Behaviour: Ghosting, in corporate life and personal

We talk this week about Ghosting - the practice of abruptly ending all communication and avoiding contact with someone—typically in dating, friendships, or the workplace—without warning or explanation.

It feels awful when it happens to you because you never know whay.

Is it ever OK to ghost? You be the judge.

Have a question, a comment, or want to find out more? go to https://www.beabetteryou.ca/

Podcast thoughtfully produced by https://www.isleofsound.ca/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is Straight Up Talk with Sharon and Peter. We are both proud Brits and Canadians. This is a no-nonsense weekly podcast about people, life, leadership and all sorts of stuff. We don't always agree. I'm Sharon Jones, business owner of Be A Better You, Developing Better Managers and Leaders, and this is Peter Johnson, my husband. Over to you, Peter.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hi, I'm Pete Johnson. I'm a market trader, owner of Moverman Traders, and I buy and sell almost anything, mainly ladies' fashion wear.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Okay, yes, which is where I get most of my clothing. Thank you for that, Peter. So this week we're going to be talking into a human behaviour, which is one that we've often talked about and it drives us both nuts. And the topic is ghosting. So I'll go first with my experience from my background. Ghosting is that situation where somebody just ceases and desists calling you, responding to you, or anything. And it's incredibly frustrating. First time it happened to me several years ago, actually, just after we came back to Canada, I was trying to get some new business. I was talking to a VP of a big company and I went in to see him. We sat down talking about kind of leadership programs that he'd done. He was very interested in what I delivered for somebody else, and he asked, Can you make a proposal for me, recommendation? I was really excited. I don't know if you remember this specifically. I came home and like, yay, this is.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah, I remember it, yeah. We was living up in Cold Water.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

That's right. So I put the proposal together. I had some questions like three days later, and and I called him and no reply. I emailed him, no response. I called his secretary, no reply. It's like, what is going on here? He's asked me specifically to do something for him. I've spent time doing this. We agreed that I was going to come back on Friday with my proposal, and all of a sudden, nothing. Now the guy wasn't dead, I know that for sure, because he was still active on LinkedIn. I saw that. I called up his assistant when she answered there would always be some vague, oh, I'll get him to call you back. I never heard back from that guy.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Really? Absolutely no. I thought he called you like like No.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

No, he didn't at all. So and it's become more prevalent, I think, across all levels of communication. So I've got my own thoughts on it. But Peter, your experience.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Well, I had a recent example of um selling on marketplace, and this happens quite often. But I had this um this uh lady contact me about a swimming pool um uh machine that I was selling. A pump? A pump, yeah, but like a filter filters out all the crap, you know, from the pool. And um it was stashed away in the garage somewhere, and she made an inquiry and she says, Oh, I'm really interested in your pump. We agreed on the price, and I was like, Yeah, now I need to go and get it, because it was back of the garage. So I went in there, climbed over everything, moved about 10 things out so I could get to it, cleaned it up, made it ready for sale, and um went back online and she's messaging me still, she's still interested, and she's coming over and where do I live? Gave her the address. Uh I'll be there in an hour, I'm only in Haggersville. I'll be there in you know 45-50 minutes. Got it all out, cleaned it all up, sat there waiting, twiddling me thumbs for like three, four hours. Went back online, messaged, are you coming for it, or are you still interested? Nothing at all. And even to this day she's not even bothered to message.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Did she see your message? Because you can tell couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, she saw the messages almost straight away.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

And decided not to respond to it.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah, but for whatever reason she's you know, if she if she's decided that she's not interested and she's or she's found a somewhere more local, she doesn't want to make the journey, I can understand that. But it takes two seconds to say, you know what, I've changed my mind, uh sorry for messing you around or whatever. But she didn't she didn't even reply. And to this day she's not the the the message page is still open.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

But that's not the first time that's happened to you.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

No, it happens a lot, it happens a lot, especially on Facebook marketplace.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Why do you think it happens?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

I think you think 'cause everyone that has access now to the internet. Most people uh most people have a a laptop and they have Wi-Fi and that they they it's a good is it is a good place to buy and sell, don't get me wrong. I've sold thousands of things on it, you know. And um so it it's an easy it you know, most people can use it easily enough. It's it's not difficult to list something and you know and and to uh show your interest and then you inquire about it and you agree a price and then you swap swap phone numbers and addresses and what have you, and it and it's a good place. It's a and it's free service at the moment anyway.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yeah, but why do people not respond, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

I have no idea. I don't I don't understand it because me personally I w I I uh I wouldn't do it. I would if I i i if I found something cheaper and I didn't have to travel a an hour to get it, I would say, you know what, I found I found a guy around the corner in Dunville, I'm gonna go and buy his.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

So what's interesting about that is you're talking about your own values. What what you value is the fact that you would always get back to somebody because you think it's it's the polite and the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

As far as I'm aware, I've never ghosted on marketplace ever. I've always if if I've changed my mind, doesn't often happen, but if I do change my mind, I just say, you know, I've I've I've I've had a change of mind, I'm not gonna come for it. And uh, if you manage to sell it to somebody else, good luck.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I think what's interesting about that is in my view, and you I think you hit the nail on the head in that it's much easier for people to do it these days. Definitely. So the price of entry is very low, the barrier is very low, and I think sometimes, from a psychological point of view, in those situations, people think they want something and it makes them feel better about themselves that maybe they can afford something or whatever. They tell you, yes, I'm coming for it. I don't actually know why they then don't follow through or tell you because no consequences, that's a hundred percent why it comes down to that there are no consequences, and there probably never were, but it's not how we were brought up, especially it you and I have very different backgrounds. I'm from a corporate background, you're from or your market trader background, very different, but you've always been very polite, we've got very similar values. So, corporate ghosting, it's there's all kinds of topics going on around on LinkedIn at the moment because right now there's a lot of people who are being let go, a lot of old people, strangely enough, because probably people think cost, and they are complaining about being ghosted in the recruitment process, and recruiters are complaining about candidates who are also ghosting, so it's like there's a pandemic of ghosting, and it's such a uh a behaviour that really rubs up against me. But I know that we've just recently been through a situation with some people who were friends of ours, and we've ghosted them, and we've ghosted them. So why don't we be terrible? Well, why don't you talk about your perspective and we'll explain why?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Um okay, so yeah, cut uh a couple we used to see quite a bit of, and um yeah. Uh we went out one time and uh it it was okay, and then uh we arranged a few more times to go out and have beers and I I didn't really get much from the evening. I didn't think uh you know the the couple were you know, w we just didn't inju I just stopped enjoying g being in their company and then um on one occasion uh just by chance we happened to meet uh meet meet the guy down the pub and um he said something to me which really made me uh I don't know if I can say it, can I probably not probably shouldn't say it, no. But I just you know I just made my mind up there and then that this you know if I this is the last time I'm gonna share any time with this guy. I just don't like him enough to spend any time with him. And uh unfortunately um he hasn't quite got the message yet. I I still get messages from him saying, Oh well, let's go and meet for a beer and blah blah blah, and you know, and so my way my way really uh uh to to deal with it at the moment is just a ghosting. I I haven't you know I haven't replied to him and said oh I've given him the reason, I just haven't replied.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

And we have had that actually with with a a different a different couple where one of them kept trying to create, oh let's go out, we must go out. And ultimately, I was trying to be nice about it, we can't make it this day. Because although we both believe in being direct, what we don't want to do is is say something that's gonna need n needlessly hurt somebody else. So, in these situations, from a personal point of view, you don't want to hurt somebody. And do you really tell them? So, in one situation we did, she kept asking me, Let's meet up, and you said to me, make me the excuse. So I did. I said, Yeah, it's not gonna happen. I had to be quite direct here, had to say it's not gonna happen because um Peter doesn't like your husband, and that pretty much I remember that there, yeah. So I I felt a bit of a ass saying it, but it was true, and I didn't know there was any pretty way of of of saying it.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

There isn't.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

There isn't.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

No.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

And then there's an I mean I don't know what this is saying about us right now, but there's that the other couple who every now and again she keeps and it's a different couple, keeps coming back up asking, and I don't want to say, look, you drive us nuts. We don't so I'm not ghosting them.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

But you just hope that they get the message. Yeah, get the message, yeah. They yeah. The one day the pen is gonna drop.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

So if and if and I always say if they ask specifically, then I will be specific and give them, but I'll try not to be painful about it. But I know that ghosting is not it doesn't feel good no matter who you are or why you're doing it. But I think the other challenge is when it happens to you, you don't know why, because you can only guess the cause from the other person. Whereas when you're the one who's doing it, you might know the reason and you don't specifically want to tell them. But I think it's and especially going back to difference between corporate and personal, from a corporate point of view, I'm trying to this guy had asked me to create this proposal. I spent time in that. Luckily for me, um I That's bad. It is bad, but I didn't send it. I didn't and knew enough to not say, okay, I'm gonna send it anyway just to see, because if he wasn't invested in me enough to give me some response right now, there's no way I'm gonna send him my thinking, my proprietary information for him to look at and use and not even respond back to me. Yeah, and it's it still happens, you know. It's kind of kind of funny. You you make a connection on on LinkedIn and you tell them why you're connecting with them, and you say, I'm gonna contact you to ask if we can set up a meeting, and then you do, they don't respond, but that's just how that's just how business is, I think. Um so from a behavioural point of view, let's ask, I'm gonna ask you what is we have a brutally honest takeaway of the week for each topic. So, Peter, for you, what is your brutally honest takeaway about ghosting?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Well, for me, it's I like to keep it simple and um I mean having just told you the story about us not you know, or me not being particularly bothered about meeting up with these couple again, it makes uh you know it sounds like I'm a bit of a hypocrite now, but um you know, keeping it simple, the there there's two kinds of people in this world people that take their uh trolley back to the store, you know, return the cart, the shopping cart, and there's and uh there's people that don't. And you can say the same about ghosting, there's people that do it and will continue to do it, and there's people that just don't.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

I always love that analogy, and you've used that before. People who take their supermarket trolley back because there's nobody watching, there are no consequences if you don't. We take our supermarket trolleys back, but we know some people are saying now there are people out there who are paid to do it, but for us that's a bit abhorrent. We take our supermarket trolley back, even though there's no consequence if we don't, and ghosting for the most part, unless there's a a reason, we don't tend to do it. So, my takeaway is um just because there are no consequences to ghosting, it doesn't mean that you have free reign to do it.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So, well, thank you for listening, everyone. If you want more information on anything that we've talked about, my website is beabetteru.ca, and this week's podcast has been thoughtfully produced by Isle of Sounds.