geek2geek

Being unaware of what parts of speech text strips away creates an information void which readers tend to fill in with emotions (read the previous entries in the series to catch up on that). Usually negative emotions. As a reader you can watch yourself for this and seek to fill in the voids with actual information. As a writer you can make sure those voids don’t exist in the first place.

Let’s say you get an IM from your boss, “meet in my office in 5 minutes“. How do you feel about that? What do you think your boss is going to talk to you about? “Oh boy, I’m getting a raise!” No, if you’re like me, and my spy network says you are, you start thinking “oh shit… what did I do wrong?” Your reaction is almost always going to be negative. You brace yourself for a fight or tongue lashing. You tense up awaiting the coming conflict. Why?

There’s lots of reasons. Maybe it’s empirical: Every previous time your boss has called you into her office it’s been to be chewed out. Maybe it’s based on prior experience: You once had a boss who every time they called you in you got chewed out. Maybe you’re just a pessimist. Maybe you just don’t like authority figures. Maybe you’ve trained yourself to expect the worst by watching too many episodes of “The Office“.

emotional projection

No matter the reason for it, you are faced with an information void. “Meet in my office in 5 minutes” can mean different things depending on how it’s said, but since it’s text you have none of that information. Humans can’t stand an information void and will start trying to fill it. In this case you’re going to fill in a lack of emotional content with your own previous experiences and emotions. This is what I call “emotional projection” (I don’t know if anyone else calls it that, but it’s useful for building a vocabulary of socialization patterns).

It’s important to realize when you’re projecting. It can color darkly all that you read and give sinister motivations to the simplest of acts. Download some software and it doesn’t work on your operating system? “God damn, why do the developers hate Windows users?!” Well, maybe they’re just not Windows users. Maybe they would gladly accept the help, but if you attribute their mistake to malice you won’t be inclined to give it and your problem will never get solved.

post-traumatic stress projection

Or there’s projecting motives onto actions based on previous traumatic experiences. Maybe you have an ex who, when they got annoyed, would make a certain face. Now you meet someone who makes that same face and it kicks you in the guts when you see it. Maybe you assume they’re annoyed too, and start to react harshly whenever they make that face. Now this poor person is bewildered and wondering what they did to piss you off.

Once upon a time, I worked at a place where several programmers (myself included) were ready quit over what was perceived to be an attempt to apply the company dress code to them. We were exempt. In reality it was just a poorly worded, company wide, advisory memo from the CEO asking people to try to follow the dress code because it was summer and people were dressing down and it bothered him (East Coast executive meets Pacific NW workforce). He did this all the time, and was largely ignored, but previously he’d always done it in person so we could hear that he was asking, not ordering. In the end, after a lot of tense face-to-face talking, it was defused but not after wasting a lot of time and energy and spending a lot of good-will. We projected our own rejection of authoritarian rules onto the CEO’s email and created a crisis that did not exist.

Emotional projection isn’t always negative. Let’s say you meet someone and you think they’re cute, or maybe they remind you of someone you like. You will be more inclined to react positively to what they say and do. You will give them the benefit of the doubt more often. You might tend to agree with them more easily. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is important to be aware that it is happening and your reactions are being effected.

avoiding projection as the reader

In this situation, as the reader, it’s important to ask yourself some questions:

1. What do I really know?
2. What good will come from worrying about it?
3. How do I get more information?

To look at our original situation: what do you really know? If you start worrying that “oh god, I’m so fired” go back over what you really know. What was actually said? All you really know is your boss wants to meet you in his office in five minutes. That’s all the concrete information you have. You don’t know why she wants to see you. You don’t know what mood she’s in or how she said it. Maybe you can guess, but that leads to the second question.

What good will come from worrying about it? Can you do any prep for the meeting? In five minutes, given that you know nothing, probably not. A lot of bad can come of it. You can sit around worrying, make yourself sick, get yourself worked up for a fight, get nothing done and probably throw yourself off for the rest of the day.

This brings us to the final question. How can I fill the void with actual information? How can you stop yourself from worrying and guessing? How can you ease your mind? In this case it’s quite simple: write back “sure, what do you want to talk about?”

Yes, it’s often that simple.

Another story, same company. I worked with a friend of mine and this was his first corporate office job. We think very similarly, but I’d worked in offices before. He’d get, for example, too much money taken out of his paycheck. His reaction would be that it’s some new policy that nobody had told him about and get all pissed off at accounting, HR, the executives… anyone he didn’t know personally who might be associated with his paycheck. My reaction: It’s probably just a mistake, but the only way to find out is to go ask someone. I’d walk over to accounting, on the very same floor, find the accountant I like and find out what the story is. Turned out to be a simple mistake every time.

A simple adjustment of point of view and a willingness to actively seek out more information (and possible conflict) saves a whole lot of stomach lining, let me tell you.

avoiding projection as the writer

What if you’re the writer? What can you do to ensure your reader doesn’t project their emotions onto your writing?

1. Read what you write.
2. State your mood.

Much the same way people don’t hear to what they’re saying, people don’t really read what they write. Glance over the text before sending it. Think about how it will be received as just text. Realize that the reader does not have the contexts you do or know in what sense you mean it. Think about how it might be misinterpreted. This often leads to the simple solution of step two.

Your mood is implicit information which text strips out. You must put it back in by stating it explicitly. This can be as simple as an emoticon or just a few extra words to set the tone. “Good news everybody, meet me in my office in 5 minutes!” (Of course, fans of Futurama know that will be followed by “you’re going to the Planet of Certain Doom in the Galaxy of Untold Horrors. Bye-bye!“) This little bit of extra consideration can help a lot.

These days when responding to bug reports I will always start my reply with “thank you for your report“. I want the reader to know that I really do appreciate their taking the time to report their problem. I could just assume they know this, but people who find bugs are generally not inclined towards the author in the first place. The bug reporter is most likely going to project their frustrations with the bug onto me, the author. Makes sense, I’m the guy who presumably wrote the bug and caused all their problems. Framing your messages with short, polite introductions to set the tone has been called “tact filters”, but that’s another post.