On Clocks and Truth
Is a clock an asshole for telling you the time when you're late? The answer reveals something uncomfortable about how we receive honesty.
Nino Chavez
Principal Consultant & Enterprise Architect
I keep thinking about a clock.
Not any particular clock—just the concept. A device that shows the current time. Neutral. Factual. Completely indifferent to how you feel about what it’s showing you.
Here’s the question I can’t shake: Is a clock an asshole for telling you the time when you’re late?
The Clock’s Crime
You’re running behind. You know it, somewhere in your gut, but you haven’t confronted it yet. Then you glance at the clock.
8:47.
Your meeting started at 8:30.
Now you know. The vague anxiety crystallizes into specific failure. You’re late. Definitively, measurably late.
And for a split second—maybe longer—you resent the clock.
Not because it did anything wrong. But because it made the problem real. It took your comfortable uncertainty and replaced it with uncomfortable truth.
The clock didn’t make you late. It just made you aware that you were late. But awareness feels like an attack when you’re not ready for it.
The Messenger Problem
This is where most people who pride themselves on “brutal honesty” go wrong.
They think the clock is their defense. I’m just telling the truth. I’m just showing you the time. If you don’t like it, that’s your problem.
But here’s what they miss: the clock doesn’t have a tone.
The clock doesn’t smirk. It doesn’t sigh. It doesn’t say “8:47” with that particular inflection that means “you’re a mess.”
It just displays numbers. Neutral data. No judgment, no agenda, no satisfaction at your discomfort.
The moment you add tone—the moment you wrap facts in contempt—you stop being a clock. You become something else entirely.
The Difference
There’s a framework in management theory that maps this perfectly. Kim Scott calls it Radical Candor, but the grid itself is more useful than the label:
- Ruinous Empathy: Lying to spare feelings. Telling someone they’re on time when they’re not.
- Manipulative Insincerity: Lying to protect yourself. Avoiding the conversation entirely.
- Obnoxious Aggression: Being honest without caring. Using truth as a weapon.
- Radical Candor: Caring personally while challenging directly. The clock—but with warmth.
The clock sits in a strange place on this grid. It challenges directly with zero personal investment. That’s why it works—there’s no ego to defend, no relationship to complicate.
But humans aren’t clocks. When we deliver hard truths, we bring everything else with us.
What the Clock Gets Right
The clock teaches something worth learning: the difference between revealing a problem and creating one.
When you’re direct with someone—when you say “this isn’t working” or “you missed the mark” or “that deadline is gone”—you’re not causing the failure. You’re making it visible.
The failure already existed. It was just hidden.
I’ve spent years in rooms where everyone knew something was broken, but nobody would name it. Projects running behind schedule that everyone described as “on track.” Teams in conflict that leadership called “collaborative.” Strategies failing in real-time that kept getting funded because admitting failure felt worse than continuing.
The clock doesn’t play those games. 8:47 is 8:47. The meeting started at 8:30. These are facts, and they don’t require your approval.
What We Add
The problem is that most “honest” people aren’t actually being clocks. They’re being critics.
The clock says: 8:47.
The critic says: You’re late again. Classic. Can’t even manage a simple meeting time.
Same information. Completely different function.
I’ve caught myself doing this. Wrapping a legitimate observation in just enough edge that it lands as a judgment instead of data. Telling myself I was being direct when I was really being dismissive.
The clock doesn’t need you to feel bad about being late. It just needs you to know what time it is.
The Reception Problem
Here’s the uncomfortable flip side: sometimes people resent the clock even when it’s behaving perfectly.
You deliver neutral data. No judgment, no tone, just facts. And they still react like you attacked them.
That’s not your fault. But it’s still your problem.
Because here’s what I’ve learned: being right doesn’t mean being effective. You can be the most accurate clock in the world, and if no one looks at you, you’re not actually helping anyone navigate reality.
The goal isn’t to be defensible. It’s to be useful.
What I’m Still Figuring Out
I’ve oscillated on this for years.
There was a period where I prioritized comfort—softening every hard truth until it was barely recognizable. Maybe this is just my perception and I could be wrong about this and what do you think? until the actual point got lost in hedging.
Then I over-corrected. Decided that clarity was more important than comfort. Said things directly that probably needed more cushioning. Watched people shut down because I’d prioritized being right over being heard.
Now I’m somewhere in the middle, and I’m not sure it’s the right place either.
What I keep coming back to is the clock. Not as a model for how to behave—clocks don’t have relationships to maintain—but as a reminder of what honesty actually is.
Honesty is data. It’s the current state of reality, delivered without distortion.
What we add to that data—the tone, the timing, the context, the care—that’s not honesty. That’s communication.
And communication is where most of us are still learning.
The Practical Part
If you’re trying to be more direct without becoming an asshole, here’s what seems to work:
Stick to observable facts. “You missed the last three deadlines” is clock behavior. “You’re being lazy” is interpretation wrapped in judgment.
Check your motivation. If you’re enjoying the delivery, something’s wrong. The clock doesn’t take pleasure in bad news.
Accept the reaction without apologizing for the data. The clock doesn’t backtrack on 8:47 because you’re upset. It just keeps showing the time.
Add the care that clocks can’t. A clock is neutral because it can’t be anything else. You have more range. Use it.
The Only Question That Matters
The clock isn’t an asshole for telling you the time. It’s just doing its job—providing the data you need to navigate reality.
The question is whether you’re an asshole when you do the same thing.
And the answer depends on something the clock never has to worry about: why you’re doing it.
If you’re telling the truth to help someone course-correct, you’re the clock. Neutral, useful, necessary—even when the news is bad.
If you’re telling the truth to win, to punish, to prove you were right all along—you’re not a clock. You’re a weapon shaped like one.
I’m still working on telling the difference in myself. Some days I’m better at it than others.
Ask me again tomorrow.