Learning the talk, walking the talk

Compare

"What you're doing is really shitty"   (frank, very colloquial but often considered offensive and/or vulgar)

with

"What you're doing is inappropriate"  (stilted but less offensive)


Obviously many if not most people don't normally say the second, in casual conversation.

If you can provoke a person to say the first, in a workplace situation or under certain other circumstances, you can use it against them, combined with other strategies.


At the [downtown Seattle] YMCA since Cynthia Klever came on board, you learn not honesty but how to play the game.  How to milk things for your advantage.  

You also learn that respect derives from power.  Whoever has more power than another forces and obtains respect.   

These are the unwritten rules of the downtown Seattle YMCA that are not posted on the walls.

Kyle, the former director, was upright.  I didn't know him well, mostly just by name.  The other directors in the 14 years I was a member I didn't even really have any contact with.  

I won't say that Cynthia is a bat from Hell in my opinion, even if I think it.