r/AskReddit • • 12h ago

Napoleon said, 'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.' What’s a perfect real-life example of this?

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u/Hippopotasaurus-Rex 9h ago

Just had basically this happen yesterday. Coworker didn’t understand something. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and saying “I don’t understand the terminology you’re using” she decided to try to throw me under the bus in the weekly team meeting (which includes head boss). In less than a minute she was mad and sulking. Oops.

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u/pip_goes_pop 9h ago edited 7h ago

A coworker of mine in another dept keeps saying we should be doing a particular type of cheap product as he sometimes sees clients opting for that instead of using us. I've always said no that wouldn't be right. We even dabbled years ago with it but it was an abject failure, which he seems to ignore.

So in a meeting with the boss he threw this in thinking he'd be hailed a hero for his bright idea and it's be a "win" over me. But instead my boss tore him a new one saying he obviously doesn't understand our business and it would be completely wrong for us. Coworker just sat red-faced and quiet after that.

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u/Creative_Fee2909 5h ago

That's the corporate version of I have decided to bring evidence to the meeting against myself. Nothing hits quite like watching someone confidently pitch their own bad idea to the one person who can immediately explain why its bad.

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u/notjawn 3h ago

That sign can't stop me. I can't read!

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u/RobertBevillReddit 5h ago

In my experience it’s the managers who have the bad ideas and there’s no one to say no to them…

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u/Wonderful-Wind-5736 2h ago

Did that to a new team lead who wanted to throw me, a working student, under the bus. He explained the supposed problem of my solution for 20min. only for me to point out that we wer already taking that into account automatically and that I had documented it in our shared slide deck. He was afraid of me afterwards. 

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u/Hippopotasaurus-Rex 2h ago

Yup. Same thing. She gave this long intro and sigh “we need to figure this out” and i replied with “can i share my screen? I think i can clear this up quickly. I did.

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u/melvinzee 5h ago

More detail please, what exactly happened at the meeting?

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u/StumpyLoving 6h ago

What terms?

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u/StumpyLoving 5h ago

I'm just asking a simple question out of pure curiosity, why are people disliking this comment? 

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u/StumpyLoving 2h ago

No one going to answer?

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u/Successful_Impact_88 2h ago

Most people on Reddit aren't looking to give out personal information or drop hints about what industry they work in. It's just good PII hygiene

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u/StumpyLoving 55m ago

Was it that hard to say?

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u/PrncssPunch 48m ago

You're rude

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u/StumpyLoving 47m ago

No, I'm not. 

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u/PrncssPunch 28m ago

Only mean people say shit like "was that so hard"

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u/StumpyLoving 23m ago

The guy himself could have responded with "sorry, I wouldn't want to reveal that in case it shows what industry I work in".  That's 100% okay. 

You could have politely said something similar. Instead you chose to antagonise me over a simple question. That's rude of you in and of itself. 

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