I recently got my first office job where I am interacting with my coworkers regularly. do you have any evil conversation skills that you think i should learn first

1. Figure out the easiest/most comfortable ways to say the whole spectrum of soft no’s to hard no’s from a scale of ‘genuine regret (invites future attempts if scheduling allows)’ to ‘polite deferral (respectful and evasive, somewhat firm)’ to ‘stone-cold shut down (professional Fuck You)’; you gotta know them all and you gotta be able to deploy them as needed. or at the very least, you gotta know how to give yourself time so you don’t automatically say ‘yes’ when you don’t want to.

2. The easiest way to make a good impression on people is to balance being useful and making others feel useful, which means offering some of the specific knowledge/insight you have and also asking for/acknowledging the knowledge/insight of others. offering/asking can be a weird balance, sometimes for some people in some contexts it comes pretty naturally, other times I find myself parsing out one (1) resource bit by bit to gauge whether someone’s actually looking for it or if it’s received in a lukewarm way. If ‘useful’ can’t really be a selling point at the moment (e.g. starting with zero experience rather than having an established knowledge base in a new environment) then you can always swap out ‘useful’ for ‘interesting’. know a charm point you have that can hook other people’s interest, know how to find and highlight other people’s charm points. If you want a mutual relationship it’s better to make an effort to share equally (for some people that means intentionally holding back, for other people that means intentionally speaking more), but if you’re just trying to coast it’s usually easiest to keep turning the conversation back on them and track topics the other person can get chatty about (pets, kids, shows, how they’re doing, etc).

hang on those are too reasonable and not evil but I’ve typed it all out so I’m not deleting. so, there’s a bunch of worksheets about ‘rules for fighting fair’ and if you ever meet a coworker you fucking hate then you wanna take those rules and do the opposite of all of them in order to have an on-purpose bad faith conversation and to make it as miserable for everyone as possible

1. If the coworker you hate is trying to talk about one specific problem, disagree with whatever their definition is and refuse to compromise

2. Bring in as many stupid tangential asides as possible so their original point gets buried

3. If you want to be legit evil, always imply or directly state that whatever they’re going through is a personal problem and a Skill Issue

4. Always find a way to vaguely disagree with your coworker. If they have a good point, say ‘Well, no, it’s actually like [basically rephrasing their point]’; you can either be subtle about this (negging) or blatant about this (The Mansplainer)

5. There’s a limit to how disrespectful anyone can be as a new employee. Find that limit and keep just short of it.

6. Always deflect and blame someone else, or if there isn’t someone to blame, have different excuses at the ready for anything that anyone might take issue with.

to some, evil communication skills is to win. but I think the most successful (insufferable) application is when the point is to make everyone as miserable as possible. I’m not trapped here with you, You’re Trapped Here With Me. also I wouldn’t actually recommend doing many of these things if you want functional working relationships. but it’s good to keep in mind if you’re ready to go nuclear! but more seriously, I do think these are important evil communication skills to learn because if you recognize someone using them against you, it gives you the chance to make strategies based on their behavior. 1. If someone is disagreeing with you any time you try to express a problem, shut down the conversation and reengage with a mediator that will be fair to you; 2. if stupid tangents keep showing up, it’s up to you to be the terrier with its teeth sunk into the mailman’s leg; etc. anyway this has gone too long and someone else should probably be giving more legit advice

yall we hit the big 1000 😧‼️‼️

ok, im not one for any sappy shit or anything but I genuinely dont think I’d be where I am today without any of you guys. if I werent to be writing and talking to all of my favorite people I dont think I’d be in a great place.

I fucking love knowing that I have a thousand people here for me to comfort me, to support me and to always be here for me whenever I need it. i love knowing that I have a thousand friends with me whenever.

its so comforting because I know I have all of you when im feeling down or lonely. ive had really bad social anxiety majority of my life and havent had any good luck with friends, so knowing that I have a thousand people that look forward to me doing anything and that I have a thousand friends or a thousand people who went out of their way in their day to read my stories, to like them and follow me. I love knowing that you did that out of your own will and because you genuinely like me. I like knowing that I dont have to worry about being lonely or disliked or anything along the lines of that because i know I can always come to one of you

being here today, with all of these people reminds me just how adored/liked or loved I am just because of one of my hobbies. you guys like my writing, some of you even adore it, and knowing that I didnt force any of this makes everything so much better. I wouldnt be here today, where I am, how happy I am without any of you and I fucking adore that. without you guys I dont think I’d be as productive as I am, I dont think I wouldve ever pursued my writing, I dont think I wouldve ever tried writing. so knowing that each and every one of you helped me find the thing I enjoy most is so admirable, its amazing and I cannot thank any of you enough.

to the one whos been here since the start @luverboychris, you’re one of the only reasons im still as happy as I am today, you’re one of my bestfriends and I love you so fucking much. you’re the only reason I started writing on tumblr and you’re one of my favorite people 🫶🫶

to the one whos recently become my bestfriend @lovesodakid, I wouldnt have had as many laughs without you. you’re the funniest person ive ever met and im so grateful I can speak my true opinion without you judging me

to the one whos literally my favorite nick girl @nickgetsmewetter and one of the people I look up to, you’re a reason im excited to go onto tumblr everyday

to my idols, who inspired me to write and the reason I continue writing today @luverboychris, @hysteria-things and @worldlxvlys, you guys are literally one of the reasons I write today and continue to write

again, to @worldlxvlys, anytime im upset or feeling down I always go to your stories and read them. you’re one of my favorite creators on this app

im so fuckung grateful for each and every single one of you ❤️❤️

Current Events in Silm fandom rlly reinforce my feeling that, despite claiming an ethos of acceptance/tolerance of anything that doesn't hurt ppl, a lot of ppl in the section of Silm fandom I frequent do follow a set of socially-agreed-upon mores about what concepts are "not acceptable" to discuss or propose (or the ways in which certain topics must be discussed to be acceptable), that you all seem to have agreed on despite the things those mores restrict not being harmful to anyone.

And when someone does say smth that violates those mores, the response is disproportionate to the amount of harm done (which is typically none, imo). I know it's tempting to say "but we just want people to be comfortable and safe", but treating ppl badly for the sin of sharing thoughts you dislike is NOT the same as preventing people from doing things that are harmful. The former is much more of a harmful behavior than the sharing of the thoughts that sets it off. Fannish etiquette, people: you shouldn’t act like someone’s meta makes them morally suspect just because you disagree with it; save the “this is morally bad” for things that are ACTUALLY harmful. We're all stuck on this website together & if you want to have any sort of community, you need to ACT like you're in a community, and that means letting other people say things you dislike. Block them if you need to! I block people all the time because i know it's better for me AND for them if we can both blog in peace.

I am not particularly comfortable with the young-queer-on-tumblr silm fandom rn due to this tendency to rebuke things that are uncomfortable rather than harmful. Maybe that's fine with you. But if your goal is to make all fans feel comfortable and accepted, you need to actually do that. If your goal is to make people who share your unwritten rules comfortable in your space, you need to admit that, and write those rules down, and curate your space so it follows them.

Edited 8:10am PST to clarify the specifics of the behavior I find concerning.

Regarding the previous post, I think the way I approach trying to evaluate a piece of art is asking "Do I think the positive things I get out of it outweigh the parts of it that I don't like?" And when I call something a "guilty pleasure" song/show/book/piece of media/etc. it's really more in the sense of, "Given who I am as a person, the flaws I've found in this should be complete dealbreakers for me, but somehow they aren't, and it makes me feel like I'm having an identity crisis."

re: lrb straight up as much as i wanna say marry superman i don’t think i could. bc i feel like in this equation he genuinely likes you and i am very fond of him but not like that. he’s one of the last people on earth whose heart i wanna break but it’s unavoidable. and i haven’t seen much of diana but i feel like if it wasn’t working out i could be like imma level w you i’m pretty sure i’m gay. and she’d take it pretty well and we could get a normal divorce. i do have to kill batman though that’s the correct option always

ykno i think that only ever being told im physically appealing by drs saying i could be prettier if i did this or that or lost weight or by my mom trying to emphasize how im a pretty GIRL to invalidate my desire to be more masculine most of my life probably affected my ability to feel good about my body

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im discontent and tired but like too discontent and tired to put it into words i think. lol

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literally sickens me that ppls criticisms of me even irl is that im not passive enough or that im too ill or too poor or whatever like .. do you really hate me soo much for no reason that you have to invent the most flimsy surface-level frankly concerning and invalid reasons you can for why i don’t deserve basic respect

shit my partner has done in the last 48 hours: one. make fun of my dad who just got out of the hospital bc he beat me as kid allegedly two. slapped my ass in front my old coworkers bc she genuinely hates their guts

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saw someone the other day say they wish they had a god complex cause it'd be a "good" delusion to have or something, and it's had me thinking bout how misunderstood a lot of experiences are re: delusions of grandeur, narcissism, and the like.

I don't have the exact words I want rn, but the reason these kinds of clinical traits are labelled as (symptoms of) disorders, is because they're, u know, disorders. they're not healthy for the person experiencing them. if these were healthy levels of good self-esteem, it would just be called "good self-esteem"..... so why then, do so many people assume that alone is exactly what these psych terms are describing???? if I had to guess, I'd say it goes hand-in-hand with the ableist stereotypes against these kinds of experiences. the "narcissists are inherently abusive monsters who hurt everyone else and never experience a single emotion ever" belief you see spread all across society, including and especially within "mental health community spaces"....

when someone experiences symptoms that, within their internal world, place themselves higher than others in one way or another, it's assumed by outsiders to be inhumanely malicious -- to an exaggerated degree. harmful to anyone but the person who's actually feeling those emotions firsthand. but these are disordering symptoms. not character flaws. first and foremost these symptoms negatively affect the person EXPERIENCING them. there's no plainer way to put it. ofc others can be affected too, but imo this is a second-hand problem. focus on supporting the person themself, and any issues their symptoms are causing others will naturally follow (within reason & assuming good faith).

but in the end where this puts me is just: no, you do not wish you had a god complex. it would not fix your low self-esteem, in all likelihood it would make it much worse.

I mean this in a positive way, you remind me of watching Foamy the Squirrel as a tween. You’re interesting. Even if I don’t agree with everything you say, I’m glad you say it.

Sorry I didn't answer this immediately, I've been thinking about this ask for a while. I think this might be both the strangest and most flattering compliment I've ever received.