Politely Saying No
The cluster focuses on advice and debates about effectively rejecting requests or saying 'no' in professional and social contexts, emphasizing directness over passive-aggressive responses.
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what can you do to stop it from overly agreeing with you? any tactics that worked?
Stop being passive-aggressive and explain what you wanted to say, maybe you will notice you are wrong.
Still an asshole passive-aggressive move, for a few years now I just learned to say "I'm sorry, I can't take a look" in an assertive but friendly tone, no one pushed it further and I don't have to be acting all bitchy because I didn't stand up for myself.I recommend this approach much more.
What's wrong with just saying "no"?
"OK, thanks." then go back to whatever else you were doing. Your example at least makes it sound like this person is actually seeking a confrontation of some sort, so just remove that as an option.Alternately, "let me know when you decide how to handle it."Or maybe that person is using you for rubber duck debugging[0] and you're not fulfilling your part, in which case buy him a rubber duck.[0] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_d
Why not just say a firm "no"!
See that leading with a "No." thereThat's what we're talking about. I hope you don't have direct reports.Next time be honest "Just shut the conversation down, everyone's a dumbass, I'm right, you're dumb" it'll be quicker than all this back and forth actually trying to get to a stable middle ground :)
Friendly advice: get better at saying "no".
Ugh this is such passive aggressive behavior. Just tell him no, and why, so he can communicate clearly with his customer.
He said he'd prefer not to. There's no harm in my gentle persuasion. If you're getting frustrated at a natural human interaction, maybe you need to step back and figure out a better way to handle that frustration.