The Other Side of Life 24/7: The Cynical Girl: Sometimes shy people seem like assholes. They are not. They are just shy.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

The Cynical Girl: Sometimes shy people seem like assholes. They are not. They are just shy.

Sometimes shy people seem like assholes. They are not. They are just shy.

Posted: 21 Aug 2013 03:45 AM PDT

I don’t know these people.

I am just back from a conference where I spent a day with 600 HR people who belong to the Illinois State Council of SHRM.

I stood on stage with Kris Dunn and we talked about brand personae and archetypes. Then we hosted a little networking reception for no other reason other than the fact that I wanted to attend a party with some vegetarian options and a fruity beverage that I would enjoy.

Mission accomplished. The event was awesome.

I felt compelled to walk around to each table and introduced myself. It was like a wedding. I thanked my guests for attending the conference. I encouraged the attendees to eat and drink. And I connected with so many new people.

It was fun and easy, but I am not always very good at making small talk. I find it easier to speak to 600 people than to six people. But I knew it was important to get out of my comfort zone and say hello to the conference attendees.

I am glad I did it, too, because I was reminded that there are four kinds of people at networking events.

Extroverts.
Introverts who know how to engage.
Introverts who won’t engage.
Introverts who will engage but it is painful for them.

The third and fourth group are tough to manage if you are an extrovert because it might seem like those introverts are straight-up assholes. I have also heard that extremely shy people — especially women — can seem like mean girls. They appear to be very judgmental. And I can certainly empathize with that perspective. It is very frustrating to look someone in the face who clearly wants to be somewhere else.

(“Am I keeping you? You look like you’d rather die than talk to me.”)

And if you are an introvert who has been trained to engage, you may wonder why other introverts aren’t making a freakin’ effort.

(“If I can do it, why can’t they do it?”)

But I think it is important to remember that extreme introverts are on guard — even when they are having fun. They aren’t really judging you or throwing shade at you. They are just bad at making eye contact.

shade

Being “social” can be tough for all of us. It shouldn’t be so hard to make new professional connections in this world, but if you are over the age of 30, it is really hard to make new friends. That’s too bad because hanging out with other like-minded adults keeps us sharp and focused.

So if you are an extrovert or an introvert who can fake it, it is important to offer kindness to the introverts in your life. Buddy up. Grab an introvert by the arm. Don’t let them out of your sight. Don’t let them sit off by themselves or stare at a mobile phone all night long.

And whatever you do, don’t let them duck out of the party early!

Filtering Your Blog Content

Posted: 20 Aug 2013 03:45 AM PDT

Lordvoldemort There is an international company so vile in its business practices — and so evil in its business, consumer and employer branding practices — that I won’t mention it by name.

I had planned on writing about this organization, but I remembered that an acquaintance of mine works there. So I sent her a note and said — Hey, yeah, imma write about your company and it won’t be pretty. But no one reads my blog. I’m a small-time publisher. Don’t sweat it. You’re still cool.

And this woman wrote back with the force of 100 angry pagan gods and shrieked, “Why the hell would you do that? Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong to you? I work really hard. Are you trying to make my job more difficult?”

Whoa. Jesus. Yikes.

Listen, I know who I am . . . and I am not an investigative journalist. I write little essays about work, life and cats. In my spare time, I hit the Twitter and entertain myself. So my ego is in check. I simply dislike this company and wanted to write about some of their unfair labor practices.

And I really like my friend — although using the word friend is now a very big stretch — and I know that HR and recruiting sucks. I do n0t want to make her job more difficult.

So I pulled the post.

Instead, I want you to see the behind-the-scenes nonsense of a relatively successful blog. This is the underbelly. Sometimes I pull blog posts based on concepts like friendship and loyalty.

I’m a fool, I know, but relationships matter. Ideas and content are nothing without real-life friendships and fans. And filters are critical. And I do have a filter. So do other successful bloggers. Good writers out there realize that this is a job. When our filters are working, we can make a cogent point without inflicting any damage.

So my original blog post is in the toilet. But (hopefully) I preserved a relationship.

She better buy me a drink!