Taco toppings*

Every morning before we walk the little loco to school, my husband and I sit down together for 10-20 minutes and drink our coffee. Sometimes we chat about the world. Sometimes I do the Wordle and he reads stuff about college football. Sometimes we just enjoy the opportunity to finish a complete thought or sentence (#parenthood). On a good morning, we get into the chisme.

Chisme = one of my favorite Spanish words. The literal translation is “gossip” but not in the way we think about it. Chisme doesn’t have the same negative connotation as gossip. Asking someone, “What’s the chisme?” means you want to know what’s happening with them. It’s a catchall way to ask friends and family what’s going on in their lives and if they have news or good stories to share. When I lived in Ireland you would ask “what’s the craic?” (pronounced crack) to get the same information. It is a conversation where tea is spilled and dirt is dished. Chisme sessions can also include venting frustrations/general bitching about particular individuals (and situations). If you want to get into next level chisme I offer you this conversation opener: Guess who’s pregnant?!

I had never heard this word before I met my husband even though I took years of Spanish in college. I can ask where the discotech is located, a thing I haven't had the use for in my travels, but I never learned the Spanish actually spoken by normal people who don’t favor discotechs. People like my husband. I like that you can also be a person who is all about the chisme: chismosa/o. There are so many ways you can use it! Lately, a fruitful question during the morning coffee talk (#talkamongstyourselves) is, what’s the chisme at work? We both have a lot of balls in the air and are managing some challenging workplace relationships so the chisme is pretty good these days. I was giving a rundown of a recent meeting and describing some behavior and my husband said, “oh my mom had a saying for that!”

Le echas mucha crema a tus tacos.

I paused and mentally translated: they put too much cream on their tacos. The hell? Then he explained that it’s a way to describe someone who exaggerates/uses hyperbole/is dramatic or is arrogant/shows off/brags. This encompasses so many things so it is now clearly my new favorite phrase. I’m using it in my head for the time being but we will see how that continues to play out… Nothing we do or say at work (or anywhere really) happens in a vacuum. Putting all that cream on your tacos won’t go unnoticed and I wanted to see what kind of impact it can have at work. I headed off to the social scientists of the world to see what they could tell me and boy did I find some fun stuff.

Exaggeration, hyperbole, general dramatics: These are all similar-ish. Exaggeration is going over the top and hyperbole is being completely unrealistic while going over the top. Some of the distinctions between the two say hyperbole is only used in literature. I disagree. Whoever wrote that has never dealt with students at the end of a semester. Often I think hyperbole, exaggeration, and dramatics are used to make the person feel important. They get to tell everyone that they have a ZILLION things to accomplish. That they are absolutely DROWNING in responsibilities. This means that if you are not being CRUSHED by a literal MOUNTAIN of email, you are not as important. People who react to everyday situations with overblown responses have a high need for affect. Situations that evoke emotions are their jam because they love being in their (positive or negative) feelings. Gross. Their strong natural desire to experience emotions can cloud their cognitive decision making, causing them to focus more on the negative emotions than the positive emotions. I see a lot of this behavior as part of loud working and, in addition to simply being annoying, it actually has the opposite effect they think it does. Turns out, using hyperbole is a real credibility killer and makes you look unprofessional. It also actually fuels conflicts. This one surprised me but it totally makes sense. When someone is blowing something out of proportion the focus of the discussion ends up being the exaggeration rather than the issue at hand. This kind of exaggeration also,

Activates confirmation bias, the most insidious version of which is the bias toward not just what we believe but toward what we have said, especially toward what we have said recently. When we discard contradictory evidence to promote our prior beliefs, we are seeking a predictable and sensible world to live in. But once we have spoken on a subject, it activates a bias designed to make us feel smart and even perfect. Exaggeration in the course of conflict resolution leads to a fortress mentality.

In other words, exaggeration isn’t going to win you any arguments. Even if you are the best exaggerator the world has ever seen (#hyperbole).

Arrogance, showing off, bragging: Arrogance is being convinced of your own importance and also believing that others are much less capable (at everything). Super fun combo. Arrogance is also closely aligned with narcissism in that both are very concerned with themselves. A great distinction I saw is that arrogant people are rude while narcissists are mean. These things all also tie into a tendency to show off or brag. Interestingly, some of the things I read talked about all of these behaviors being based in fear and insecurity. People who act this way need attention and want to be liked but weirdly do not actually want to be your friend; they just want to win. Arrogant individuals, in particular, hate the idea that someone might be better at something than they are. As much of a bummer as living with that fear sounds, it doesn’t excuse acting like a total ass hat. I think it’s important not to confuse arrogance with confidence. Confident people are open to listening to input from others. Arrogant people do not care what you think because, as mentioned earlier, you don’t actually know as much as them. One of the really frustrating things about arrogance is that this trash behavior is often rewarded; especially in business. No matter how many studies show that things like humility and empathy are key to being successful, the Elon Musks of the world are still praised. It’s maddening. 

This reminded me of the Dunning Kruger Effect; a truly delightful concept. I guarantee you have seen this in action and engaged in it yourself a time or two. The idea is that sometimes (often?) we think we know more than we do. We overestimate our competence even though we don’t actually know what the hell we are talking about. It is described as being ignorant of your own ignorance. I saw this a lot in grad school when doctoral candidates hit the classroom for the first time. They had barely read the material before presenting it to 30+ undergrads but FELT like they knew what they were talking about by virtue of being admitted into a doctoral program. They did not. In most cases it took students asking questions they couldn’t answer to make them realize this.** They then started on the long path to grown up mountain where it is ok to admit we don’t know everything.

So what do we do with these people who think they are the cat’s pajamas but are really just a bunch of turkeys? How do we counteract all of this? I went in search of some answers and some of them surprised me. For example, the suggestion of giving unexpected rewards and praise to manage a show off. I assumed that would just feed into their ego and make the issue worse but this suggestion is to focus on the task and not the person. Trying to put these people in their “place” is never going to work so if you acknowledge that the task was well done and not that they are good at the task shifts the emphasis away from them. If you're dealing with drama kings and queens (energy-wasting, hysterical types) don’t let yourself get sucked into their chaos. The chaos isn’t real and you don’t need to participate, you need to protect yourself in whatever way makes sense for you. One thing that can contribute to removing yourself or feeling like this behavior is personal is to consider why the person is acting this way. If you can figure out the root cause (which is likely not you) it may make it easier to deal with the situation. If you are faced with an arrogant coworker know that aggressive strategies that are driven by the desire to ‘defeat’ the other person and strategies that are designed to accommodate and tolerate arrogance or disrespect are both doomed to fail. Instead, try to ignore their hubris. I kind of love this. It’s how you deal with a kid pitching a fit or a dog being crazy when you walk in the house; you ignore the behavior. That doesn’t make the behavior justifiable but giving attention to the bad behavior just makes it worse. Another great suggestion is not to be fooled! We have all been there. Someone is really full of themself and we assume it’s competence and confidence when really it’s smoke and mirrors. Stay strong in the face of their (convincing) bullshit!

None of this behavior is fun but learning new things sure is! Next time you are faced with someone acting a fool and you need them to tone down their ridiculousness tell them not to put so much cream on their tacos. If they know the reference, I would suggest high-tailing it out of there. If they don’t know what you are talking about, tell them you are just hungry and not making sense. Then treat yourself to some actual tacos.

*Taco toppings are a very important part of the plot to one of my favorite kid’s books: Dragon’s Love Tacos. If you have a kid, know a kid, or are a kid (why are you reading this blog?!) I highly recommend it. Any author willing to use “pantsload” as a measurement of anything is ok with me!

**In other cases they have never come to this conclusion and continue to act like pompous blowhards. The grad students who became good faculty in the classroom were willing to acknowledge gaps in their knowledge and learn from them. The others (I assume) continue to make shit up rather than admitting they don’t know everything. These people usually have bad scores on ratemyprofessors.com.