
Discretion still matters – don’t hurt your career by sharing too much - lkrubner
http://www.smashcompany.com/business/discretion-still-matters-dont-ruin-your-career-by-sharing-too-much
======
strictnein
Honestly, this is a long article, but it's worth reading. It's written
somewhat in response to another article by a millennial wanting her older
colleagues to share more.

Part of that is quoted in this article, including this passage:

> Most of my new colleagues are at least 10 years my senior. Several of them
> have children, spouses, and mortgages. They are adults. Comparatively, I am
> a child.

This really hits home, because I'm on the flip side of this now. In my current
role I'm a lead on a team and am one of the oldest team members (late 30s).
Most of my coworkers are 10 years my junior, so it's weird structuring
conversations that don't involve in-depth discussion of kids and spouses and
homes and school, etc. Not that it's all I want to talk about, but it is a
pretty common place to go to when you're talking over lunch in the cafeteria.
Now more of my conversations are back in the beer, sports, and video games
realm, which I also enjoy, but it's just different.

~~~
sergers
I am 31, moved into a new team 1.5 years ago.

I am married 7 years, no kids... and have carried a hefty mortgage for 8
years.

My other team mates are 38-55. Have kids, some even grandkids.

While I can relate to alot of things, I can't stand their constant discussions
about their kids and other family stuff... I just can't relate.(edit: not that
I can't relate really, I just can't stand their constant distractions with
home life... We all have issues, you might need a place to vent but work
shouldn't be it. Go talk to a colleague in a discreet area not openly in
professional work settings)

It really disrupts me that I either have to super zone out (which I am good
at) or leave my desk constantly.

We have a open seating area with low wall shared cubicles... Which makes it
worse.

While I have family issues, I don't discuss them openly at work with everyone.

I am friendly, but don't open up... If you talk to me, I will talk back and
seem interested, but it's really in one ear and out the other.

When it comes up to recommend or commend a colleague, it's not the work that
comes into focus... You remember all these tidbits, and factor in determining
that recommendation.

Person works hard but may be unreliable because of X happening. Person is only
here to talk about Y, rather than working hard. Person only comes to work, to
get away from Z.

I am the guy that goes to work, to work, so he can move on with his day after
work as soon as possible.

Others come for an escape from their home lives and share about it all day.

I have colleagues in other departments that feel the same way that are older,
but just don't discuss family in detail at work.

In office politics, sharing can help at times being more friendly with
management... But I make up for it in hard effort, top numbers.. and when it
comes to review time its my work that shines.

One colleague shared alot about his personal life, and only lost out on a job
cause the hiring manager felt the guy had too many personal issues. (Manager
told me in confidence).

He is a hard worker, but has a stigma of being a weirdo for sharing so much of
his family life.

~~~
ianai
34 never married no kids. Probably because the sentiment that someone doesn’t
want to talk about family makes little sense to someone who’s life revolves
around family. I give people blank stares when they talk football to me. I
still try to relate. “Yeah my family chose all loser teams so the game lost
me.” It’s not a great sentiment to hear for someone who loves football, but
they get why I’m out of the discussion. Plus, as I remember being 31, the
reality of adultness hadn’t fully hit me at that point. Life can catch up to
you unawares. Sometimes I realize that in relation to other people’s
progressions. That can hurt. Hurt comes out as dismissiveness vocally.

~~~
rainbowmverse
Football is pretty much chess with guided missiles. The basic rule is easy
enough to remember (4 tries to go 10 yards or the other team gets the ball),
and I've never met a football fan who minded filling in the gaps of the
current discussion.

It's the same with kids. I have no trouble finding things to talk about with
my friend who's raising a kid at a similar age. It often starts with talking
about how we were raised. Maybe it's worth rethinking your approach to these
kinds of discussions.

~~~
nubbins
I can't talk about football with serious fans because they are obsessed with
minutia, personalities, who did what, what games they have to win etc. In a
way its revealing of who cares enough because you have to invest (waste) hours
to keep up with that sort of stuff. What you're describing sounds like kind of
a meta-football discussion about rules etc that I'd enjoy.

~~~
rainbowmverse
It only seems like a waste because it's not your thing. I don't care for it,
but I also don't care for 90% of what's in the tech press. Most of it is
meaningless (who will remember that random funding round/the player who won't
last a season five years from now?), but it's fine entertainment if that's
what you want.

------
misterbowfinger
I really do think about this a lot, but I disagree with what the author
proposes which is basically lying or deceiving others:

> Authenticity is rare, but people performing authenticity is common, and
> being good at that performance can build a fortune. Not just authenticity,
> of course. Being able to pretend that you are furious is a trick that all
> great sales people use. And being able to create the illusion of a sincere
> vulnerability can trick people into trusting you, which is invaluable

The crux of the issue is as follows: is it possible to exercise discretion,
but still be authentic and empathetic? I believe the answer to that is "yes".

I also don't believe this is just about your career - it's about your life. In
some circles, amongst _some_ people, in _certain_ circumstances, sharing
details is beneficial. But not always. You should not overshare with every
person you meet. It's simply not to your benefit.

The difficulty is determining when, where, and to whom you share. Sometimes,
you just know. And sometimes, you just have to express yourself. That doesn't
always mean you say exactly what's on your mind. Simply a facial expression
can communicate what you're feeling in a certain moment, but still with
respect and dignity.

Authenticity is extremely powerful. Even with a client, being authentic
(without oversharing) will garner you a lot of respect.

~~~
losteric
Yes, you're describing discretion and reiterating the author. They never
suggested lying, merely being mindful of the circumstances when disclosing
truth.

~~~
misterbowfinger
Added an excerpt from the post. It seems to be the opposite of what I'm
saying.

~~~
cosmie
I read that section as what one is commonly exposed to, not what he's
advocating doing.

------
DoreenMichele
I'm a woman and I tend to be very open about a lot of things. I am generally
being genuine/ authentic, but I had a very private life for a lot of years and
I had to learn that communicating effectively with people who simply aren't
going to be part of your inner circle just works fundamentally differently
from communicating with those folks.

Understanding is very much contextual. There isn't enough time in the day for
you to have a deep, meaningful, close relationship to every passing
acquaintance.

I don't need to feel people are up to no good to decide that certain kinds of
information are not appropriate in certain contexts. It is a waste of
everyone's time and a poor communication practice to introduce personal
elements that aren't pertinent.

Discretion is certainly an element of that. But I think of it more in terms of
effective communication.

If someone has just met you and knows almost nothing about you, leading with
talking about how scared you are is going to get interpreted very differently
from saying that to people who know you well. If the entirety of their
knowledge of you is "I'm scared I can't handle this job," well don't be
surprised if the conclusion is that you are simply in over your head.

------
aetherson
I'm 40, and some of my coworkers are like 25. I'm about two management levels
above the basic engineers, but we're a small company and everyone knows
everyone.

So I'm having lunch with some of the engineers, and one of them shares out of
the blue that she regrets getting a computer science degree at her (good)
college, and thinks she should've gone into business instead. And my immediate
thought is, "For god's sake, don't SAY that shit around me, I'm someone who
has a big say in your career prospects."

I like having a casual, informal work experience. But it's a thin layer.
Ultimately, this is still a hierarchy, and ultimately, you have to think about
who you're talking to.

(Separately: Don't get an undergraduate degree in business. What a worthless
degree.)

~~~
rainbowmverse
>> _(Separately: Don 't get an undergraduate degree in business. What a
worthless degree.)_

It's hard for people to learn things like this if they're afraid to talk to
people who've gone down that road for fear that an honest expression of
concern will be read as a critical lack of confidence.

Just because we're yelled and beaten down for every expression of
vulnerability growing up doesn't mean we have to perpetuate it into adulthood.
Stop the cycle.

~~~
crispyambulance
The thing is you can never _really_ know, in advance, who is going to be
empathetic about expressions of doubt and who is going to silently and
permanently pass judgement upon it.

Saying that stuff to peers has little risk especially if the peers know each
other. But aetherson has a supervisor role here and he is at least being
honest to us that such a remark will condition his future opinion of the
blabber-mouth.

That's perhaps one of the things that takes people some time to learn after
leaving school-- what you say can hurt you, asking the wrong questions can
damage your career, and, your boss is not your friend.

~~~
scarface74
Your boss is not your friend, but your boss can be your mentor. I've had to
form a level of trust with my boss because I really needed his advice as a
first time tech lead.

I knew the technology I was implementing pretty well but now knowing how to
approach higher ups and people in other departments is just as important.

~~~
scarface74
And adding on, I try to avoid it, but sometimes you have to tell your boss
personal stuff. When I was looking for a house, I had all sorts of short
notice appointments. If I didn't let him know, the first thought is that I was
interviewing.

Also, I have "cold induced asthma". Whenever I catch a cold, my asthma flairs
up and I'm heavily medicated. I had to explain why I spent so much time
working from home.

~~~
crispyambulance
I agree with your points. "Your boss is not your friend" just means that you
can't talk to your boss just like you talk to a friend. But it can be easy to
mistake one's boss as a friend, and that's where there's a risk of saying
things that should not be said.

------
dorkwood
I'm not a manager, but the people I've worked with best over the years are the
ones who have shared a bit of themselves at work.

People who act 'professional' all the time aren't trustworthy to me. It's
impossible to have a frank discussion since they're always hiding behind the
veneer of professionalism. They overrate their own ability to fool an
audience, and it erodes everyone's ability to trust them.

I'm not saying everyone needs to blurt out their feelings 100% of the time.
I'm saying honesty isn't only reserved for touchy-feely millenials. If you
cultivate a culture of honesty rather than dog-eat-dog deception, you'll get
better feedback from your employees, you'll be able to give feedback easier,
and teams will be more comfortable speaking up instead of sweeping the garbage
under the table.

The problem with the woman in the interview wasn't that she was being honest,
it's that she was framing her honesty in an unproductive way.

------
adrianratnapala
A good article, which should probably be read alongside the one about
"vulnerability" by Leah Fessler [1] that it is responding to. Mining the
links, I sniff an insidious confusion about what it means show "vulnerabilty".
On its face, it sounds like "exposing your weaknesses". But in pro-
vulnerability literature (e.g. [2]), it seems more like "displaying honesty
and courage". Those are strengths, not weakensses.

An example is when someone is confident enough to say "Hey, I don't know about
[X], can you explain it?". _That confidence is good_ ; but for it to work, it
must be common knowledge that, since no-one understands everything the
question displays keenness to learn (i.e. strength) and not ignorance (i.e.
weakness).

[Pro tip: one of the most valuable, and easiest, life skills I learned as a
young man was to say "I don't know" in a confident tone of voice.]

It is bad if vulnerability-talk teaches young people to display their
weakness, since _of course_ that will lead people to lose confidence in them.
What else could it do? But it is _good_ if they learn to turn problems into
opportunities to strengthen themselves, and to do it openly so that their
colleauges can help.

[1]: [https://work.qz.com/1155475/im-a-millennial-and-i-cant-
get-m...](https://work.qz.com/1155475/im-a-millennial-and-i-cant-get-my-older-
colleagues-to-be-vulnerable-help/)

[2]: [https://www.fastcompany.com/3001319/why-doing-awesome-
work-m...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3001319/why-doing-awesome-work-means-
making-yourself-vulnerable)

~~~
bayonetz
Related article by Fessler about creating a "user manual" for her colleagues
to understand her better: [https://qz.com/1046131/writing-a-user-manual-at-
work-makes-t...](https://qz.com/1046131/writing-a-user-manual-at-work-makes-
teams-less-anxious-and-more-productive/)

Such a cool concept. So much more efficient than the opaque, black-box methods
we use to understand and navigate our colleagues in this discretion-oriented,
anti-vulnerability-oriented status quo we currently live in. Ironically, I'd
say the efficiency of it actually makes it more humanizing.

------
lkrubner
For emphasis, I would add, if a woman says, "I'm really scared and overwhelmed
by this task" then it is possible that she is sharing too much. But managers
should recall that she is perhaps simply trying to create a friendship. It
isn't automatically an expression of a lack of confidence.

~~~
watwut
If you never feel overwhelmed and a bit of nerveous, then you never really
challenged yourself and play it too safe. Or just lie about your feelings.

I am not sure why saying something like that is seen as worst then
overconfidence and acting sure when you dont know what you are doing. The
latter does more harm.

~~~
greenrd
Well, because of organisational biases. There are principal agent problems
dotted throughout most businesses larger than a single room, and people care
more about looking good than being theoretically optimal, and this is
recursive. And however bad you think this problem is - it's probably worse.
Robin Hanson and Eliezer Yudkowsky have both written good stuff on this
subject.

------
jeffdavis
"To the extent that he’s been successful, it’s because he’s been strategic
about what he reveals, and to the extent that he is heading for disaster, it
is because he is often unstrategic about what he reveals."

I like the rest of the article, but this seems almost like the definition of
confirmation bias.

~~~
greenrd
What counterexamples would you offer? Bearing in mind that it may have been
intended only to apply to consequences that he was responsible for, not things
that he had nothing to do with, but I can't think of any examples of the
latter right now.

------
dkarl
Traditionally, for a man among men, expressing confidence has always been
safe. If a man expresses confidence in a situation where confidence is
foolhardy, other men will interpret it as a performance of masculinity. I'm
sure Rick understands this project is going to be a nightmare. I'm glad he's
gung-ho about it. If you express fear, on the other hand, your fear will be
scrutinized to determine whether it is well-founded and appropriate to the
situation. I'm worried about Rick — he seems terrified by this project. I know
it's going to be tough, but geez, grow a pair.

Women among women are in the opposite boat. Expressing vulnerability is always
safe because it can always be read as a performance of femininity, but
expressing confidence invites scrutiny as to whether it is well-founded or
arrogant.

Both of those scenarios have a safe fall-back based on gender expectations.
When you mix genders, the fall-backs disappear. In tech, this is virtually
always a problem faced by a woman in a male-dominated workplace. If she's ever
momentarily in doubt, there's no safe direction to err. She can't take the
masculine safe route and project bravado, because that behavior only reads
correctly from a man. Nor can she afford to fall back on traditional
expectations of women, because traditional expectations of women would suggest
she isn't competent at a technical job. So she has to hit the correct balance
of confidence and vulnerability every time. There's no safe fallback.

And even when she hits the correct, situationally appropriate balance of
confidence, the men around her might still be confused about how they're
supposed to interpret it coming from a woman. Unless they analyze her
confidence in a rational, point-by-point manner — and how often do you do that
in a workday? — they're relying on instincts that are conditioned by cultural
processes largely outside their control to 1) expect confidence from coworkers
and 2) not expect confidence from women.

Anyway, it's pretty disheartening to see an incident that is heavily colored
by gender expectations related and acknowledged as such but then interpreted
as a story about a one-dimensional spectrum from expressiveness to
guardedness. A man in the same situation would have been allowed a generous
expression of confidence and self-regard, even if it reflected less technical
insight than the woman's fears did. Women and men _both_ routinely filter the
emotions they share with other people, sharing some and repressing others.
Showing vulnerability isn't about being unguarded or guarded, or about naive
"authenticity" versus Machiavellian "performing authenticity." It's about
filtering differently for a different set of expectations. Nor is it about
women not understanding that personal knowledge can be used against them.
Witness teenage girls feeling forced to suicide when other girls use their
secrets against them. Women are not (and cannot afford to be) less socially
careful than men, or less aware of the dangers of sharing.

Nor is it true that "if you are ambitious, all of the top jobs are reserved
for people who are closed and guarded." Successful male leaders are rarely
cold fish and are often very personally charismatic. They have to be mindful
of the effect their expressions of emotion have on the people around them, and
of the necessity of using that power to inspire loyalty and sacrifice. You
can't make it to the top without inspiring trust in people. In case that
sounds overly touchy-feely, let me add that it's especially important if your
ambition requires other people to fail. It's easier to knife someone in the
back than take them head-on. The "closed and guarded" person is never going to
enjoy someone's loyalty or take a rival by surprise, because everyone is going
to treat him like a snake. (That's one path to power, but judging by the
people you see in high positions, it isn't a common one. Even Donald Trump
projects a lot of interior qualities such as confidence, defiance, and self-
regard and inspires loyalty in people who feel that he is gifting those
emotions to people who need them.)

On a final note, I suspect the author understands 90% of this but is stranded
on the wrong side of the enormous dichotomous wall he has erected between
authentic emotional expression and manipulative emotional performance. People
always filter and selectively amplify the emotions they express. That
filtering is not inherently false, malicious, or untrustworthy. It's an
inevitable part of being human, another complication when understanding
another human being. A person's filter can be a positive or negative aspect of
them, something they use in constructive or destructive ways. That's a better
way to evaluate this question of vulnerability in the workplace. What kind of
filter do I want my employees or coworkers to have at work? Should we
systematically favor bravado over vulnerability? My gut feeling is that we
should not.

~~~
solidsnack9000
_Anyway, it 's pretty disheartening to see an incident that is heavily colored
by gender expectations related and acknowledged as such but then interpreted
as a story about a one-dimensional spectrum from expressiveness to
guardedness._

Maybe you have said it already in the above but to ask directly: do you think
the author or their colleague would have treated Lisa’s remarks differently if
she were a man?

~~~
DoreenMichele
FWIW:

Male characters in movies who show you their scars are seen correctly as
bragging about what badasses they are. I am a woman inclined to do that and I
have had to learn to stop it. It is consistently interpreted as "Oh, you poor,
pathetic thing, so victimized by life! Clearly, you need to be rescued! (by
which I mean treated like a doormat and taken advantage of)"

Outright bragging goes worse places. So the GP is correct that women have no
good options for owning their competence or admitting that you build your
chops by biting off more than you can chew and this project is an opportunity
to grow, because it won't come easy.

We really don't have good paradigms for women to do that sort of thing. There
are no standard ways to do it. Having to try to make up such paradigms as you
go on top of handling a challenging job is a serious handicap.

~~~
solidsnack9000
That is different from what is described in the original article, though,
where “Lisa” really does speak in a way that communicates fear and a sense of
trepidation.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Is it? If it is, why am I so frequently interpreted as _playing the victim
card_ when I am displaying my badass scars? Or even simply telling it like it
is about my actual life experiences?

~~~
greenrd
Maybe it's the way you tell them. With engineers, a little explicitness goes a
long way, and will generally be accepted - unless you're being patronising and
telling them something they already know. So try saying "I'm not saying this
to gain any sympathy or anything like that, but I had a similar experience,
which was... and what it taught me / how it made me stronger was..." I mean
that's kind of a stilted template, but you get the general idea.

Now, this might lead to a bunfight about whether those situations were
similar, in your colleagues' opinions - but then at least you'd have brought
out into the open where your colleagues weren't thinking along the same lines
as you - which might not always be what you expected!

~~~
DoreenMichele
Well, to be fair, I never really stopped doing it. But I do handle things
differently.

I still don't think that makes it fair to assume the woman in the article
wasn't doing something similar. We don't have her side of the story. We have
someone else's version of events.

Also: A man telling a woman that her observations about her own experiences
aren't valid and she just must be doing it wrong has a not nice name because
it is not nice behavior. Which may be apropos of nothing if you happen to be
female and just failed to say that.

Either way, I wasn't asking for advice, I was giving testimony, so your
comment is guilty of treating me like a victim when I wasn't playing the
victim card at all, just testifying from firsthand experience.

------
hartator
> We worked with Lisa for 2 years and we produced our biggest successes with
> her.

So, being honest paid off for her?

Most successful CEOs are very open about everything, and don't keep secrets.
Secrets and opacity are what destroy companies and relationships, not the
reverse.

~~~
trgv
> So, being honest paid off for her?

The article describes how her openness almost cost her the job offer. In the
author's opinion, she made a mistake by being open about her insecurities in a
job interview.

I've worked with people who are probably too open about their insecurities. I
think you can be open about what you don't know without saying things like "I
don't know if I can do this job." Frankly, I don't really know how to respond
to that kind of statement in a professional setting beyond resorting to
platitudes.

I think there are better ways to talk about your insecurities, like saying "I
have experience with X, but I haven't worked with Y, and I know I'll need to
figure Y out for this role." That seems okay to me. Knowing what you don't
know is really important.

> Most successful CEOs are very open about everything, and don't keep secrets.
> Secrets and opacity are what destroy companies and relationships, not the
> reverse.

Everyone has a private interior life. Everyone feels things and thinks things
that they don't voice publicly.

~~~
hartator
I don’t know. It might be just me, but when hiring, I fall for honesty.
Corporate talk fools no one.

~~~
greenrd
Funny, I got where I am today by speaking in the manner I was being spoken to
in interviews. They seem corporate - I speak corporate. They seem informal - I
speak real. It works for me.

------
xutopia
There is a backlash to this ancient mode of thinking. It's called Conscious
Leadership and it's predicated on the idea that vulnerability brings better
results and that you need a safe environment for the dynamic to flourish. Some
of it sounds very new-agey but from what I've read and experienced it has
really good fundamentals.

~~~
orev
That's very naive though. Eventually there will be someone around who is
politically motivated or otherwise adversarial, and then your safe space is
gone and everyone who exposed themselves remains exposed. No matter how much
we want the new-agey stuff to work, it just doesn't because it requires
everyone to play by its rules, which doesn't happen in reality.

~~~
white-flame
The things that are exposed should still be work-related. Be honest about why
deadlines were missed, what failures were in designs, etc, and basically work
against just everybody putting on a "Yes everything is great!" facade.

That facade breeds distrust and low morale. Even if things aren't going great,
being honest about it keeps motivation up better than the alternative.

~~~
greenrd
Do retrospectives at regular intervals and encourage everyone in the team to
bring up (almost) any issues, large or small, in those meetings, and discuss
them, with a solution-focused outlook - what can we actually try in order to
address this problem?

An essential feature of retrospectives is that upper management, and
internal/external customers, are not invited - and do not get to see the raw
whiteboard, but only - if they see anything from it - a sanitised summary
that's relevant - and diplomatic - for them. This all helps to encourage
openness.

------
joewee
One piece of advice, never ever ever bring work from your previous or current
employer to a job interview. I’ve had to reject very good candidates because
of this.

~~~
EADGBE
You don't want to see a portfolio?

~~~
joewee
The exception may be a artist, but I don’t want to see a portfolio of
proprietary software or documents from a previous employer.

------
rajacombinator
Made it about halfway through this article but couldn’t go on. There’s a big,
big difference between appropriate discretion and faking authenticity.

------
curyous
If you make yourself vulnerable, a competitor can exploit it.

~~~
rainbowmverse
Your competitors will find things to exploit anyway. Opening yourself up will
attract people who'll help when things get tough.

~~~
JTon
Surely a balance between sharing and not sharing is optimal. How x and y are
weighted depends on the work environment.

~~~
rainbowmverse
It must be an awful workplace if it's led by people who run for the hills at a
conversation over doubts. Vulnerability is not a terminal illness. A lot of
people never learn how to deal with it, so their rejection of others for it is
largely a reflection of their own insecurities.

------
mr_spothawk
beautiful. strategic.

> Leah Fessler doesn’t seem to get that she is being forced to do this to
> serve the interests of capital. She is not doing this with a group of
> friends. A late night session in a dorm room rewards this kind of openness,
> but an exploitive economic system seeks this information to gain power over
> the workers.

------
cyberpunk0
Or don't work with shallow, narrow-minded people?

~~~
cheald
Sure, if you can ensure that you'll do that for your entire career and that
you'll never be in a position where vulnerability has made you (perceptually
or otherwise) a weaker candidate than your rival for a particular job,
contract, or promotion.

The calculus is simple: do you gain more in your career by openly sharing
everything, or by holding in reserve that which doesn't need to be shared?

It is always - _always_ \- to your benefit to be the advantaged party in any
relationship with an information asymmetry. By over-sharing or not exercising
discretion, you are voluntarily putting yourself in the disadvantaged position
and should reasonably expect that position to be exploited by others around
you at some point.

If you can avoid ever needing to transact with anyone that would exploit that
asymmetry, more power to you. I'd wager that exceptionally few people have
that luxury.

------
ravitation
I've read a couple of your Smash Company articles now. I broke down in
relative detail the indescribably huge problems there are with the one
extolling the virtues of using one-on-one instead of group meetings. I'm not
going to do that here...

I'll just say a couple things... First editorial stuff... The structure and
flow of this article does not work. Much of it is unnecessary, there are
entire groups of paragraphs that, more or less, repeat themselves, and there
are anecdotes that are basically nonsensical. Also, "discretion" is too poorly
defined, it is used far too loosely (an unfortunate tweet or a youthful
blunder is pretty much incomparable to being vulnerable with your coworkers -
it's honestly laughable to put them in the same category).

Second... The culture/gender thing... It's pretty much summed up in your final
full paragraph. Just keep doing stuff the way we (i.e. I) have been until you
inevitably shouldn't anymore because the culture expectations have changed?
That's terrible advice, in absolutely any context, but especially this one.
I'd be fairly confident in saying that any piece of advice that ends in that
kind of qualifier should be thrown out immediately.

Third... The point... Honestly, I don't need to know anything else about your
"2 years" with Lisa to know that you were better off for her willingness to be
vulnerable (a huge plus when looking at a new hire, by the way). Would you
have preferred her to be dishonestly confident (that would have been easy), or
at least noncommittally vague (easy, but comes off as unsurprisingly
insincere)? No. You don't want that in an employee. Knowing the limitations
and concerns ( _actual_ concerns) is _always_ better. Sorry, it is. The rest
of your anecdotes aren't strong enough to make me even consider questioning
that she did anything wrong. She did something that was hard, yes. She did
something that could have cost her that job, yes. But she did something that
improved her (and your) ability to do the job, and you were better off for it.

To be perfectly honest, it probably is a generational thing. And, to be
perfectly honest again, I welcome the cultural changes (they are already
getting here) that will come as the working generations shift. We, and our
businesses, will be (i.e. are) better off for them.

P.S. You should take some time for a hard think about what "professionalism"
means. Too often it is used as a crutch to support some archaic, and frankly
harmful (across all possible meanings of the word), business practices.

