What difficult conversation did you have recently? \ stacker news ~AskSN

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What difficult conversation did you have recently?

192 sats \ 6 comments \ @cryotosensei 2 May AskSN

I live in public housing and am keen to renovate my flat. My wife and I engaged an interior designer (ID) to help bring our (actually, her) showflat dream to fruition.

During the process of engagement with our designer, my wife asked her twice whether we should apply for a permit with the Housing Development Board (HDB). The renovation involves the hacking of walls, so the HDB has the prerogative to say nope if hacking will compromise the structural integrity of the flat. My ID said no need.

Yesterday, the unthinkable happened. My contractor received a call from HDB; their personnel needed to check out our flat because it was precast/prefabricated.

My wife was livid. She got upset upon hearing the news, which in turn got me upset as well. In fact, I wrote about it here. She felt that our ID could have listened to her and applied for a permit first. She was not amused with our Singaporean way - that we only do things upon receiving money. (As in, our contractor only applied for the permit upon receiving my deposit.) If she had known the limitation earlier, she could have moderated her expectations better.

This is a long preamble to set the context for the difficult conversation I just had! Basically, I called up my ID today and manned up. I told her that my wife was upset and explained why. This was a hard thing for me to do because I’m non-confrontational. Being Asian, I am also predisposed towards preserving the harmony. In fact, we have an idiom for this: 以和为贵 (Preserving harmony is the way).

But I felt that I had to be brutally honest because it was best to rip the Band-Aid so as to create space for alternative solutions to fill the void. By pouring out the unhappiness, I could direct my ID by requesting that she give us as much time as possible to ponder the alternatives. So that my wife doesn’t grieve so much over her missed opportunity. Without the walls being hacked, she couldn’t savour an open space.

Anyway, I felt like I really stepped up for my wife. So, I’m quite happy with myself lol.

Now, your turn.

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120 sats \ 3 replies \ @south_korea_ln 2 May

I applied for a permanent academic job a while back. I was objectively the better candidate according to neutral people in the room during my presentations and interviews.

It's a three day process. On the evening of the second day, it was clear that some powerful people in the jury had decided the other candidate would get the job. It was not even worth it to come back the third day for what would be a formality as there was no way for me to win the game anymore.

I decided to have the hard conversation though. I'd go to the last interview, and instead of giving my presentation, I'd use the first 5 minutes to speak my mind.

Even though i did not say it explicitly, every spectator could hear me accusing them of corruption. The conversation was quite one sided in the end~~

This was a very difficult conversation for me to have, as i am also very non-confrontational. I hate conflict.

I felt vindicated in my decision to speak up as i ended up winning the last day's competition, even though it wasn't sufficient to get the job.

42 sats \ 2 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 2 May

It’s good that you are now aware of your limits because having this experience under your belt will prepare you for similar difficult conversations in the future.

If that organisation has corrupted practices though, what made you want to have a job with them in the first place?

24 sats \ 1 reply \ @south_korea_ln 2 May

I'd do a a lot for a permanent job~~

Most academics would.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 20h

I see!

I have a contract job, too. Since 2009, in fact. Is there much insecurity associated with contract jobs in Seoul? Contract jobs are quite commonplace in Singapore, I feel

24 sats \ 1 reply \ @kurszusz 9h

I had my last "rhetorical" conversation with my boss last Wednesday. He called me into the office to talk about something, and I asked for a small raise for it (I had already planned the speech, but it was only in drafts...), the location and the time were a surprise, so I had to improvise. But I think it went well...15% plus isn't that bad for a first step ;)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 5h

Wow! You ambushed your boss and succeeded!