metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
metawidget ([personal profile] metawidget) wrote 2014-08-08 07:34 pm (UTC)

This tab has been sitting here forever, waiting for me to chew on it.

I think class is huge — anything I've learned as decorum is very likely to be related to my class upbringing and situation, and there's a whole lot of decorum in Guess Culture.

One thought is that I am a bit reluctant to borrow things or call in favours, but one friend of mine in particular seems to be hard at work on breaking that for me — she feels she wants to help me/us out and share what she has, and do so by lending, helping, etc. Accepting does genuinely save us money and sometimes effort, and we get to see her, and I think she appreciates us pinging her when we can call in a favour. I just need to get over my rut and do it, knowing it's almost all win. I guess the reluctance does keep me from overdoing it :)

I love extending hospitality to people I like and sometimes even new people who just need it, on the other hand. I should do that more often. At work, I think I am getting to the point where I do just ask questions or see if someone wants a task (in both cases up, down or laterally). I don't know if that's my accumulation of work social capital or just practicality that comes with experience.

When I first noticed the post, I was reminded of people in my life that just flat out ask for stuff, often from a place of doing just fine and at kind of inconvenient times. I guess it saves bandwidth but I find it offensive. My damage? I'm not sure. I think maybe I find ask easier to deal with when the person is new or has a good relationship with me, and when it's couched in a bit of "if it's convenient" or preceded with "do you have a minute" or "can I ask you something". I have started my asks as a supervisor with something along the lines of "how's your workload?" to gauge what I should ask and to get them in a task frame of mind.

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