I have bad hair. I’m fine with it. But I haven’t always felt that way.
Here’s a piece I wrote for P.S. I Love You about how I accidentally got a haircut that makes a radical statement about me. I didn’t realize that until I walked around in the world with short hair!
It turns out, though, that what people say about your hair says a lot more about them than it does you.
What does your hair say about you?
Ever wonder why people believe in fake news? I used to believe it was confirmation bias, which is the usual explanation. Confirmation bias says we tend to believe what we want to believe based on what we already believe. In other words, if you have an abiding hatred for networking events, as I do, you’d be delighted to read a news story that says networking events are the leading cause of all natural disasters and were actually invented by Hitler. You and I would very much like to believe that story.
But it turns out that confirmation bias is only part of the problem. The real issue is that some people just don’t like to think. And it’s the lack of critical thinking that is keeping fake news from dying. We believe fake news because we don’t have enough energy, desire, or ability to think our way through it.
If you want to read more about some research in this area, check out one of my latest articles for ArcDigital. It’s called “We Aren’t Too Partisan to Spot Fake News; We’re Too Lazy.”
Have you ever worked in a toxic workplace? In some cases, a single toxic person can make going to work every morning feel like descending into the depths of hell.
Did you know that incivility is the gateway to toxic culture? The uncivil behaviors that we all learn to live with–like the co-worker who is perpetually rude–build up and then create a culture that’s so toxic, nobody wants to stay in it. And those who do are burned out and do less work.
We’ve become inured to incivility because we just expect it. For instance, a million years ago, I worked in a shoe store on commission with a person who would tell customers that the rest of us were “new” and “didn’t know much.” She used that as a way to build her credibility so customers would ask for her. That’s incivility.
In another job, I had a senior co-worker who regularly asked me for personal favors (outside of work hours). If I said no to a request–like the time she asked me to take her to the airport at 4 am–she would pout and tell me that I “owed” her tasks at work to make up for this. That’s incivility.
A friend told me about a time she’d sent out an organization-wide email about the death of a colleague. She’d accidentally included a very small typo in the email that didn’t change the meaning of it. A co-worker called her and told her that she was unprofessional and should be ashamed of her shoddy work. That’s incivility.
So what can we do about incivility? We can kill it. We can refuse to stand for it. Here’s an article I wrote about how to do that.
What incivilities have you encountered? Have you been uncivil? (I admit that I’ve been guilty of incivilities.)
Check out my latest short story, “The Last Rhubarb,” at The Account Magazine, where you’ll find a fabulous group of editors and writers.
I promise my story isn’t about roots.
Christine Seifert 