## On silence - Why do people feel the need to fill silence? - Why is silence so uncomfortable when it should be perfectly natural to be silent? - The higher up someone is in an organisational hierarchy, the more they seem to like the sound of their own voice. Or maybe they just have more license to use it without being judged. - Silence in a meeting feels awkward, but I feel it's where actual thinking happens. ## On talking a lot - Why do the talkers get to control the room even if they are spewing shit while the quiet, smart ones get overlooked? - Maybe it's not about intelligence at all. Maybe it's just about presence. - "Yapologists" - people who talk through everything, explain everything, narrate their own thoughts out loud. Is this a survival instinct? A way of processing? It surely can't be malice. - Being more consultative at work - can that happen with more silence? Or does consulting require more talking by definition? - Does not talking enough make one less likeable? ## On complaining - I do a lot of this. Does that make me an idiot? Or just human? - There's a voice in my head that tells me to not complain. But complaining does help vent. Both things are true. - How much is too much? No idea. Probably depends on who's listening and whether they signed up for it. - Is it important to let people complain? Feels like bottling it up doesn't help anyone. ## On recognising noise - Are the best engineers (or consultants, or whoever) able to tell when someone is yapping vs when someone is saying something useful? - Is that a skill? Can it be learned? Or is it just pattern recognition from experience? - And how do you tell when *you're* the one yapping? --- No conclusions here. Just questions.