h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Discuss

Don't know, I'll go along with what everyone else thinks.









(sorry had to do it)

Yes, I think it is.... There's a hang of a lot of it goes on here.

A site set up byDouglas Adams votes someone elsesbook as their favourtie in a pole thread.

Where is your eidence for this "hang lot of it goes on here" statement?

Whlie were at it what is a "hang lot" Is it more than boat loads of reasons you had in another thread that turned out to be one INCORRECT reason?

Just because people dont agree with what you say doesnt mean they are out to disagree with you it actually could be they dont agree with what your saying.

one love

ignoring the usual Apple-Blicky spat
yes, it is easier to go along with the flow but people will usually only do so with things that aren't that important to them anyway IMO

Tony Curtis/Blicky/whoever:

Apple posted an opinion, to which she is entitled, and which referred directly to the title question of the thread. You are entitled to disagree with her, but it would be preferable, for the sake of other hootoers, if you could do so in a constructive manner.

Again for the sake of other hootooers, it would be preferable if you didn't carry personal bickering from one thread to another - it is boring and irritating.

I don't expect you to take my opinions on board - in fact I expect an aggressive response - but I am also entitled to express my opinion.

"Hang of a lot", incidentally, is a common South African and Australasian expression, equivalent to "heck/hell of a lot".


Yes, it is easier to go along with the consensus, but sometimes it is important to stand up for what you believe, even if it causes ructions.

Famous psychology experiment:

Group of people in a room facing a screen which displays shapes. Everyone apart from one person is "in on" the experiement and told to, after a given point, start naming the shapes incorrectly. The one "naive" participant started to agree with the "aware" participants even though it went against what his eyes were telling him.

There's a very strong tendency for people to follow the group concensus.

There is a tendancy to go along with the crowd simply because it's easier than being an individual. Not necessarily on h2g2 but all over the shop.

Perfect example is a mate of mine who, for reasons of confidentiality we shall call Mickey. Mickey is a really nice guy, who is intelligent, articulate and enjoys D&D and wargaming. But as a result of the place he was brought up in he puts on a front of being a dumb hard nut who really enjoys fights, drinking and sexist behaviour.

I agree with you all. No actually I don't. The experiment with the shapes mentioned above, sod If I'd go along with the bunch naming them wrong, if I knew what It was I'd damn well say that. Heck, I've gone against the 'majority' view enough times, a side effect I'm afraid of having come from a rural type place where people hold the most bigited and racist/sexist/homophobic etc views, thats there look out not mine

I simply cannot go with the flow - a fact that has actively prevented me reaching further up the greasy pole for some 18 years where I work.

They do not like subversives here.......

I've reached the conclusion over the years that when people ask for your opinion they actually mean "what's your prediction of the majority decision?".

*nods* It annoys me no end when people do that; phrase or put a question to you about your opinion on whtever it is your talking about, in such away to make it clear that what they are actually saying is 'you agree don't you', and that you have to do as such.... I don't think I agree like that for the sake of 'pleasing' them (8in the majority of cases anyhow), if I disagree I'll say so most of the time, unless there is a very good reason for me not too....

I think it depends on what sort of person you are. I generally stand up for myself and will say what I believe, but in certain circumstances, tiredness, apathy etc, I will go along with the group, just for an easier life. My elder brother on the other hand will always go against the group, even if that group is right.
>>just for an easier life<< Just picking up on what I said, its sad that we feel like this, even some of the time. Standing up for ourselves, especially when we are in the right shouldn't be a difficult choice

I'm with The-Doctor-is-in. I had a similar problem in the Army and in the Army that is fatal.

Re: Post 3. I tend to agree with Appple. There is a lot of it here.

Donald

<>

Wise words. Agrees.

*salutes*

Is it TOO easy? No. It can be stressful.

Do a lot of people do it anyway, because the alternative would be MORE stressful? Obviously.

One of the most important lessons I've learned in my career is that if a company, in the person of a manager superior to yourself, asks your opinion, you absolutely must not, under any circumstances, tell the truth. That way lies redundancy, as I've learned the hard way.

"What is your opinion?", when asked by your manager, should be assumed to mean "What is MY opinion - put in your own words?".

The company I used to work for, which shall remain nameless, conducted, in 1995, an Employee Opinion Survey. We all answered a set of about 75 questions, anonymously, multiple choice. It was a series of statments, like "I understand the link between my pay and performance", or "I believe the company is working smarter", to which you could agree strongly, agree slightly, be neutral, disagree slightly, or disagree strongly.

So they spent a fortune of everyone's time getting these things filled in, and another fortune collating the results. Embarrassingly, people took advantage of the anonymity and gave answers which showed morale to be rock bottom, the employees to believe the company was doomed, and the general opinion to be that the upper management were out of touch and arrogant.

We were then all gathered in a large room, where the Sales Director gave a presentation about the outcome of the survey. The basic idea of the presentation was "here is what your opinions were, and by the way you are all wrong." Point by point they went through each set of questions, and carefully explained why the expressed employee opinion was wrong. No apparent attempt was made to understand WHY the employees thought any of these things. No apparent attempt was made to explain in any detail WHY we were wrong.

One of the statements was "I understand the link between my pay and performance". Over 80% of people disagreed, slightly or strongly, with that one. The Sales Director simply said something along the lines of "Well, we have performance related pay, so I don't see what the problem is." And that was it.

I can well imagine that if the survey had NOT been anonymous, the results would have been very, very different. Suffice to say, however, that no employee opinion survey of any description has taken place there in the ten years since. Funny that...

H.

In Royal Mail we have a similar ananymous opinion to the one Hoo describes every year.

Last year one of the big things to come out of it in my office is that people thought favouratism was rife. (Something as a TU rep I had been banging on about to management for years).

Result the business set up a working gorup into the problem that basically found that there was no favouratism ...

On the othwer hand as a direct result of a working party set up in response to xmas leave allocation we now have a *much* fairer system in place so rough/smooth and all that.

<> (Hoo)

I guess it depends on how comfortable people are at being ostracized or considered a simply because they state their own opinions, which often happens. I personally find it more stressful to say I believe things I don't just to 'fit in'.

Also, it is curious how many people take a different viewpoint (different from their own) as somehow threatening. I was talking to a friend recently and this situation came up and it took me awhile to make them realise that simply stating my opinion didn't mean I thought their opinion was wrong (for them), nor was I telling them that they had to agree with me, as this had been their initial reaction when I stated my own opinion.

So perhaps people go along with the concensus because there is 'safety in numbers' and it makes them feel more secure about their own beliefs - if of course they *are* their own beliefs. I often wonder how they know this if they are more concerned about not 'rocking the boat' than expressing what they really feel. I wonder if this extends to what they truly think and feel or if it is just a public facade.

Meanwhile, I agree with Hoo that one's true opinions are best kept to oneself in the workplace.


az