19
votes
Let's try to make some quotes of our own
I guess I'll start.
"From accountability/transparency one derives trust."
"If you don't learn where your problems come from and how to solve them someone might just claim to have done those things for you and you'll have no way to know if they're being sincere."
Edit:
"A nostalgic society is not a society that loves it's past but one that hates it's present and dreads it's future."
"Social media has made everyone want to be a quote-maker." -gbbb, 2020
Now that I think of it I should have seen this one coming.
Oddly enough, I came up with that one weeks ago and just found an appropriate occasion to whip it out :p
"Only promise what you can deliver. Always deliver what you promise."
I came up with this during my time working in pizza delivery.
During one period, I got to see two managers in operation, with contrasting customer service approaches. On busy nights, one manager would insist on quoting a 30-minute delivery time to customers, even when we were taking up to 60 minutes to deliver pizzas. The other manager would quote more realistic delivery times, like 45 minutes or even 60 minutes.
As the driver who turned up at people's front doors, I found out that promising a 30-minute delivery and turning up in 60 minutes made people angrier than promising them 60 minutes up front. So, you should keep your promises realistic.
However, to make sure people take your promises seriously, you should make sure to deliver what you said you would. Manage people's expectations up front, and be reliable about doing what you say you will.
This saying has served me well in many situations, far beyond fast food.
Couldn't agree more.
And to elaborate marginally: if you can't do something then say so.
Accepting a task that you know you can't do, and then half-arsing it goes down as a double-fail - not only didn't you manage to do what you said you would, but you also didn't manage the requester's expectations.
Under commit. Over deliver.
Unless it loses you the sale.
That approach doesn't work for me. It feels dishonest.
That's why it's called sales.
I'm not a salesman. In fact, I find that I generally dislike people who work in sales. The qualities that make them good at selling make them unlikable to me.
You have never sold yourself to a prospective employer?
Isn't there a fine line between overcommitting and lying?
I don't know if I would be good in a new role, but if I don't sound confident and overcommit, I will never get the chance to push myself a little and find out.
Not in the sense of overselling myself. I offer myself, as I am, for them to consider. They can take me or leave me. But I don't want to take a job on false pretences.
I learned that lesson when a company I was contracting with in one role offered me a permanent job in another role.
I was very experienced in the role I was contracting in, so I impressed them with my performance. When the contract came to an end, they offered me a permanent job in a different role that I had zero experience in. I explained that I had zero experience in that role, and that I wasn't sure I could do it. They said they were so impressed with me that they were sure I could do this other role. Against my better judgement, I allowed them to convince me to take the job.
They let me go just before the three-month trial period ended. I'd been right all along: I didn't have the necessary skills to do the new role and I wasn't able to acquire those skills quickly enough to do the role to their expectations.
So, no: I don't oversell myself. That's just setting me up to fail.
I only promise what I can deliver. I always deliver what I promise.
Those who learn "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." are doomed to repeat it.
"Those who do not learn history will get to repeat it."
Eg. Moon landing, discovery of antibiotics, concept of the trolley problem. Lots of things that would bring a lot of joy if we forgot we had it :D
In college we had a large sheet of paper tacked to a door where we would write things we heard people say that we thought where profound (or just funny). The paper is long lost, but that one has stuck with me.
Three rules of crisis management:
"Don't just do something, stand there."
"When everything is going to shit, stop and take your own pulse."
"All bleeding eventually stops."
The first is from my father, an engineer who managed steel mills, and eventually consulted as a forensic specialist in disaster analysis. His take was that first responses made in panic are almost invariably mistaken, and tend to compound catastrophes.
The second two are from my father-in-law, a former military doctor whose career wrapped up as director of an inner-city hospital. Again, they're about managing your own visceral panic and outcome expectations to stay focussed on the best next step. I've found they're good situational guidance, regardless of the profession.
"Don't fertilize weeds." - If you're investing in infrastructure, planning new functionality, or generally pouring labor and money into systemic change, figure out what (or who) isn't working well, and remove or change that as the first goal of your planning. Otherwise, over time, you're just allowing the bad to crowd out the useful. Designing around dysfunction or obsolescence condemns you to pointless complexity in service of trash. Complexity always escalates cost and risk. [This sounds like common sense, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to make the case in practice. Bureaucracies are very attached to changing as little as possible, as cheaply as possible. Sunk cost fallacies reign.]
"Neither a follower nor a leader be." - Paraphrasing Shakespeare, this aphorism is meant to break down categories we lock ourselves into. Perennial followers avoid responsibility; perennial leaders avoid service. Both are stunted in their opportunities to learn and grow. Hierarchical mindset likewise keeps nations, societies, organizations, groups, and families in stasis. We all have the potential to switch roles as needed.
Honest this feels like a quote more on creeping normality than anything else.
"If everything goes wrong, people will just accept it and adapt."
"In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence."
damn are you, like, a professional quote maker or something?
Heh, I wonder if Kuro will get this.
I did. Don't remember how I found the original, but I did.
The powerful no longer compete with each other in service of the masses. But compete to exploit the masses in service of themselves and each other.
No one thanks you for good advice. But they will blame you for bad advice.
Great insights come from the simplest questions.
"Be quietly excellent at what you do."
I've never been one for making a big deal about what I do, but I've found consistently over time that the people who make the most noise are bluffing the most, and it always unravels.
In my career I have a consistent pattern of joining a place, doing about 6 months and then starting to get promoted through the ranks. Yet I've never asked for it, or directly played for it. I turn up and I do what I do, but make a really good job of it and it works.
Reading @patience_limited's comment, about quotes from her father and father-in-law, reminded me of some of my own ancestral wisdom, handed down from generation to generation.
"Experience is better bought than taught."
Supposedly, my grandfather used to say this (he died when I was very young; I don't remember him). My mother used to quote this whenever one of us kids was being difficult, and she decided to give up and just let us make our own mistakes. Or she'd say it after we had made a mistake, despite her advice.
As a potential writer, I have a bunch of quotes from characters and settings in various stages of development. Here's a sample:
On The Iron Law of Oligarchy "Even organizations tend towards self preservation."
On institutional bias: "A person doesn't usually like to change or be critiqued, no? So a bunch of people put together, they really wouldn't like that, would they?"
On self determination: "Part fae and all human."
On connections and the value of other people: "People are like phones. Once you get past the advertising, they're all pretty capable, and trading up every year might not make you as happy as you think it will."
On society: "We're imperfect tools cut from an imperfect machine to maintain it, not make it perfect."
On societal failures: "Look, I have a good feeling about this iteration of the world, and yes, I have had it before with other ones, but not that often, so I think it's worth putting effort into turning this one around."
On following your bliss: "Butter never hurt anybody, he probably just died of happiness!"