"Not Disagreeing" and "Agreeing" are Two Different Things
Raymond Chen's blog oldnewthing is one of my favorites. My work copy of Outlook 2007 pulls down his posts every day and I read them religiously.
One of his posts today struck me as interesting just because of how it pertained to my blog post I had just finished writing before I read his. Here's the relevant portion of his post:
This is a sneaky trick that people try to pull occasionally. They'll say something while I happen to be present (either physically in person or virtually by adding me to an email conversation) and see what my reaction is. If I don't say anything, then they assume that I agree with whatever it is they said.
Just to make it official: Just because you say something in my presence and I don't raise an objection doesn't mean that I agree. I can usually tell when people are trying to pull this stunt and I refuse to play along.
I tried to think back over the number of times this has happened to me - both in the office and while I was in the settings that produced my previous post. I'd just have to say its a lot. Some of it stems from having been so vocal for years in one of those settings (not the office setting). People got used to me speaking my mind, so if I don't, then I must agree, right? Well, no.
Raymond says he sometimes doesn't say anything because he's not playing along. That's a valid reason for keeping quiet when you disagree. But it's not usually the reason for me. For me it tends to be "letting them learn on their own." I use this tactic when I've voiced my disagreement in the past (but perhaps not recently enough for those around me to remember) and now I choose to be able to say "I told you so."
That might sound a bit mean... but that's really not how it is intended. You'd have to understand the setting. Think about it like telling your little brother not to touch the oven because it's hot. After you do it a few times and he keeps trying, you might let him touch it - just for a second* - so he learns his lesson. That too, is my reasoning here.
* - Note that I don't advocate letting your little brother burn himself. This can be done by turning the oven way down to a safe temperature, but one that will still startle the kid. Perhaps it was a bad example. But it made sense to me. I'll probably end up smacking myself in the forehead for having written this when I have kids and prefer not to have them burn their little fingers...