There seems to be one particular situation that gets on my nerves and fits into this category. It goes something like these two ways: 1) at the end of an event, everyone is asked unexpectedly to make a short speech about the success of the event, or 2) in the middle of the event, everyone is abruptly expected to produce some creative output. Number two is, of course, worse, and can make the whole event a complete hell for half the participants. Number one is just annoying. Perhaps it would be better to ask if anyone has anything to add at the end, so that we can hear from the few people who really have something to add? Usually, however, this is resolved by practically everyone saying meaningless trivia in a couple of sentences. Even though many people can feel okay with their own triviality, others feel embarrassed that they had nothing meaningful or witty to say and that they therefore wasted people’s time.
What I needed to learn was that it is also perfectly ok to set a boundary and decline such a request with a smile and in a non-disruptive way: “Thanks, but I’ll pass. Over to, <name of the person sitting beside you>, next.”
I would add 3) at the start of an event, everyone is asked to state their hopes and expectations about the event. While it’s certainly useful to reflect on these things, I (embarassingly?) often in such situations don’t even have any concrete hopes or expectations and am rather in “let’s see what happens” mode. I still think it’s fair to ask this question, as it can provide very benefitial feedback for the organizer, but they should at least be aware that a) this can be quite stressful for some participants, and b) many of the responses may be “made up” on the fly, rather than statements backed by a sufficient level of reflection. Of course just being honest there and saying “I don’t have any expectations yet and just thought the title of the event sounded interesting” is probably the best option, but I think 10-years-ago-me would probably not have been confident enough to say that, and instead made up some vague plausible sounding claims that had a higher chance of signaling “I’ve got my shit together and definitely thought deeply about why I’m attending this event beforehand”.
There seems to be one particular situation that gets on my nerves and fits into this category. It goes something like these two ways: 1) at the end of an event, everyone is asked unexpectedly to make a short speech about the success of the event, or 2) in the middle of the event, everyone is abruptly expected to produce some creative output. Number two is, of course, worse, and can make the whole event a complete hell for half the participants. Number one is just annoying. Perhaps it would be better to ask if anyone has anything to add at the end, so that we can hear from the few people who really have something to add? Usually, however, this is resolved by practically everyone saying meaningless trivia in a couple of sentences. Even though many people can feel okay with their own triviality, others feel embarrassed that they had nothing meaningful or witty to say and that they therefore wasted people’s time.
What I needed to learn was that it is also perfectly ok to set a boundary and decline such a request with a smile and in a non-disruptive way: “Thanks, but I’ll pass. Over to, <name of the person sitting beside you>, next.”
I would add 3) at the start of an event, everyone is asked to state their hopes and expectations about the event. While it’s certainly useful to reflect on these things, I (embarassingly?) often in such situations don’t even have any concrete hopes or expectations and am rather in “let’s see what happens” mode. I still think it’s fair to ask this question, as it can provide very benefitial feedback for the organizer, but they should at least be aware that a) this can be quite stressful for some participants, and b) many of the responses may be “made up” on the fly, rather than statements backed by a sufficient level of reflection. Of course just being honest there and saying “I don’t have any expectations yet and just thought the title of the event sounded interesting” is probably the best option, but I think 10-years-ago-me would probably not have been confident enough to say that, and instead made up some vague plausible sounding claims that had a higher chance of signaling “I’ve got my shit together and definitely thought deeply about why I’m attending this event beforehand”.