Learn to Speak | TheaterFire

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Yea I’m white but I grew up poor. I did go to college but it wasn’t Ivy League. Ivy League schools are not a requirement but neither is college.

I am not talking pronunciation or diction. Although these help. I am just saying learn to formulate thoughts into a coherent sentence with a bit of correct grammar.

If you don’t know how to do that then I suggest you learn. There is a horde of free knowledge out there on the internet that can teach someone sentence structure and grammar.

If you don’t want to do corporate speak that’s fine. Most people hate that anyway. Being straight and direct is better. No one is asking you to drop your dialect or accent if you have one.

I am just saying if you believe in working in your technical skills to advance then also work on your soft skills including speaking. If you don’t want to work on any of your skills - well don’t be surprised when you don’t advance.

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techypunk@reddit

I'm fine innny career. Higher than most people here. "Talking professional" is racist. And yes my language used is completely n different than people in the suburbs.

I can complete a.sentence. saying its not coherent? Crazy.

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Ron-Swanson-Mustache@reddit

TIL I went to an ivy league school or grew up around other people who talk lime this in real life.

Also I'm apparently racist and classist. I'll also let our HR know that corporate jargon is only for white, wealthy, or upper class people.

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Bigdaddyjim@reddit

I've got to disagree. If you want to be taken seriously in IT, you have to be able to communicate explicitly and with a degree of technical sophistication. Yes, you can certainly do IT and not be a legit public speaker, but you do have to be able to collaborate and exchange ideas without creating confusion. It's not classist or racist at all. The world also needs ditch diggers and fry cooks if you don't want to make that effort.

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IndependentBat8365@reddit

Mastering Technical Sales author, John Care once said something to the effect of “leadership will direct you toward the people that speak the same way you do.”

So, if you want to promote your ideas and career, you need to learn the language of your audience. Speaking highly technical to a director or executive will end up getting your information ignored or directed down the management structure till you’re speaking with someone that can converse just as technical. That’s not where decisions are made.

If you can reframe technical needs and features as business requirements and objectives, then that’s the language of VPs and executives.

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_exclusvty@reddit

Only been in IT for 2 years. 0 certs. And very superficial technical knowledge. I've received a promotion every 6 months and now am a Jr vcio because of my ability to communicate to the customer as well as the techs. It's been an incredible super power that no one seems to understand. Good for OP that they see it in real time

g'day, I say shut up, you have had your time we are moving on. Easier for me to get away with when I am in OZ.

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agent-squirrel@reddit

Yeah we did this today. He was not happy.

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bedel99@reddit

tell him to respect our culture, or fuck off :)

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independent__rabbit@reddit

I work with a guy that just loves to hear himself talk. He thinks he’s the smartest person alive and wants everyone to know it, so he talks to try and show off all the words he knows. The funny thing is that if you actually understand what he’s trying to say, you will quickly realize that he’s an idiot and is just saying big words that he’s heard other people use. He also loves to copy code straight from ChatGPT and pass it off as something he wrote even though he can’t explain what it’s doing.

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Nu-Hir@reddit

He also loves to copy code straight from ChatGPT and pass it off as something he wrote even though he can’t explain what it’s doing.

I've written code from scratch and can't explain what it's doing.

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bedel99@reddit

Maybe are you a senior? :)

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renegadecanuck@reddit

Sounds like when I try to do anything with CSS. Eventually, I'll get the page looking exactly how I wanted. But there's guaranteed to be a million attributes that aren't necessary because I just kept trying things until it worked.

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MinisterOfSauces@reddit

I used to write a lot of Perl too.

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Vuiz@reddit

I work with a guy that just loves to hear himself talk.

I have one too. What's annoying with them is that they really want to have a meeting and talk, but engaging with them is impossible. You get cut off after 5-15 seconds and spend the next 2-5 minutes "listening".

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We have one that can't even use chat gpt, he just runs his damn mouth

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modz4u@reddit

Lol I've called out quite a few people for this over time. Not even called out in a rude way, because I have people and soft skills. It's funny to watch them get flustered and panic because they were trying to make others feel dumb for asking questions. So I just turned the table on them.

They said to the business user "this is too technical for you to understand" a few times in the same call. So I jumped in and said "even if it's too technical for the business and us business analysts, we just need it spelled out so we can document it".

Fatality 😎

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Blueline42@reddit

This... Some recurring meetings I have had in the past used to drive me nuts when you have someone on who talks just to talk.

Interviewed hundreds of candidates during my career. Hired dozens and dozens. The tech part of my interview process is basically 5 minutes of "tell me how you find answers to things you don't already know." Anyone who can't walk me through how they do basic troubleshooting in a couple minutes almost certainly lacks the skills I want.

The rest of the interview, like 90% +, is how do you work with people? How do you disarm people who are worked up? How do you find common ground? How do you give yourself breathing room to solve something when someone is flipping out? Who was a tough boss? Why? Who was a bad boss? Why? Name your favorite colleague ever. Why?

All soft skills. The job is soft skills. I can teach any half decent engineer the hard technical bits. I can't teach them how to talk someone off a ledge.

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i8noodles@reddit

you can teach someone how to talk to people. it just requires way more effort then its worth for most jobs.

i am not a naturally gifted talker. i am actually pretty bad it and will go non verbal given the slightest chance. i have "learned" to talk to people via great effort.

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Geminii27@reddit

I mean, I couldn't give answers to half of these; bosses and colleagues vanish from my memory the moment I walk out the door of a job.

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timbotheny26@reddit

How do you disarm people who are worked up?

Blame Microsoft and/or get a bit angry with them so they know they aren't alone in their frustrations.

"Honestly, if I was next to you with a mallet, I just might hit the damn thing myself!"

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narcissisadmin@reddit

Yeah that was my thing when I first started help desk: make it "us" vs the problem.

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RevLoveJoy@reddit

I'm really not trying to be adversarial, but I feel like the blame game is single use and zero sum. Whereas the empathy / sympathy expression works often and repeatably. FWIW.

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timbotheny26@reddit

That wasn't my actual answer, I was being tongue in cheek.

Sorry for not being more clear about that.

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RevLoveJoy@reddit

Oh, derp! I'm an idiot! Mea culpa!

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timbotheny26@reddit

Also in customer service roles, I've found that the blame game is a decent ice-breaker when the blame is being put in something faceless like a giant corporation or an inanimate object. It helps to bring things down a bit, and after that is when you start to implement the empathy/sympathy, maybe throw in some humor to lighten the mood, etc.

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Expensive_Plant_9530@reddit

Even worse when they make users feel stupid.

Yeah okay sometimes the users ARE stupid. But it’s not our job as IT to punish them for that.

When you get to the point where users are afraid to put tickets in or call IT because they’re worried they’re gonna be made to feel dumb, all it does is encourage issues to fester until they rot and explode.

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Silent-Tea4500@reddit

It's crazy that so many people have that attitude

Like of course the end user doesn't know what they're doing, we'd be out of a job otherwise lmao

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Expensive_Plant_9530@reddit

Demented_CEO@reddit

I've been a hiring manager and one candidate was particularly proud of clearing more than 5 tickets per day, asking how many tickets we'd expect to get in a week.

At first, I thought I'll humor him and ask more about those tickets. Like, what was the scope? What constitutes "resolving" a ticket, etc. This guy turned out to be full of it...

E.g. if a Mac user can't print, but a Windows user can, then the ticket ough to be resolved immediately since Mac "clearly isn't supported by the vendor".

Dude. That was a real life example from our environment and we only started having issues after updating to Tahoe. No follow ups, nothing.

Yikes.

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PhillAholic@reddit

Some managers encourage this behavior. I've seen "number of tickets closed" as a KPI or Metric plenty.

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Temporary-Library597@reddit

This. I can teach the tech stuff to anyone. Being a person who understands that non-IT staff are your customers? Having empathy for co-workers who are pulling in the same direction? You can't teach that.

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psiphre@reddit

non-IT staff are your customers

i remember this distinction being a huge contention back in the LJ days. the customer service lj group would butt heads with tech support constantly.

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MidniqhtVibes@reddit

Yes exactly

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OnlineGunDealer@reddit

It's 2026 and I get tickets where they couldn't figure out their monitor was turned off.

I'm nice to everyone though :)

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reserved_seating@reddit

I was stumped on how to make a surface keyboard discoverable via BT until I looked it up. After that, and too this day, I still think it’s stupid.

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I've had more than one ticket where somehow the power adapter from someone's dock had become unplugged

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1morecoffeeplz@reddit

Well said!

That said, I still try to be kind and friendly. At the end of the day, its IT's job to make sure they can do their job.

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Shoddy-Security310@reddit

what, hell no. Its their manager job to make sure they do their job. IT job is to make sure that the required tools are accessible and working. Why the hell do I need to teach a user how to upload a document to onedrive or how to turn on Bluetooth headphones?

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Arudinne@reddit

When I said it's our job to make sure they can do their job, I meant in the context of making sure the tools we provide them (computer, software, etc) work.

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stonecoldcoldstone@reddit

and, if they would be capable to do everything we'd have no job either

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awful_at_internet@reddit

dissapointed

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In tech support roles, you interact with customers at different levels (end users, technical customers, and all points in between).

Yes. I once dropped an upstream peer (a vendor) because I wasn't permitted to speak to anyone who'd not ask how to spell "BGP" when writing up a ticket. The company had just been acquired, and actual engineers were no longer accessible.

I understand that this isn't exactly OP's point - with which I agree and would extend to include written communication - but it's not completely unrelated, either. A service vendor (whether internal or not) should be able to communicate effectively with customers at various levels.

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Demented_CEO@reddit

I've done IT since the 90s and it's always been a customer service job. Who do you do IT for if not end users?

FullMetal_55@reddit

Well there are two kinds of people in this industry I've worked with both of them. One belongs in the datacentre far from human contact. Ops coworkers are those kind of people. What is bad is when they're in a front facing position and have to deal with people. I worked with a guy who you could sit down Ina cubicle with 100 switches and routers he'd have them all configured and ready for deployment in no time. Put him in a meeting and he'd question every decision call management stupid to their face for asking a question like "is this possible why or why not? He also wasn't allowed near production networks. He'd just unplug a whole switch middle of the day causing an outage and not even bat an eye. Yes he won't advance yes he doesn't really want to. He is a happy worker when he doesn't deal with people. The key I've found is to weed out those people and keep them in technical roles ane for Pete's sake never let them near a customer.

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bnlf@reddit

I tell this to my team all the time. We’re in consulting. If you can’t communicate properly to clients, they won’t trust anything you say no matter how good technically they are.

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It's funny because above a certain level, everyone has both soft skills and technical skills. There's only so far folks can go without interpersonal skills.

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DrFlutterChii@reddit

There's also only so far some folks want to go. Most people got into tech because they care about that 10% technical ability, and every time you get promoted the job swings further and further into being a people-person job. If I wanted to spend all of my time selling, I'd go into sales and sell shit to people instead of trying to sell objectively valuable projects to executives. At least in sales you get a cut.

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uptimefordays@reddit

Even on the individual contributor path, once you move beyond basic tasks like break fix, you’ll be working on systems with teams. In such cases, effective communication across teams becomes essential.

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There are some senior level IC roles that involve very little hands on keyboards work. I don't do any of the management stuff like leave reports and annual reviews but I directly oversee the technical work of 20-30 people and interface them with a few dozen more. They're rare but do exist.

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Centimane@reddit

I directly oversee the technical work of 20-30 people

Then you aren't an "individual contributor" and are managing people. Managing people is about directing them, not HR shenanigans.

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Harry_Bolsagna@reddit

Agreed. Im so sick of seeing this opinion parroted. Ive been in this field 20 years. I can count on one hand the number of IT people ive worked with whos social skills were bad enough to be problematic.

Its far more common to have someone who cant do any ANYTHING without having their hand held. The fact that the same person cant describe what theyre doing is usually a side effect of not having a clue.

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mvbighead@reddit

I'll be honest, I've worked with all sorts. Technical ability is probably the widest range of things I have seen, where as the soft skills I'd say the bulk of guys have at least good enough bare minimum, and plenty have at least average to above average soft skills. Only IT workers in some of the more rough industries where working around other rougher types might have less than desirable soft skills. And for the most part, everyone I have been around acclimates to the environment reasonably well enough.

Skill wise though? That's what gets people noticed from their managers/etc. If you never work and resolve tickets, that gets noticed. If you resolve complex tasks. That gets noticed.

If you want to get into management... sure the soft skills have more importance. But boots on the ground? Bare minimum soft skill is sufficient. Technical skill is 100% required... especially for upward mobility.

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lol, have you never worked anywhere? That is very clearly not true in most places, unfortunately.

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Johnny_BigHacker@reddit

Yea, I'm on my 7th employer over a 20 year career.

The worst teammates/coworkers are the ones who don't do anything at all even if they have the skills, but the next worst are the ones who don't do anything because they lack the skills and take little to no proactive steps to learn them.

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Broad-Celebration-@reddit

The 10% technical is pretty accurate for tier1 support.

Yes you need to be technically proficient, but you also have to meet the bare minimum of social standards of you’re going to have a bad time.

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Geminii27@reddit

The kind of person that was like “well I guess we’ll go ask him if we really have to”

Might have been a bonus from his point of view, if he didn't like being interrupted 20 times a day.

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ErikTheEngineer@reddit

I've been doing the tech thing for 30 years in various roles now. When I started (mid-late 90s,) companies did accept at least some lack of social skills because computers were sorcery and we mustn't upset the cantankerous wizards.

These days, the number of places willing to put up with this is way down. In addition, you have to be someone that the company will accept the trade-off of working with. Increasingly, this is reserved for true genius level people. If you're that person then good on you, but I sure know I'm not. Big Tech and hedge funds seem to be the only places who will openly take anti-social people as long as their level of genius outweighs the difficulty in working with them. And we're not talking helpdesk or tech support, we're talking about hardcore low level developers or math Ph.D.'s building products or doing complex trading to make the company millions a year.

I've never been the most tech-savvy person in the room; I tend to pick things up as I need them. But, I've been able to get to a good place career-wise with fundamental knowledge, troubleshooting skills and being pleasant to work with. It goes a lot further than people think, and hardcore tech skills matter less as you grow in responsibility.

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Lv_InSaNe_vL@reddit

As another person who has done this for a long time, I am so glad companies have stopped putting up with the "weird loner" stereotype for IT guys.

Like I get it, were all nerds and a lot of us have other things going on. But I'm so glad that it's reasonable for me to be like "okay dude you have to actually be professional" to techs these days.

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I wish it had helped me.

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MBILC@reddit

Absolutely this..
There is a reason that people tend to not interact with "IT", because they created their own stereo typical labels of being the people who sit in dark rooms alone with no one else and you only know they are alive because they answer an email or DM, seldom would they come out or interact.

Then the few who may come out, but then treat everyone as if they are idiots, not understanding, not everyone lives and breaths tech 24/7 and geeks out with a home lab all weekend instead of going out and meeting actual people...

Bingo. Technical knowledge can be instilled in anyone, developing people skills is a deliberate voice.

You are the liaison between systems and users. You’ll succeed better if you’re fluent— in both

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RickRussellTX@reddit

I used to run a university help desk. To this day, I get notes on LinkedIn and Facebook from my former student employees bemoaning that modern software engineering is so much like working at the help desk — 90%+ managing people and expectations.

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DDisired@reddit

90% soft skills and 10% technical ability

This is the case with pretty much all jobs. I've only been working for 10 years, but the people I like and are willing to write great reviews were those that didn't start off technical, but willing to learn and do the work.

I've found technical abilities are easier to teach/mentor compared to discipline, curiosity, learning, and drive. I've worked with some brilliant engineers that were closed off, and while they did decent work and documented most of their work, the rest of the lack of knowledge they shared meant that when they inevitably moved on, we basically have to re-learn what they did. But someone who was more proactive usually schedules a meeting and compiles a list of things to be aware of, instead of us trying to pull it out of them.

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ka-splam@reddit

You're gonna get a lot of downvotes

Yeah, not because "learn soft skills" is bad advice, but because this is yet another "jerking myself off in public about how I'm better than everyone" empty post.

face palming at some of my compatriots inability to articulate themselves.

Great, thanks for the contribution, OP.

If you want to advance in your career then learn to speak.

And how did this actually help you (OP), given that you and they all ended up in the same meeting at the same company on the same team?

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rio_sk@reddit

90% tech buzzwords and 10% skills, if you are in the upper levels of the pyramid

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Xzenor@reddit

Have you ever considered that people may not want to go that far?

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In my experience it's 99% soft skills 1% technical skills based on how some of my coworkers are. You can get away with knowing almost nothing from end users or management if they like you.

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osmiumblue66@reddit

Seconded. When I started my IT career, the most important lesson was the ability to build bridges and communicate with clients.

SusAdmin42@reddit

You’re correct, but advice should be offered. I don’t think people are socially stunted on purpose.

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Always disturbing when someone starts digging through your post history just to get at you. Taskmaster is a comedy show and that’s a joke. Come on man, get some perspective.

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ImHereCuzTheyWrong@reddit

No not soft skills, my greatest weakness after technical skills!!!

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Reaction-Consistent@reddit

Every IT professional should start out their career working in retail sales

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AnDanDan@reddit

Corpo speak is it's own skill; being diplomatic is it's own skill; making people feel heard is it's own skill. As a problem solver you gotta know when to bite your tongue, and how to help whoever youre dealing with come away with a positive opinion, or at least assuage their fears while you try and figure out how the fuck to fix the problem.

Many people dont do any sort of indepth technical work, and wont be able to relate to yours. Your skills in communication are the way for them to get through to your technical skills.

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Ummgh23@reddit

I have ADHD, social anxiety and very likely am on the spectrum but I‘m trying ._.

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Any-Fly5966@reddit

Social anxiety is a bitch. Some of us are fortunate enough to have learned how to deal with it or aren't stricken enough with it to where it majorly affects career growth. People seem to forget that not everyone thinks like you, acts like you, and has the same mental hurdles that you do. Minimizing someone by saying things like "I don't get why you just don't speak!". You're right, you don't. And I don't understand why you don't stfu, so what now?

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Ummgh23@reddit

I don't have anything to add other than I agree wholeheartely

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spin81@reddit

Hey good on you and I agree with OP but also feel like you're not the sort of person OP is talking about. All anyone can ask of you is to do your best. I don't have any of those things but if everyone who had trouble expressing themselves did what you do, which is try, my life would be a lot less frustrating.

If you can afford to, I encourage you to see a mental health professional. Perhaps they can offer insight into how you differ from less neurodivergent people so you can have some tools to become less socially anxious - possibly lessening the ND symptoms leading to a spiral that is positive for a change. Source: I don't have any of that stuff but I've got some other stuff.

Hope you're not feeling too bad or the above made you feel a little less bad.

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Ummgh23@reddit

Oh I've been in therapy for most of my adult life, but I‘m afraid I‘m just insanely predisposed to all sorts of mental issues that don't seem to go away no matter how hard I try.

I hate that I always come across as the grumpy guy when in reality I just can‘t show any positive emotions to others even if I wanted to. I'd love to connect with people beyond a surface level and learn more about them.

Medication at least makes me function enough to work so that I can afford to live.

But by now I think I just have to accept that I lost the gene lottery (As evident by my slew of physical issues along with the mental ones) and will always be an unhappy person. At least I usually don‘t feel sad anymore because I guess I‘m too tired? Not sure if feeling dead inside is better though 🙃

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itsboilingoil@reddit

Why do the wack ones think they get paid to be annoyed that other people who don’t get paid to do their job aren’t doing their job? Why are they employed?

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Anybackup@reddit

I agree. If one is unable to clearly express their needs, the efficiency of work progress will definitely decrease.

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Secret_Account07@reddit

My biggest complaint is all the folks who need to jump on a call for an issue. It’s like they are incapable or too lazy to type out an email or ticket.

So I jump on a call and they are throwing all these IPs and server names at me and I’m having to transpose and investigate everything with folks sitting with dead air while interrupting me while I’m trying to focus.

RikiWardOG@reddit

bro, having to deal with this in a minute. I explained the options we have very clearly. only 2 options about printing on a guest network we have. The response I get, can you swing by my office to discuss.... There's nothing to discuss. Literally, just pick 1 of the 2 options.

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Secret_Account07@reddit

It’s frustrating isn’t it?

The other problem I run into is referring back to information when they didn’t write anything down. So essentially I have 20 minutes of words and now I have to document all of it. If I have to hand off issue to 2nd shift or another engineer? Good luck! Person couldn’t be bothered to document the issue.

With my position I only work with other IT folks as consumers. So it’s much better than typical helpdesk end users who don’t follow any processes, but developers are the absolute worst lol. Idk why but they are always so bad with this. Always has to be a call.

I’ve gotten to the point where I just say I’m unable to do a call. I don’t say I’m unable because I don’t want to but still. Certain folks have learned.

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minus_minus@reddit

If you want to advance in your career

Ok. I’m gonna have to stop you right there. Lol

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noisyboy@reddit

Sometimes they know that the point has been decided, blabbering more won't change anything and are just waiting for the charade to be over so that they can get some actual work done in the scraps of remaining time left after the dumb meetings have gobbled good chuck of the whole day up.

I'll stay where I'm at.

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LastTechStanding@reddit

Haha mgmt, politics, backstabbing, and trampling on people to get ahead… yeah… no thanks

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Regular-Nebula6386@reddit

There’s also the other half that won’t stop talking and repeat themselves over and over without adding anything meaningful to the conversation. I have found myself asking them to let others speak.

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Smiles_OBrien@reddit

This has been my big personal hurdle.

I generally get good reviews from my boss but that was a big sticking point. I (unironically, need to get tested for it) think I have ADHD, and for me there's a lot of trying to make sure I'm being understood which leads to overexplaining. I also get REALLY annoyed when someone talks over me because I lose my train of thought easily...and Ironically find myself jumping in on people because I'm worried I'll lose my train of thought and forget to bring up something while someone else is talking.

It's something I've been actively working on. Lots of "hand up, crossed fingers" as a reminder to myself to hold onto that thought for dear life.

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bxk21@reddit

Overexplaining, ah my old enemy. It triggers when I feel judged, which happens when I think I'm making a fool of myself in a meeting.

I counteract this by planning what I'm gonna say beforehand. Even having an unformatted list of points I need to hit helps a ton.

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JosephRW@reddit

This took some time from me as well. Years, really. You need to know at a certain point when the rope is on the other side of the line and when people didn't listen to you when it was their responsibility to pay attention and ask questions and fucked themselves over for it.

There is a balance to strike here, don't miss that transition.

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w1ten1te@reddit

I keep a notepad doc open during discussions so I can write down any points that I want to bring up when there's a natural pause where I can take a turn. Don't rely on your short term memory to hold everything. Paper doesn't forget.

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ipostatrandom@reddit

Tbf, this is just a common trait among certain ppl in meetings, not just IT.

But yes, annoying.

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Tetha@reddit

For me, this has actually led to a different conondrum. Sometimes, respecting the silence of deep though right. Sometimes, respecting a thought from a person is right.

But sometimes, just talking over and bulldozing through bullshit is also necessary.

ipreferanothername@reddit

I interviewed at citrix a few years ago, didnt get the job, but i had a great talk with the hiring manager who interviewed me. I asked about something that helped their career and got pointed to a book

"crucial conversations" - its about how you deliver your message to people. one of the authors has a bit on youtube that might be worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc3ARpccRwQ

its not just about your communication - its also about TAKING IN other peoples communication, understanding their point of view a little bit. i have some very technically smart coworkers who dont get any of that at all, just that they communicate and hate everyone. smh.

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TN_man@reddit

You realize this industry has a lot of neurodiversity

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Og-Morrow@reddit

I have very good soft skills, man I am tied if using them.

Just shut up, let me get on with it and pay me. God dam so many have become very thick and disinterested.

Yeah, if you want to go far in this field, learn to talk like a salesman or executive manager. Don't concern yourself with being correct, or even reasonable. Just say everything with a confident tone and don't use qualifiers like "should" or "in theory" or anything that conveys the uncertainty inherent in complex systems. Pretend you're a business evangelist and everything you say is gospel. Then when all your bullshit comes crashing down, shift the blame to someone else, preferably below you on the totem pole.

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DrunkenGolfer@reddit

Sweet ~~lord~~ Lord, just because we are computer nerds doesn’t mean we aren’t in a professional environment. If you want to advance in your career, ~~then~~ learn to ~~speak~~ write.

~~Sitting in a meeting and just~~ I’m sitting in a meeting, and just ~~face palming~~ face-palming at some of my ~~compatriots’~~ colleagues’ inability to articulate themselves.

Moontoya@reddit

Voice coaching, acting lessons, proper training on communications

All things I was lucky enough to do in various jobs

I've met enough folks to know that being themselves is sometimes the problem.

Be yourself... as long as you do not reek of body odor or cologne so strong you announce yourself to a room 2 minutes before you enter. Be yourself... unless you are talking over people, making unwanted romantic advances on someone in the office, or blasting political opinion radio from your cube. Be yourself... unless yourself is microwaving catfish in the lunch room or burning popcorn. In any of those situations be a little less yourself.

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labalag@reddit

But that guy's an asshole.

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Bright_Arm8782@reddit

That only works is the self isn't a rude arrogant arse.

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blofly@reddit

First, learn how to take notes for presentations.

I do it with pen and paper....it allows me get away from the tech and organize my thoughts in an outline shape. This makes it easier to do presentations when you also are sharing screens, or flipping amongst multiple windows to grab specific info.

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t0c@reddit

Honestly, like all self improvement. Figure out what you're solving for, get the lay of the land. You can do this by recording yourself in meetings and reviewing it later. AI tools can get you transcripts easily. Ask someone you think speaks/writes well, and ask them for feedback. Hell, ask one of the AI tools to give you feedback.

Then there's always the RTFM. Read some books, articles, etc. See how others do it, try to imitate until you find your own way.

Once you start to pick up nuance, start thinking about your audience. What do they care about? Is it your colleague who will be reviewing your PR and he needs the nitty gritty, or is it Jen from compliance and she just needs a brief overview of what's going on and you're on it. I struggle with the last one. You can get quick feedback from the AI tools, see what the difference between what the writing styles.

And as always, practices makes better.

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MaelstromFL@reddit

This is going to sound stupid, but Rotary Club! It's literally built to teach people how to speak in public!

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ipostatrandom@reddit

Not on reddit, thats for sure.

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code_monkey_wrench@reddit

Conversely, people who are not in IT often suck at communicating any way other than speaking.

Just look at your email inbox or teams message history.

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bobdobalina@reddit

Alternative suggestion, learn to shut up. Sometimes \~\~leadership\~\~ users need to fail hard.

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ThorThimbleOfGorbash@reddit

"Well--well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people."

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Man-e-questions@reddit

Fr fr no cap!

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Lithogiraffe@reddit

Does anyone here have any tips on how to do that?

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jmnugent@reddit

I don't know if this will help any,. but I worked as an IT Sysadmin in a K-12 school district for 3 years,. and when I worked that contract, I quickly realized that how you explain computer problems to different kinds of people (High School Janitor,. to Front Office Secretaries to the Super intendant).. all need to be different ways of communicating.

Janitor may barely speak English. Trying to get them to understand why their login password expires and why that's important that they regularly change their password so they can reliably submit their timesheet.
Office Secretaries who regularly deal with Student attendance and database stuff . you can speak a bit more technically to.
Super Intendent might just want a high level overview and why you're spending so many hours of paid work on certain projects, etc.

I try to remember not to overwhelm people with technical lingo. (I try to avoid acronyms if I can). I try to keep things simple.

Real world example,.. I had a ticket lately from a frustrated User who was asking why the (MDM Managed) Apps on her iPhone seem to update 2 or 3 times a week (she's not always around WiFi and she had already turned on "allow large downloads over Cellular".. but it wasn't really resolving her issue.

Apple recently made the App Store searchable in a web-browser from a Windows computer. so I sent her the link to that and explained how she can search for various Apps (Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, etc).. and click "What's New" to see the Version Release History.. and on many of those Apps there legitimately were frequent updates (almost 1 a week in some cases)

The behavior she was seeing was the "greyed out App" circle downloading type animation .. which I basically had to tell her I can't fix that specifically. She needs to confirm she's actually on Wi-Fi (if the Wi-Fi requires a "Agree" button to be pressed,. she needs to do that).. otherwise it will just get stuck in that "downloading....waiting.." type loop.

Took me a few replies back and forth with her.. but this morning she OK'd me closing the ticket.

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skiddily_biddily@reddit

I would be happy if they just learned to think

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Fallingdamage@reddit

Per my boss some years ago..

The reason I made IT director with a high school diploma and no certs was: Competency, Communication Skills, and my ability to stay calm and explain things in easy terms.

"Be specific" coming from the person posting "HD"....

Exactly.

“Working at HD” sounds like you’re talking about a specific business. “Working at Help Desk” is just weird phrasing at best.

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Unique_Bunch@reddit

This thread is about you

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Hotshot55@reddit

So while OP is telling us to "learn how to speak", perhaps OP should take a step back, and he should learn to be specific.

So you're saying OP should learn how to speak?

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yrogerg123@reddit

I swear that I keep advancing in my career because I'm very good at just...navigating a large organization, talking to people who are important to my job (IT Directors, facilities managers, office managers, project managers, etc) and just...getting them onboard with what I need and what I'm trying to do.

I think a lot of people really, really struggle with communicating risk or lack of risk when trying to push things forward, and in general are just bad at communicating what they are trying to do and who needs to know what about it.

Like...your on-site facilities support just needs to know that X service will be down for Y minutes, and nothing else. Your manager who is approving the change needs to know the detail and due diligence, who was informed and what they were told. Project manager needs to know what deliverables to expect and when to expect them. I don't know why it's so hard to speak different languages to different audiences but in my experience a lot of technical people make it seem really fucking hard.

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maximumtesticle@reddit

Also, don't you love getting emails filled with !!!!!!!!!!!!!! and emojis? For sure makes me want to help you.

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Evan2kie@reddit

I had a whole other career in corporate communications before studying computer science. I've progressed way faster than my peers because I can do a presentation, talk to the C suite people and handle customers. Being able to articulate your knowledge relative to your audience is huge

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ItsNeverTheNetwork@reddit

Tbh, it’s beyond speak. Learn to communicate! It’ll take you so much further coupled with your technical skills.

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TheCravin@reddit

I wholeheartedly agree, but I also find it (for me) to be self solving.

I was a drastically worse and less likable person before doing tier 1 type stuff as a student intern and then as the first few years of my first big boy job. I’m on the spectrum, had a big chip on my shoulder, and a shitty childhood. I was a straight up dickhead.

But I can’t express enough how much working in IT has helped me grow as a human being. I’m a better, more thoughtful, more pleasant person to be around, I have a better relationship with my friends and family, and I don’t look in the mirror and hate myself.

My technical skill has grown plenty (I’m pretty far away from tier 1 now), but being a pleasant person to talk to is the biggest glow-up of my life.

I really do think doing 1:1 style support (especially for people you respect) helps you grow so much as a person, which then help grow you in your career.

You should water your soft skills exactly as much as your hard skills.

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Preach. Nerd’s don’t know how to talk or dress appropriately and it’s frustrating. Especially when you wanna hire someone in certain industries like Finance where how you look and carry yourself to far vs an industry like biotech for example. Learn to talk, learn to dress, have some tact and you’ll go farther than your tech skills alone can

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MrD3a7h@reddit

I've been at my place for a while now. I find myself providing translation services between the new people on my team and my director.

Oh god, this is how middle managers are born

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SevaraB@reddit

Good tech people translate business requirements to technical processes. Note the word "translate." If you can't be conversant, the quality of support you can offer is going to be greatly diminished.

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SixtyAteWhiskey68@reddit

Yeah there’s definitely a line between “ah yeah this dude is a nerd” and “this dude is a nerd AND has zero social skills”.

Princess_Fluffypants@reddit

I think being able to relay technical information to an easy to understand term helps a lot too.

This skill has taken me farther than anything else.

I’m at the point in my career where I’m quite a long way from having to interact with end users directly, but even when talking to highly technical team from completely different tech stacks, being able to explain your ideas to people that aren’t experts is an invaluable skill.

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Conundrum1911@reddit

Why use many words when few words do trick?

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wintersedge@reddit

Would add - learn to speak nicely and diplomatically.

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1z1z2x2x3c3c4v4v@reddit

Communication skills are one of the few that can get you promoted... even if you are less technical.

The ability to explain technical terms to a non-technical person is an art form, and one worth learning.

Dense-Land-5927@reddit

I've come to realize that knowing when to speak, how to speak, and how to explain things is a vast portion of the job in IT. Sure, there are some IT jobs where you don't interact with people as much, but those aren't the norm.

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Fantastic_Growth_425@reddit

Learning how to speak is very important skill, I mostly seat in front of a mirror and try explaining technical terms in a non technical way. Also use loom for video presentations to talk about experience and my lab setup.

Watched a coworker struggle to explain why the lack of DNS at a site is an issue for software updates. Both my manager and this coworkers couldn't even articulate how DNs is required to hit a URL tagged resource.

Man it's a Monday

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Lustrouse@reddit

Don't sound so surprised. Plenty of people fall into this career because spending your time in a digital environment is a common substitute for real human interaction. Your peers will improve their communication skills, and you will become more accepting of people's shortcomings.

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whatdoido8383@reddit

True that.

I've been in IT 20 something years now and IMO my tech skills are a smaller part of how I lasted this long and moved up. I'm a good communicator at all levels of the business which I guess is a rarity in IT.

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Donald-Pump@reddit

People in wheelchairs should get up and use the stairs and stop being lazy. I'm just face palming at all these people just sitting there when they could be walking around.

That is all.

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gwatt21@reddit

Located the non-speaker.

Cam095@reddit

forever thankful i worked as a bartender/ server before i got into IT. i'm terrible at speaking but those serving jobs definitely helped me fake it and bc i could fake it it helped me drastically in my first IT job since I was doing remote support. hearing some of the other agents talk on the phone was painful

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Expensive_Plant_9530@reddit

I always found that lack of skill ironic. In IT, our customer is ultimately the end user and management.