On thinking before you speak, it means this: if something is said that makes you want to respond right away, when you sense a physical reaction (of hurt, anger, sadness or wanting retribution), or you are in a situation where what you say matters a lot (an interview, a meeting with higher-ups in a company etc.), it’s a mental cue for you to block immediate responses which can cause you to run your mouth in ways you later regret. Instead, you actively make an effort to listen more, and consider your situation and the other people’s situation before responding. So it’s not a 15 second pause after each sentence, but a 15 seconds you take while the other person is going on about whatever before you inject yourself into a conversation or before you make your point when it’s your turn.

On interacting with your coworkers, they’re not your therapists, so you can talk about what’s new and the fortunate and unfortunate things that happen to you over the course of a week, but the basic idea is to avoid making your problems their problems when you do.

I’m of a more positive nature but I love to info-dump on my coworkers about my favourite topics. I try to offset that by involving them and asking their opinion, showing them cool things, and then taking the turn to let them discuss their own intersts and thoughts on things, and follow up with that. And I try to get a sense if they aren’t interested in talking at a particular moment or are losing interest in the middle of a conversation. EQ skills are about taking that pulse.

If you need a place to start: The idea is give and take, and it should be in relatively equal amounts. Would you be able to tell me what has been on the minds lately of Coworkers 1-3? Or have you spent most of the conversation about yourself and your issues? (#4 doesn’t sound interested much in sharing their personal life, so you don’t have to probe them on it).

Hey we’re here.

I have given up on the ability to hide “everything” about myself off the Internet, so instead I have settled for, whatever I share publicly, everyone will have equal access to. My information will not be the property of a private, proprietary algorithm.

Excellent, with Musk in charge, the federal government will now be more secure against anti-government threats… like… Musk?

That feature to search a multitude of websites via Duck Duck Go was a gamechanger when I found out about it some years ago. I’ve not gone back since.

All hail Canada’s notice-and-notice-and-notice-and-notice-and-notice system of copyright enforcement!

On Mastodon, use hashtags fedihire and hiring, look for getfedihired hashtag to find prospective applicants.

And here I am waiting for Sup to be released by an adrenaline-filled code-junkie from Grand Prairie, Alberta…

Reddit is better than Lemmy.

On Lemmy, two’s a crowd (or a flamewar).

Monday, it would be too much of a coincidence to see a lot of my coworkers missing at the same time, and seeing people talk to nobody beside them would make me think I’m going crazy.

On the weekend I’m not forced to interact with anyone so I could feasibly go without noticing.

just how destructive Elon Musk’s incursion into the U.S. government is be.

A door opening contact sensor.

Imagine if this consternation from OpenAI against DeepSeek is used against them in the lawsuits… would be quite delicious.