You wrote: "If more people had been aware of the iron laws, such as the principles of assuming good faith and recognizing that tone can be easily misread in text, the conversation could have remained constructive." I agree with that statement. Now in my own podcast, The Matt Ellipsis Show, I spent season 3 of my show on Facebook Live having fun complaining about all of the people that did me wrong, things that they have done, and lives that they have negatively affected. I functioned like a shock jock. I got more than 600 views on each video. When I would be less provocative in previous seasons of my show, I got 5 and 6 views per video, meaning that people tuned in to see what drama I was going to start. It was an experiment. One of the best things that came out of it is that someone that had ignored my nice pleas for conversation about their offenses for over 17 years got wind of my season 3 episodes where I was 'no holds barred' and 'take no prisoners' with my words and insults, he called me to make amends. Now, what I am trying to say is that sometimes drama sells more than niceness. I decided that I was not going to play it safe. I left all of the episodes up and I ended season 3 of my show with a pledge to be nicer and more pleasant in season 4. It went great. 

You wrote: "I have seen the “iron laws” of internet communication effect many people when they are older. They tend to regret posting private things publicly." I understand your sentiment on this. I have a podcast called "The Matt Ellipsis Show". I was stagnant in terms of attracting attention to my show. I decided that I was going to spend about 4 months in a row talking about certain things that were considered to be private by certain people and air my grievances publicly. I talked about how my mother abused drugs when I was a child. I talked about how a former friend of mine owes me $10,000. I especially talked about how my ex-wife kept blocking me from my children for the past 6 years, and with the Judge's help, the completely screwed me from my parental rights. This made a lot of people mad at me. My sister told me that I am embarrassing the family and that I am not funny. It caused me to actually be put in jail a few times because people would take snippets of what I said and use it against me. The reason that I am glad that I did it is because I learned that people watched my show because I was a truth teller. I was willing to deal with the consequences of being a truth teller, and I made fun of the things that I went through as a truth teller. I feel that when I am older that I will still feel the same way about season 3 of my podcast. I found out that there are people that follow me and consider the things that I have to say important. It really helped me figure out what my next moves are. 

A situation where I have seen the “iron laws” of internet communication apply was during a situation where Soldiers made a bad photo in front of a casket. I put a link to the article below. I was in the military when it happened, and it was during the time when social media was beginning to become popular. My Space existed! It caused an investigation in the Army about the behavior of Soldiers. Another situation was the abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison by Army Soldiers. I put a link to the Wikipedia article, which includes a few of the pictures. The impact of those pictures caused the Army to be shamed and it made our supervisors and commanders demand that we not use social media.

It was really too early for everyone to have a collective awareness of the iron laws of the internet to have helped avoid problems in those two situations I witnessed with social media communication. These two situations actually helped the Army shape it's policies related to social media within the Department of the Army. I do currently think that individual users of social media have a reasonable expectation that others will listen to them and interpret them fairly because with Facebook Live, YouTube live and other platforms like Twitch, a person can be heard live and interact with viewers immediately. I use Facebook Live each week for my podcast and I feel accurately heard.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/investigation-widens-soldiers-photo-mocking-funerals-n33716

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse

You wrote: "Being upfront with the doctor about what was needed and why made the communication between us clear and able to get issues fixed fairly quickly." I am very glad that you experienced success with your communication between you and the doctor. Sometimes superiors want you to kiss their respective behinds because they feel higher than you on the social ladder. Doctors, in my experience, are not like that because of how nurses have trained them to be humble and rely on them, but I have experienced that in law, as a paralegal. Thank God I was in the Army and I've mostly dealt with Army attorneys who have developed the humility necessary to work well with their subordinate paralegals, which I spent 25 years doing. Many jobs would benefit from unions because the management have been able to get away with workplace abuses that would not be tolerated in a military environment. I got fired from a factory because I confronted a manager who used his credentials illegally to spy on this married woman that he liked. She complained to me, I confronted him and later found out he was the nephew of my direct supervisor. They fired me within a month of that confrontation. 

As a Black guy, whenever I am late, there is a term called "Colored People Time (CP-Time)" that I've had to overcome. It is a stereotype that I felt that I needed to overcome. I learned to show up hours before I needed to just to ensure that no one accused me of that, especially when I became the NCO in charge of the offices. I had a real problem with lateness during my young military years. Anyhow, I wish that I could do 'Aloha Time' during my time in the Army. I like your explanation about the various ways that people interact with time culturally. I heard about in Spanish countries there is a thing called the 'Siesta', which is a 1-2 hour time period after lunch that allows people to take a nap! A nap!! There is a lot of noise on the political left about shortening the work week to 32 hours as a replacement for the 40 hour work week. I support that because it would mean that overtime would start at the 33rd hour instead of the 41st hour. 

One of my most successful business communication experiences was during my time in the military. I was the only paralegal on the entire installation working full time and I had to deal with pretty much every legal issue that happened. Our First Sergeant, who was the same rank as me, Master Sergeant, was borrowing money from his subordinates, which is illegal in the Army. First the Soldiers brought it to me as a minor complaint, but I took it seriously as was supposed to. I went ahead and informed my boss, COL Khalil. He told me that I could handle it in whatever way that I saw fit. I gave the First Sergeant $150 personally and told him that he should no longer borrow money from his subordinates. About a month later, I asked his subordinates if he had borrowed any money, and he let me know that he continued to borrow money from them. I talked to my boss again and we had the guy fired immediately. The guy is still upset with me, but it was for the best.

One of my most unsuccessful business communication experiences was also during my time in the military. I was having a hard time handling my workload and there was no one really that I could put work on, nor was there a real solution without causing many cases to be delayed. So, I spent several nights in a row working on all of the cases myself causing me to reach a significant burnout period. One morning I woke up and could not move or make any phone calls. My supervisor ended up calling my sister and it turned into a nightmare where I could have gotten into real trouble. My boss let me take leave for the few days that I missed and I returned to work refreshed.

My communication regarding the First Sergeant went well, but my communication regarding my burn out went bad. The thing that went wrong in my failed communication is that I did not want to admit to myself or to my boss that I was hurting and needed rest. I put the workload above my own health and mental health at the time becasue that is how we sometimes in the Army mistreat ourselves. I agree wtih Kurtz's emphasis on the importance of communicating concisely to your target audience because they will understand and hopefully help out in the ways that they are supposed to help out. In that specific case, my supervisor would have sat down and done some of the work or lowered the expectation for that month's productivity. I guess the way that Kurtz's emphasis played a role is that my supervisor found out and recognized that I was burnt out, not trying to shirk work. Things worked out.

The thing that made the one communication successful is that I took the feelings and anxiety of my subordinates and communicated it clearly and concisely to my boss and he trusted my judgement to try to handle it witout getting the commanders involved. That felt good and the Soldiers that I helped definitely did appreciate it. The insights of Mellor's statement does align with my experience because I made sure to make my description of the problem short and sweet rather than drawn out like my conversations with the subordinates. I was able to tell my boss in a 5 minute blurb, which is contrasted with my hour long conversation with the guys who were being taken advantage of by the First Sergeant. I made sure that they felt heard, understood, and cared for. Also, when I addressed the First Sergeant, I did not attack him, I even gave him money. I found out that he had a gambling problem. I think that when someone first enters the workforce, they are not aware of the nuances of working at that particular workplace, so there should be many questions and observation from the individual. This will help him/her be successful.

Regarding the situation with the First Sergeant, I used active listening and conflict resolution. I guess Rosenquist's point about the importance of collaboration and soft skills did apply to those interactions because I did collaborate with the subordinates to come up with the action plan that they felt was best for me to do on their behalf. After all, they still have to work with him and he happened to still be their rater (writer of their annual evaluations), until he got fired. If he had straightened up his act, he would have never known that those guys told me. I told the First Sergeant that I overheard him asking them for money. I don't think that I could have improved on what I did in that situation, except that I always wanted to follow up with the First Sergeant so that we could reconcile. He never returned my calls.

This experience gave me high credibility with the command because they all knew that I will address corruption where it stands no matter who it is or why it is being done. The one takeaway that resonates with me the most is that effective communication is professional and enables everyone to know exactly what is being communicated.

Sally Should Be Employee Of The Month

Matthew R. Walker

Critical Thinking In Everyday Life - Hum/115

23 December 2024

Amanda Freeman

1. Introduction

Critical thinking is very important to being able to make good decisions, listen to well enough to solve major problems and interact with co-workers and supervisors regarding major or minor issues in the workplace. The Sally scenario is an interesting tale of a woman who is dealing with her own personal challenges and workplace challenges. I feel that Sally did a great job in handling everything that was on her plate.

2.Elements of Critical Thinking

In the Sally scenario, she was exhausted from a long day of work, which was one of the barriers to critical thinking she was operating in. She was using passive communication handle the situation. This is definitely why taking breaks, having a work schedule that does not include days and days of overtime, and has a living wage so that she likely would not have to work two or more jobs in order to do what pay her bills. I do believe that Sally possesses characteristics of a good critical thinker because though she was exhausted, she did realize that she was also working in a toxic environment. When I considered her handling of barriers, reason, emotion, communication, and fallacies within the whole scenario, she recognized that her workplace issues were larger than her.

3.Reason, Emotion, and Communication

Sally demonstrate reasoning by deciding to not give a lot of input into the conversation regarding the workplace friction. Also she recognized that she needed to learn more about how to help her customers/clients. Sally's emotions were like many people's emotions when you're dealing with tough things at work, she wanted them solved. The communication style Sally used was passive communication while at dinner with her colleagues. I believe this because she decided that it would be best if she just listened rather than interject with her feelings. During my time in the military, I learned that Sally's way of dealing with it was best because she obviously was not a supervisor.

4.Fallacies and Argument

When Sally proposed how to solve the warranty issue, her boss decided to make her feel bad about her lateness rather than to do her job in solving the issue. I've had bosses do things like that to me, and I solved it by digging into the policies and procedures that would enable me to help my clients and co-workers. Sally's success in solving the warranty issue shows that she was resilient and smart. She used assertive communication to solve her client's issue as well as made the company aware of how to solve similar issues.

5.Conclusion

The various communication styles enable us to solve problems or create more problems. Sally's use of assertive communication made her a better employee and made the company better in the eyes of the customer/client. Sally also had to deal with workplace issues like a boss that would rather complain about her instead of helping her and co-workers that were unhappy with the ongoing workplace issues. It is good that she did not become aggressive with her boss and gossip with her co-workers.   

You wrote: A common fallacy that I have seen in advertisements is that of appeal to authority, where the product is advertised by a celebrity or known company to make the product seem more credible. Matt Damon was in a now infamous commercial for bitcoin. In an article by the Associated Press on March 27 he appeared somewhat ashamed that he was in the commercial. He explained that the reason he did it was mainly because his clean water initiative, Water.org, was in dire financial circumstances, explaining:

”We had a down year in Water.org, and I did that commercial in an attempt to raise money for Water.org.” I'm glad that Matt Damon understood that he was in an ad that made him look bad to those that took his advice and got into bitcoin. Cryptocurrency has frustrated so many people, including me. For a week or two, I got involved in it, and found that it was not a good investment of money or time for me. Even Elon Musk is doing things to elevate his personal Doge-coin, to include calling his new gang of House Republicans the 'Doge Caucus'.

I live in Tomah Wisconsin, which in my experience is a racist place to live. We have what's called a 'soft mayor, hard council' type of arrangement in Tomah. Mike Murray, a person that did comedy with me during one of his campaigns for Mayor, won the office and the city council gave him his own restaurant, which became the most high flatulent eating establishment in our town. I am in the process of moving to Madison where my pastor's wife is a state senator. My hope is to work with her and write a couple of laws related to police conduct and father's rights in Wisconsin. I experienced a racist judge, racist district attorney, and racist police officers. My ex-wife was able to assault me and get away with it because they look at me as an 'uppity negro' which is the worst type in their opinion because I am outspoken, and I don't take their crappy treatment without complaining to them about themselves. Tomah has successfully marshalled their resources to ruin my ability to have housing and make me homeless again. My plan is to rise from the ashes of their corruption and file suit against each office that broke the laws against me.