How would you react if your boss at work told you that everyone thinks you’re contemptuous? What if they didn’t have any helpful examples to share? How would you know what to do differently?

In today’s story, that’s the situation one scientist finds himself in, and he decides the best course of action is to only talk if he’s asked a question.

This causes a big problem and ends up making him feel even more confused.

Let’s read all the details.

Don’t Make Others Uncomfortable?

This is long, but it has to be to provide the needed details about what happened.

About 10 years ago I worked in a team of scientists (which is almost enough the drop the mic right here 😄) when one day our boss told me others perceive me as “contemptuous.”

I was shocked beyond words.

I certainly did not feel superior or feel contempt for anyone. I was so flabbergasted I was silent for probably 2 solid minutes.

This conversation doesn’t sound very helpful.

I asked for an example of when something I had said or done gave someone that feeling.

He said he couldn’t divulge that information.

OK. Then I asked for an example he had experienced or observed himself.

He said he had none.

Still not helpful.

I said, “Since I have no clue what I’ve done, how am I supposed to adjust my behavior?”

He said he didn’t know.

I said, “Basically then, I just need to not talk?”

He said he wasn’t sure.

Ah ha! He has an idea.

I knew right then what to do.

I am pretty introverted; and as a child I didn’t talk for years.

I rarely spoke until I was about 13 years old.

Got lots of notes from teachers about how quiet I was. I would answer questions when directly asked, but rarely spoke otherwise.

Time to stop talking.

So, my malicious compliance in this situation was easy for me.

I just stopped talking except when asked a question.

I made a point of smiling, showing I was listening, nodding agreement, etc. I was extremely polite and agreeable.

He didn’t offer to help.

Pretty soon some big issues came up that I had specific knowledge about.

I knew how to solve them, but no one else asked.

A huge conflict came up between two of our labs because one group wanted it one way and the other group had a different opinion.

They fought and fought.

It was a huge failure.

People were having secret meetings in their offices to try to win. And when they finally arrived at the action they chose it was wrong.

In fact, both groups were wrong.

And the whole experiment failed.

He stayed quiet for three weeks.

It’s important to know no one was hurt, no property damage or anything like that. Just a LOT of wasted time and expense on materials.

But I never said a word.

This went on for three weeks.

The downfall was mainly a blow to the budget.

The lab’s budget had to be revised. They had to cut travel expenses, which I was ok with because I didn’t want to travel anyway.

So, no conferences for anyone.

This is a big deal for a lot of researchers because it’s how we gain notoriety to be able to get grants, among other things.

A colleague finally noticed that he wasn’t talking.

Finally a colleague asked me why I hadn’t spoken for so long, why I was so quiet. Was something wrong?

I explained about being told others perceive me as contemptuous.

She had the same expression I did when I was told. She said she didn’t believe anyone had said that about me.

I honestly was surprised again because I believed our boss.

He told her his idea for how to solve the problem.

Then she asked me what I thought about the experiment design and why it was failing.

I told her about the solution I believed would work, which was actually surprisingly simple.

She recognized it had a good chance of succeeding and asked me to share the idea at the next department meeting.

At that meeting she asked me again in front of everyone and I repeated what I told her.

Now everyone wanted to know why he didn’t share this idea sooner.

Several people asked why I hadn’t spoken up sooner.

I explained I had been given feedback that indicated I caused others to feel uncomfortable.

The whole table of colleagues also looked stunned at me.

I said I was committed to not causing such bad feelings and couldn’t figure out how to communicate because the feedback didn’t give me any specific guidance.

Everyone agreed that he was not contemptuous.

Everyone looked at the Director at that point and he said, we shouldn’t discuss personnel issues.

Ha! It was my issue, so I said, “if anyone here perceives me as contemptuous and said as much to our boss, that’s the reason I haven’t been talking. If you don’t feel that way about me, let me know and I will stop being silent.”

Someone else said we needed to hold a vote so there wouldn’t be any more confusion or talking behind anyone’s back.

They voted 100% for me to talk normally and that they didn’t agree that I was ever contemptuous.

It all worked out well.

That Director slowly stopped coming to work, month by month after this episode, until he was only showing up 1 day a week.

Finally he took a lab position elsewhere and one of my colleagues was promoted to Director.

And… the experiment was a success.

The next year I got a grant to keep the research going and paid for two people to be able to travel to the related conference to present our findings.

What was that Director’s problem? He should’ve left OP alone. His criticism is why the experiment wasn’t a success earlier.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

The Director was the one with the problem.

This is a good rule of thumb.

Examples are important.

Another person shares a similar story.

This person is glad it worked out the way it did.

An accusation without evidence is probably false.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.