Our studio has been going through layoffs recently. Because the core work of every project stays in our hands, headcount has become the most direct way to control costs; one more person or one fewer person on the “production line” makes almost no difference. My wife’s assistant—who also assists me—has been anxious during this stretch. She isn’t worried about being laid off. She thinks she should go find a job and treat the work she does for us as a side gig. I wrote down what she said, because there is a lot to unpack in it.
“I don’t think the salary you pay me matches what I do for you, so I think I should find a job. I’m sure I can find something suitable quickly with my abilities, and that would also save you money.”
Let’s pull apart the causal links. There seem to be two: she wants to find a job in order to “save you money,” and she wants to find a job because “what I do isn’t worth the salary you pay me.” If we split these into objective and subjective, the problem shows up quickly. “Saving money” is an objective fact—the studio is cutting costs, which is why layoffs are happening. “The salary is too high” can also be treated as objective from her side, because she wasn’t the one who set it. Those two objective conditions produce a subjective choice: “I want to find a job.”
Obviously, using an objective condition to cause a subjective choice makes it easy to set aside responsibility for that choice—she can leave the company at that moment without any sense of guilt.
The weekend-job example
A while ago, I happened to listen in on a conversation between a husband and wife. The husband had just hung up after an interview call and turned down the invitation because the job came with only one day off per week. He explained that he didn’t want a job with a one-day weekend. The wife responded that if the pay was good, a one-day-off job would be fine; she just thought one day off did too much damage to his health.
I was a little lost, so I asked her: “Do you want your husband to find a job with two days off?”
She didn’t answer directly. She kept circling: “I want him to find a job with two days off because it’s better for his health and energy.”
“I want him to find a two-day-off job” is a subjective request. The premise—“it’s better for his health and energy”—is an objective condition. If the husband believes his body can handle one day off, he can fundamentally overturn that subjective request. Did the wife want him to find a two-day-off job? Of course she did. That was exactly what I was asking. The issue is that “I want” is a subjective request, and it should have a subjective condition as its premise.
For example, if the wife doesn’t want her husband to take a one-day-off job because she wants more weekends for the two of them to spend time together, then the “I want” makes sense. If the husband still wants the one-day-off job, he has to reckon with that principle—and, for the sake of the marriage, consider whether he should look for a two-day-off job instead.
Back to the assistant
In the assistant’s statement, the trouble is exactly there: she used an objective condition to explain a subjective choice. So we told her directly: if you feel you haven’t done work that matches your salary, then of course we have ways to increase your workload and difficulty. If that so-called fairness is achieved, would you still subjectively choose to change jobs? The logic bug appears immediately.
Using an objective condition to derive a subjective choice looks like a logical move, but it has been in our lives for a long time. Think of certain Chinese-style parents: a mother explains her financial tightness by saying, “Mom is doing this to save the good things for you; it’s all for your own good.” Or “I didn’t tell you because I was afraid you’d be unhappy.” Or “I don’t want to keep talking to you—you simply don’t understand me.” At this point you may start rolling your eyes.
The “objective conditions” look valid, but they are the person’s subjective assumptions—the mother assumes what is good for the child, the couple assumes the partner will definitely be unhappy, and the speaker assumes the other person won’t understand before anything has been explained clearly. Conversely, if the other party denies the truth of the subjective condition—the child says what the mother gives isn’t what they want, the partner says not being told is exactly what makes them unhappy, or the other person decides that the two of them should have a proper talk—the logic bug appears. To keep the formula sacred, another system starts up: the person denies the fact of the objective condition and falls right into the self-verification trap of the “objective condition.” The mother yells that the child is disobedient. The couple says, “See? See? You’re getting unhappy already.” “A proper talk? You just want to play father and lecture me.”
What to ask instead
Now you know what to do the next time you argue. When you notice someone using an objective condition to explain their subjective choice, find the subjective condition behind that choice.
The method is to ask: “What do you want me to do?” Pull them back onto their own subjective track.