Member-only story
Nodding : A Software Engineer’s Secret Weapon
Avoid notice, seem knowledgable, all whilst paying as little attention as possible.
I’ve come to cultivate many super-secret habits over the years I’ve been involved in the grand game of software engineering. Some of them, naturally, must accompany me to my grave¹, but others are so important and effective that I feel it’s time I began to pass them on to trusted fellow progressives.
I mentioned in a previous article as to how software engineering can be treated as a game of strategy in order to retain one’s sanity and continue progression through the field, all whilst keeping your brain intact and your soul (mostly) untarnished.
Winning the game, in this case, is getting what you want and being intellectually alive enough and reputationally intact enough to enjoy the spoils while you’re sane.
Consider my super-secret habits to be moves in the this grand game akin to opening moves in chess perhaps, or a longer more flexible strategy to counter management types who’ve been accredited with ‘soft skills’ and ‘conflict management’.
Aside: To developers, a manager advertising their certificate in ‘Conflict Management’ is like painting a big red target on their back. It always ends in tears.
Today’s choice move is the act of nodding, the gently rhythmic bowing of the head whilst optionally engaging eye contact with a specific nearby person for emphasis.
Nodding is most effective during meetings but can also be used to convey opinions and mood in a variety of situations including in-office in-person scenarios or even to disrupt or take over video calls.
Nodding During a Meeting
A long time ago, but disappointingly in this galaxy, I learned quite a few interesting things from a rather large telecommunications company² regarding meetings that have served me well over the years.
The most important of these is to have an agenda for any meeting.
Many people resist this, usually managers as they have little interest in actually having to make a decision (or have a definite outcome from any human interaction) but I’ve found that it really separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes to…
