🚀 go-pugleaf

Richard Caley <spt@cstr.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:eyhln0t2sr0.fsf@liddell.cstr.ed.ac.uk...
> In article <959618894.22521.0.nnrp-14.9e9834d2@news.demon.co.uk>, Alistair
Mann (am) writes:
>
> >> Of course, an employer worth signing up with isn't going to put you
> >> into a position where you have to lie to colleagues to get them to
> >> `sign up' etc.
>
> am> Lie is too strong a word perhaps. But tact, avoiding stomping over
other
> am> people's work and ego, is an important thing to have.
>
> Tact and lieing are not points on a scale, they are orthogonal.

I'd disagree. IME, tact /is/ at the end of the scale that includes lying by
omitting to reveal pertinent truth. An old example: one of my last company's
linux servers stopped working while I was at the pub (oopsie!). It turned
out that my PFY had decided he could upgrade the server's hard drive on his
own, having successfully managed to do so a number of times at home. He did,
and promptly deleted one of the major databases, which not surprisingly gave
the users the idea the server wasn't working. The bigwigs were, of course,
furious. So was I -- it took the rest of that short afternoon to restore the
database, and have it reupdated since previous backup. The truth? Employee X
was responsible, and being on new employee probation would have got the
sack. The lie? I might have suggested it had something to do with the
electrical storm at the time. Tact saved his job, and he has gone on to be a
most excellent PFY.

> A
> tactless liar is at least easy to spot. A tactful liar is a pain in
> everyone's backside and anyone who hires such a person is clearly
> themselves not worth their pay.
>
> Beisdes people with big, fragile egos shouldbe stomped regularly, they
> may grow up.

Easy to say :-)
--
Alistair Mann