Comment by gitonup
20 hours ago
> Your boss, asking for a project to be finished early, may be an overdemanding boor – or just an Asker, who's assuming you might decline.
I don't pay for the Atlantic and thus am limited by paywall, but this ignores power dynamics.
Only if you’re a Guesser ;-)
Seriously though, it depends on the boss and the relationship you have with them. It can really fall into either camp and it might even be situational with the same person!
I would say that, generally, I would prefer to be direct in these relationships unless you both know each other really well. It does make things easier for all involved.
> Seriously though, it depends on the boss and the relationship you have with them.
Those are the power dynamics the GP is referring to.
That wasn’t the intention of what I wrote. I was referring more to how people speak. It’s very common in British English to phrase a request as a question. The “relationship” I refer to isn’t “they’re your boss,” it’s “how do you and your boss communicate,” which is a different thing altogether.
That’s not to say power dynamics can’t exist, just that it’s not a thing you can apply to every conversation or situation.
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Power dynamics are definitely a factor. There have been many scandals around people in power asking subordinates to sleep with them, and it appears that the majority of the (Anglo) public now considers this morally wrong.
You can read the original forum discussion that inspired this article: https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-bet...
These both work for me (copied from the top):
https://web.archive.org/web/20250831074424/https://www.theat...
https://archive.ph/GBZBf
It’s conventional around here to share these sites. But they are basically unauthorized copies of the articles, right?
IMO it is totally fair and fine to just respond to the part of the discussion that the publication decided to make publicly available.
> IMO it is totally fair and fine to just respond to the part of the discussion that the publication decided to make publicly available.
This wastes the time of people who read the article.
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a link to the non-paywalled article is at the top of the hn post