Member-only story
We have a lot of fucked-up confusion about feedback at work, ranging from “How relevant is it?” to “How often should it occur?” to “Isn’t the point of this place to achieve tasks and revenue?” Feedback is really fraught at most places. At some (many?) places, it barely happens at all.
One of the main issues is…
We are expected to take feedback from multiple people and levels, even if these people barely know our names. Basically, if you make more money than me, I need to be able to take feedback from you, even if you call me “Tom” while giving it. (My name is Ted.) That exact story once happened to me.
Then there’s the whole deal with “absentee managers,” meaning a boss of yours who could seemingly care less whether you live or die, but the moment you step out of process, you need to listen to everything they are telling you feedback-wise, which is usually just a bloated, verbal diarrhea version of “Get back in process so I look good.”
But we can’t possibly take that much feedback
It’s not conceivable because, frankly, we don’t care about that many people’s opinions. To do so would drive us crazy, or at the very least crater our self-esteem — which admittedly work does a good job of cratering anyway.
