detach from them and learn to recognize the unfortunate situations as they come up early on. But if they are too frequent the problem could be your attitude.
I really appreciate posts like this when I'm hiring, as it alerts me early on that someone expects the team and company to conform to their standards. That may work great for some organizations, but not ours.
Based on a misreading of the title, I thought this was going to be about organizing what you've learned about other people and how to remember the things that are important to them. That would be really cool.
I think there's some nice points in there, but it keeps switching between "how to work with me," and "how to work with others" (maybe me, maybe not me).
For myself, I feel that the posts I put up here (on HN) give a fairly decent idea of what I'm like, but it's been my experience that folks will interpret them to fit whatever narrative they choose (often, unflattering to me).
I think the only way that we'd figure out how we'd work together, would be to ... you know ... work together ... for a while.
@davidbauer your motivation for doing this seems honourable, but I think it's unlikely to be useful to either yourself or your co-workers. We're going through a cultural moment where communication-via-words (especially written words) is widely regarded as canonical, but human interaction is much richer than plain text. For someone who wants to get to know you the time spent reading and understanding your article would be better spent just hanging out with you
Sounds great for people on the spectrum. However, neurotypicals either don't care about you at all, or care enough to converse with you until we learn your unspoken manual.
Title editorialized. Original title is "How to work with me".
To quote dang from 12 hours ago:
> It's against the HN guidelines to editorialize titles like this. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."
OP is the author. When an author submits the item to HN it is common to do like here, writing a HN specific title for the submission that is different from the title on the page itself.
It's true that when it's clear that the submitter is the author, we often leave their preferred title in place.
But the submitted title in this case ("Every person should come with a user manual. So I created one for me.") was baity and therefore against the site guidelines, so we reverted it the way we normally do.
Wow. I’m in a new relationship and this felt like a contract for marriage. Haha! All kidding aside, I’ve heard business partnership described as marriage, and even read a book about it. This reads like the crib notes for such a book. I liked the bold typography—the explanations were useful, but not required.
After those initial ideas, I started to get bored. I wanted more humor or a story.
While the idea is interesting, I imagine this would increase the friction in team interactions. And if everyone in the team have their own "manual" (which is only fair), you pretty much need a cheat sheet just to keep up. To me, that takes away the spontaneity in interactions, which is something I'm sure we all sorely miss after two years of lockdowns.
Huh! I’ve had something like this since the 90s, working with smart tech folk. I haven’t shared it with anyone in over a decade because I know how weird it would appear to normals.
Ive read what author values and instantly knew we would cooperate well.
I would also add one more thing:
I value the quality of work we do. I try to always deliver the best work I can, but if deadlines are short and we know we are not able deliver quality solution on time -> at least document what can be improved later and why it was not done in the first place.
Interaction is a two way activity. Different team members at my workplace interact differently with me than to other people, and I with them. That's just down to months of important, casual, subtle interaction and boundary setting.
> If you start working with a new person, wouldn’t it be nice if you had some sort of user manual that gives you a basic understanding of how to work with them?
This is literally the last thing I would look for or indeed think to look for.
If I received this I would do my best to steer clear of this person. Hopefully you put at least as much effort into acquiring social skills as telling people exactly how to communicate with you.
Did you even skim it? It starts with humility, shares that he believes his coworkers are vitally important and worthy of respect and support, then moves onto core values like empathy.
Like, its a little awkward, but based on writing samples I'd rather work with this David guy than with you.
Cool, and then let's make it harassment to ignore the instructions in somebodies user manual (not just ignoring their pronoun preference), so everybody has to learn the user manual of all their colleagues by heart.
People attack me, and you ban me. Classy as always. I even took the time to patiently explain what I meant, except for the one guy who was just spouting insults. Even to him I merely explained that he doesn't understand what I meant.
How is that "taking threads into flamewar hell"?
How many threads did you have to go back in my timeline to make the claim that I "always do that"? I clicked several pages and found nothing, even defending your own Sam Altman from insults in one of them.
I banned you for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our requests to stop, in the light of your long history of breaking the site guidelines, ignoring our requests to stop, and getting banned for it.
None of that depends on what other people did, though you're certainly right that they shouldn't have attacked you (and we'll ban them, too, if they keep posting like that).
If you don't want to be banned, it's not that hard to read the guidelines and follow them. The vast majority of users here manage that just fine.
I don't want to get locked into hostility here! It's nothing personal, and if you genuinely want to use HN as intended, there are always ways to correct the situation. We just need reason to believe that you do in fact want to use HN as intended and that the pattern of breaking the guidelines won't keep happening in the future.
I did nothing that is against the guidelines, and you did not repeatedly ask me to stop whatever (I honestly don't even know what you mean). I think you are just projecting something.
I did nothing in this thread that is against the guidelines whatsoever. And not in my previous comments, either.
The only thing I did I guess is to voice an opinion or inconvenient truth that you personally don't like. I can see no other explanation for it.
Perhaps it is the comment on the "personal pronouns", because you belong to the group of people pushing that new ideology. But I did not even say you should not indulge people's request for their pronouns, just that people should not be forced to use them against their own convictions. As I explained, there is a clear analogy to the pronouns issue from the "personal manual", that is why I chose to mention it, because it is a well known issue.
Honestly, I just don't know what personal issue you seem to have with me.
It's hard to think of a more obvious violation than that one. Moderating such comments has zero to do with your opinions. We don't know or care what your opinions are.
I think it is a pretty reasonable response to the type of comment that was directed at me. ("you, sir, are a fire. in dumpster. omg."). I don't think you will find a single instance of me insulting anybody without them directing hate and insults against me.
Yet somehow you protect those people and not me. Sorry I can not respect you for that.
You seem to be saying it was ok for you to break the guidelines because someone else did it first. That's not how it works. It always feels like the other person started it and did worse, so that approach is a recipe for a downward spiral: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=downward%20spiral%20by:dang&da...
If you feel like you're personally being singled out for more stringent moderation, that's an illusion. I don't recognize your username (nor most usernames on HN). It's true that I banned you where I only warned the other user (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856521) but that's I looked up the history and saw that you'd been warned (and indeed, banned) more than once before, and because your account was considerably more abusive overall.
If the other user continues to break the site guidelines we will end up banning them also.
I mean, or we could not catastrophize and slippery-slope this. Given the eye-rolls and push-back just on evidence here, I don't think this idea has legs. I wonder how much of this is generational. Like "how freaking entitled are these kids now?" Publishing manuals on how to talk to them. Not saying I fully believe that, but it's the obvious "get off my lawn ya damn kids" reaction.
I support people's rights to write user manuals for themselves. The idea is even amusing to some degree. I just don't want to be forced to read them, and especially not be accused of not adhering to the rules in the manual.
And yes, I admit the word "snowflakes" popped up in my head.
Wow, I’m gobsmacked at your example. Are you really arguing that transgender people are somehow abusing and disrespecting others by asking to be acknowledged as they wish to be? Would you be ‘abused’ if I mentioned my same-sex spouse and it violated your assumed reality?
You can ask and it is polite to adhere to the wish, but you can not demand it.
Ultimately you have no right to intrude on my brain, sorry.
"Would you be ‘abused’ if I mentioned my same-sex spouse and it violated your assumed reality?"
Probably not because I could see that your spouse has the same sex as you, so it wouldn't violate my perception? I don't get the point of your example.
The point of the "publicly state you believe in something that is obviously not true" is a symbolic subjugation of the person made to do it. It is "swearing in" to the ideology. Like Gallileo announcing publicly that the sun revolves around the earth.
Lol wtf - you don't think people have a right to their own thoughts and perceptions? I have no words. A mess indeed - but not on my side. Enjoy your next brainwashing session, as that seems to be your thing.
I choose to know some people better than others. Nobody has the right to demand my time and waste it with being forced to "know about" their fake persona they want to present.
You are also clearly imagining things, I never said I would be against getting to know people or colleagues. I am against enforced individual rulebooks.
…case in point is a current coworker of mine, who gave me something like a verbal version of this manual when we started working together. He almost immediately began acting completely opposite to what he said. Turns out his spiel was more aspirational than honest. Seems like he was trying to convince me to like him before his behavior steered me in the other direction. Not that I can’t work with the guy, but I had to learn my own ways to get around his quirks—ways which were certainly not outlined in his introduction.