Is The Word Stupid Written On My Forehead?

There's a particular team member who always seems to be on a fishing expedition whenever she and I converse. She'll make certain subtle statements of opinion, and then guage my reaction. She'll remark about a fault or a shortcoming of some member of management, one that is generally agreed upon by everyone as being true but remains unsaid, and phrase it in such a way as to evoke a response expressing frustration with the fault.

I realize that I'm not any kind of enlightened master of The Power Game, otherwise I'd be an executive VEEP by now, but even a sales floor doofus like me can recognize a trap like this one in a conversation. Lady, how stupid do you think I am? I mean, come on.

I always try to gracefully avoid subjects like that and move the conversation quickly to different topics. I learned from hard, bad experience long ago that anyone who pretends to be a sympathetic friend while striking up discussions about managerial faults is only out for one thing -- to stab me in the back.

Homie don't play that.

A couple of years ago I had some training in conversational hypnosis, for a sales position I held at that time. Right now I'm working on formulating some responses to those fishing expeditions that will use the person's energies against them.

In the words of comedian Ralphie May, "sometimes you just gotta 'Tai Chi' these things" -- redirect your oponent's strength and use it to defeat them.