Smirking in Meetings
Smirking in Meetings
(OP)
I was in a fairly serious meeting yesterday, and one of my esteemed coworkers seemed to be smirking constantly and inappropriately throughout the meeting. I've never met the guy before, so I don't know whether his face always looks like that, but to me it seemed that he was going to giggle out loud at any second. It looked as though somebody was whispering dirty jokes in his ear the whole time. We were discussing a potentially serious product issue with an extremely short window for resolution. Anyone else ever seen this sort of thing before?
It's my impression that regularly giving the wrong body signals will be in impediment to ones progress.
It's my impression that regularly giving the wrong body signals will be in impediment to ones progress.





RE: Smirking in Meetings
Wes C.
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Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."
Steven K. Roberts, Technomad
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Of course you're not, but I was smirking in a meeting the other day. Sometimes meetings are just impossible.
Sometimes it's just too hard to sit through a meeting and not think about how Dilbert-like the discussion is.
Sometimes I feel like an anthropologist observing another culture and trying to figure it out.
Sometimes I feel like a psychiatrist trying to analyze what a person is really thinking or fearing, and not really stating outloud.
Sometimes I feel like a neurologist trying to diagnose which part of a person's brain must be impaired.
And, sometimes I am the paranoid basket case in a meeting, because I'm realizing "Oh No! the consensus is making the worst decision possible, and it'll be up to me to implement it!
RE: Smirking in Meetings
You said on your post that your “esteemed coworker” behaves inappropriately?
And then you said you’ve never met him before?
Was the meeting really important? Or it was one of those bla, bla, and bla meetings? If so maybe the guy was still laughing about the last joke he was told
luis
RE: Smirking in Meetings
But maybe we should ask if the meeting was as important to mike's colleague as it was to mike himself.
Wes C.
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Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I work with several people with strange nervous twitches. Drives me crazy!
Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Good luck,
Latexman
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
There's the crux of the matter - if he didn't understand the importance of the meeting (my interpretation of his expressions) then somebody a step or two up his chain of command is probably overdue for some redirection. If he DID understand its importance, then what the heck did he find so funny about it?
esteemed... you've never met him before
The company I work for has LOTS of engineers. This guy sits in a different building than I do. He is, from what I gather, well regarded within his own circles.
I've gotten feedback on multiple occasions that my facial expressions and body language indicate frustration with the conversation at hand... that's not always what I'm trying to get across... I've been advised that I should avoid appearing frustrated, even when people JUST DON'T FRIGGEN GET IT. It's a related difficulty.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
If it's a serious thing to you, Why not ask? It's ok to be frank with people about their behavior, I know I do things that other people have asked to be clarified. If it's not a big enough deal to ask, then let it go. Maybe he heard a great joke that day and couldn't get it out of his head.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
You could couch it as something more like, "It appeared that you had some unvoiced concerns at the meeting we had. I'd like to address them if you're willing."
TTFN
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Not to be contentious, but it sounds like your problem. You just need to get over it. Who cares, stay on task.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Is yours the kind of place with a lot of politics. Not everyone is up front etc?
If so then Kontiki99 he may well have something to worry about.
At my latest place learning to understand what isn't said is vital for this reason.
Ken
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Did he drop his pencil a lot?
Charlie
www.facsco.com
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Brian
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I was my company's sole onsite representative for a very contentious machine problem that was costing the customer lots of money per day. Over the course of three weeks' investigation using Six Sigma methods, I proved the major cause was due to the customer's own people & processes. They fought this notion tooth and nail, but I ultimately proved it through patient experimentation and data analysis and took them from 35% scrap to 0%. But every day we had to have a conference call across two continents and three companies with High Level Managers attending. The very first day I was in the Plant Manager's office with him, the Tech Services Mgr, and the Mfg Engr for the process. During the course of the conference call, the Plant Mgr was screaming at the phone, and all three of the customers were smirking, rolling their eyes, chuckling under their breath, etc., in response to discussions from my company's engineers, managers, and salesmen. Very inappropriate, unprofessional, and disrepectful behavior that had no place in this very serious situation. When I was asked for my opinion on a particular point, I started my response by saying, for all to hear, "Well, I am having to endure a lot of smirking, eye rolling, and other unprofessional behavior in this room, but I think blah blah blah."
Gutsy, maybe foolish, move on my part in retrospect. But it shut those clowns up and exposed the situation I had to endure every day. I joined the remaining conference calls from my car in the parking lot every day after that. After it was all settled and done, I got praise from the Parent Company's Director of Purchasing and a "pat on the back" bonus from my president. Now that same Jerk Plant Mgr likes it when I show up at his site.
Two morals: (1) don't judge too quickly, that is the job of Someone Else. (2) Stay professional always. You will be remembered for a few years for grace under pressure, but no one will know or care in a hundred years.
Besides, it's just work.
TygerDawg
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I didn't respond to Mr Smirky's behavior, nor would I have if I was a speaker in the meeting. It's up to him to look good or bad on his own. This is often a "political" place, but my position w/respect to this particular issue is not one that gives me great concern.
My goal in mentioning the event here was not to solicit advice about how I could better handle the specific past event, or future ones like it, but to start a discussion about the importance of making sure that one's body language sends the right message.
I gather that gossiping about possible intentions is the natural course of the thread in this forum, so have fun with it. Maybe he was delighted to see the object of his conspiracies come to fruition. The world may never know.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
The way I see it, it doesn’t matter what the political environment is.
I think trying to read peoples minds is a waste of time.
Forming false impressions and obsessing about what might be going on with other people is a loosing game.
If you stay focused on the work at hand, and do it in good faith and that's the best you can do.
If that’s not enough, so be it.
If the firm you work for profits from your work, they should reward you to keep you there.
If they play games by testing your willingness to leave or accept substandard wages or conditions, get your ducks in a row and leave.
If they loose money on your work, you need to be fired or relocated to a position you can handle.
If people just don’t like you, who cares? Get a dog!
You need to keep your skill set up and your finances in order so that you don't become a slave to worrying about every one in the office with an attitude or an odd looking face.
I respect the abilities of my co-workers and they are nice enough people, but beyond common humanitarian concerns, I don’t really care too much about what’s going on with most of them. The chances are, they have some problems I’m glad I don’t have and assets I wish I had.
I like my job, but my decision to go there every morning is driven by the fact they pay me. They keep renewing the two week contracts, giving me raises and treating me fairly with regard to training, promotion opportunities and time off.
If they stop, I reevaluate the situation.
End of story. Why make it hard?
RE: Smirking in Meetings
LewTam Inc.
Petrophysicist, Leading Hand, Natural Horseman, Prickle Farmer, Crack Shot, Venerable Yogi.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
corus
RE: Smirking in Meetings
luis
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Don't worry with him.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Sometimes I would win, sometimes I would have to buy the coffee.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Exactly, this must have been the reason, the guy was just desparately trying to entertain himself during the completely useless exercise.
Of course this behaviour is "impardonnable", what I do is either just not go, or if forced to, take something to read with me (there's always plenty). A coworker of mine takes his laptop with him and happily fires emails while the others are struggling along (the whole building is wifi) but IMHO it's pretty close to insubordination.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
To get back to the point of your thread I'm inclined to agree that giving inappropriate body language probably isn't going to further your career.
That said any kind of inappropriate behavior probably won’t help, unless it’s something like sleeping with the boss, which even then I suspect often back fires.
Trouble is sometimes working out what is or isn’t appropriate behavior can be difficult and can vary with the environment.
Ken
RE: Smirking in Meetings
For Comcokid.. when are you going to start working at my office so you can crack my arse up in person? Dude your response was a riot..they heard me laughing all the way down the hall here.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
We had all of the engineering dept in a conf room.
The eng dir was talking showing us something on the overhead from his laptop.
My coworker fell asleep, his head went back and turned off ALL power to the room! All attention went to him them me because I burst out laughing. Only two of us knew his daily habits.
Chris
Systems Analyst, I.S.
SolidWorks 06 4.1/PDMWorks 06
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 06-21-06)
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Working as a RF and analog engineer, I deal with many design issues that are non-linear and somewhat hidden from immediate analysis.
That's why meetings are so interesting. It's similar to a design challenge!
RE: Smirking in Meetings
-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!
RE: Smirking in Meetings
had drunk his dinner.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
He might have been picturing the moment when he gets to say "I told you so".
Not a pleasant attitude, but I've worked with folks like that.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Smirking Judge
RE: Smirking in Meetings
It seems the only way to get a message through to certain people (unless you are their supervisor)is to patiently and repeatedly remind them what youv'e said until they realize you aren't going to stop until they get it done.
Trying to force people that don't work for you to do things is a great way to get headaches.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
never EVER give people with odd traits nicknames i.e. Mr Smirky.
You just know that one day you'll end up calling them by their nickname at the very worst moment imaginable...!
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go past." Douglas Adams
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I once had a customer who appeared to be angry at our meetings. Then one day, I asked him what his thoughts were and I realized he actually was very happy with our work. We finally concluded that he had a nervous twitch.
Finally, you may want to ask yourself, why are his reactions bothering you. You see, things like this happen all the time, you don't need to let them affect you.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
TTFN
RE: Smirking in Meetings
You’re wrong about engineers not being able to evaluate behavior. You just need more than a one-time smirking event to make a determination of any meaning.
I am currently writing up a report that address how personality conflicts among the contractor's field engineers and the architect's representatives had a direct impact on a construction defect case. It’s fun because I get to use words and phases I don’t normally write in a technical report like, acerbic, indelicate, hard-boiled, fired for undefined inappropriate behavior, dogmatic, punishing, fresh-faced farm kids. In this particular case, the personality conflicts resulted in about $20-$40 million in added costs, and the major repairs have not even been started.
Ivymike, I’d keep an eye on this guy, especially if he can affect an outcome that would resolve the original purpose of the discussion. Sometimes you have to trust a gut reaction.
"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"
RE: Smirking in Meetings
You have something against goats?
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Gee whiz, thanks for the brilliant advice. I never thought of it that way! Maybe I was too busy forming false impressions and obsessing about what other people might be thinking...
I was hoping to discuss whether "regularly giving the wrong body signals will be in impediment to ones progress." The answer seems to be "of course not, that would be unfair! Nobody would ever form a negative opinion of someone just because of their body language - what do you think that guy was thinking? I'll bet he had gas. Maybe he was a real weasel. I'd keep an eye on him. He might be up to no good, and maybe he's playing corporate politics to his advantage. You probably shouldn't assume anything though. I wonder what he had up his sleeve. Maybe you'll get lucky and somebody will fire him before he does whatever he's planning."
It's good to hear that the body language is nothing to worry about, though. I'll just go right on looking frustrated all the time, since it clearly won't give anyone the wrong impression.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Was Mr. Smirk smirking at you directly, or did he project a more general smirk in all directions?
Although I do not think engineers are very good at objectively analyzing the behaivor of others, I see nothing wrong with forming opinions about those who act a little "strange". When I encounter strange behaivor in others (that isn't alcohol induced), its very common for me to think to myself: "What a fruitloop", or "Wonder if that guy knows he's an a**hole?", etc...
I do believe that sending the wrong body signals (active or passive) will impede progress. Progress is not only slowed for the individual, but for all parties involved. For example, we have a client representative who has the strangest hair du I've ever seen. If fact, the hair cut is so odd, that I refuse take the guy seriously. His appearance is so distracting that I consider it offensive (and therefore inapropreite and unprofessional). I suppose its begs the question to some degree in assuming that odd behaivor/appearance is representative of one's ability to "engineer"... but I certainly don't loose any sleep thinking that way.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I think it's good to stay aware of how external factors will tend to align the motives of others with and against your own goals, but I wouldn't be casual about assuming the worst. I see it as more of a risk management exercise.
Your own frame of reference plays a huge role.
Perceptions of others filtered through an acute sensitivity to your own insecurities and weaknesses may leave you feeling intimidated or assaulted when in fact you are irrelevant to invisible.
So many people in the workplace are insecure and seem to need constant reassurance. It’s tedious and almost nauseating how immature some people behave out of their own feelings of weakness or inferiority.
I usually don't feel intimidated or insecure. In earlier times, the worst things that could have happened did. I survived them all. I also learned to be fairly tough despite the fact I'm now a middle aged fat guy.
The reality is that any sense of security is probably an illusion anyway. You can be fired at any time and if you are, so what..
There are times I wish the entire office would go take a karate class or something.
Expecting a workforce to be mature in a culture of people are raised by a media dominated society that markets everything through personal anxiety is probably unrealistic. Most of these problems would go away if your management was keeping you busy.
Really busy people don’t have time for their immature indulgences.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I was told about it from a high school friend's mother that was a substitute teacher so the name may have been made up by her.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I didn't have any interaction with him during the meeting- I was just waiting in the room in case they needed any further info or support from my organization, which they didn't. Given my very limited role in the meeting, I had plenty of time to watch and listen to what others were up to, which is how I noticed his odd-seeming behavior. My impression was that he was tickled pink to be asked to help resolve "someone else's" problem. I was a bit peeved that he didn't seem to comprehend that a problem of this kind could (potentially) significantly affect profitability of the company as a whole (my job as well has his). I figured that if he'd had a bit of a poker face, and gave the impression that he was accepting the new assignment with full knowledge of its importance and gravity, that his efforts would be better received and perhaps better rewarded in the end. I can certainly imagine that an mid/upper manager wouldn't want to put up with a "smirking non-supervisory miscreant" while asking for help with a career-limiting problem.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I have found myself giving off unintended signals. I try to keep in mind that I need to send the same message with:
my actions
my words
my tone (inflection)
my body language (posture and eyes)
My tone tends to betray me the most. My voice pitch tends to go up if I am impatient, irritated, or mad, even reassuring calm words (my intended message) are coming out of my mouth.
My wife is a big eye-roller. She doesn't do it on purpose but I can always tell when she disagrees with someone. For her it's an unconscious thing although most people never roll their eyes unless they do it on purpose. I have tried to tell her that it is just a tad rude to folks at times... she just says "ok" and rolls here eyes at me.
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RE: Smirking in Meetings
I read about this in a "Communication Matters" book by Deborah Tannen. Then very next week I hear my boss talk to a new employee in a very strict tone about something that the guy should get done. The new guy is so very Asian that I cannot understand his English. All I can hear is that he giggles and smirks in response to what he is told.
The boss raises and then deepens his voice. Says that he is not joking. Gives him a long lecture on the importance of the task, then while winding down seeks his response. The guy giggles!
A few minutes pass, the boss is still talking, now angrily. Tells him that he is dead serious. After another long explanation of the same topic he starts walking away, saying that he would be back to check on the guy's progress. He almost leaves, but then turns his head back to look at the guy. The guy giggles in response! LOL!!!
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
I know it may be disturbing, distracting, you name it.
This forum has touched on a number of legitimate reasons why he might have behaved the way he did. Cultural, health Etc.
He might have had a touch of indigestion. Offer him Maalox (I am the one who knows) and move on.
Putting Human Factor Back in Engineering
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Smirking in Meetings
And the "latest guy to jump on the wrong wagon award" goes to... VeryPicky.
You see, the point was supposed to be that being aware of these things in your own behavior might make you less likely to suffer the consequences, regardless of how appropriate you think the consequences might be... but lots of people believed, perhaps because of their own predilections, that the point was to pick on smirky. I say that this thread pretty well (and somewhat ironically) proves that one's behavioral oddities cannot be safely ignored.
Then again, maybe everyone at your office will ignore your body language because they're much more mature and far less insecure than the crowd we found here. Go ahead, bet on it.
RE: Smirking in Meetings
What are the odds you're offering?
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Actually, I like goats. They're kinda cute and I LOVE goat cheese anything.
But back to body language. It occurs to me as I read post after post that many people, including myself, may not be aware of their own body language. Unless you are routinely filmed or photographed, how do you become aware of your own body language quirks? I'd say I've had the experience of seeing photo after photo of myself dancing, and being evaluated in performance workshops, where other dancers give you their critique, but I would have no idea how I look during meetings. It's probably not as easy as simply thinking to myself, 'I must not smirk, no matter how much I hate this freaking job.’
It’s pretty hard to change a habit. I know I look down too much during performance, but I’ve had a very hard time changing that, even after seeing photo after photo of great shots of my eyelids!
So, just a thought......
"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"
RE: Smirking in Meetings
TTFN
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Smirking in Meetings
RE: Smirking in Meetings
TTFN
RE: Smirking in Meetings
Of course you know I was just being overly technical.
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Smirking in Meetings
It is our own insecurity that makes us seek weeknesses in others. If we were more mature and secure we would look for strengths and build on them. My life has been devoted to find such a team - synergistic. Unsuccesfully so far. Instead, I tend to fall in dog pits most of the time. And guess what? After a while I usually find tempted to bark with them, what is easier than that?
Putting Human Factor Back in Engineering
RE: Smirking in Meetings
If several people are jumping on the wrong bandwagon it might be because your original post did not clearly specify what was the main topic of discussion (i.e. you may have unintentionally lead them towards the wrong bandwagon).
Now you mentioned, “I've gotten feedback on multiple occasions that my facial expressions and body language indicate frustration with the conversation at hand... that's not always what I'm trying to get across... I've been advised that I should avoid appearing frustrated, even when people JUST DON'T FRIGGEN GET IT. It's a related difficulty.”
It is not easy to talk to someone who “does not get it”. Many times, this happens when two people have different styles of communication. Frequently no one is to blame, but trying to understand the other person and their communication style does help.
I don’t want to start discussing communication styles here. It would be better to do a new post on this topic. On that note, best wishes and good luck.