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Just don’t

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Re: Just don’t

#181

Post by RobinL »

As soon as you recognise the word 'just' is problematic it can be very useful. As in, 'why don't you just'.

If you find yourself about to say 'just', it's a great time to pause and think about why the person hasn't 'just' done what you're about to suggest. It usually gives a deeper insight into the problem - usually (but not always) it's a harder problem than it initially looks.

And even if the solution really is obvious, it's often useful to think about why it wasn't obvious to the other person.

Re: Just don’t

#182

Post by reaperducer »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #7

I get a lot more mileage out of "have you tried..." than "why don't you just...". As a recent example, I wrote a system that auto-generates PDF packing slips from an order form, to send to a warehouse for picking and packing. Yesterday a client told me to "just make it landscape" while I was explaining why "just making it landscape" won't solve the problem of giving the warehouse whitespace to pencil stuff in, becaus…

A surprisingly successful shortcut for dealing with people who won't listen is to throw out the old "Best practices" canard.

"Oh, you'd like to do x? Well that's not' best practices' these days."

People will accept any ridiculous thing you say if you pretend it's "best practices."

Re: Just don’t

#183

Post by runlevel1 »

quelltext wrote: post #79

Not saying it's not good to learn about how "just" might be perceived or avoided but I am surprised this article is getting so much support. I feel like in the environment I'm in "just" never implied anything negative (e.g. lack of understanding on the receiver's part, making it seem like they should have considered ... but didn't, etc.), rather: - I don't yet understand why steps x, y, z are necessary. To me it woul…

Perceived intent shapes how it's interpreted.

"Could you just cache the hot partition keys?" probably doesn't carry any negative baggage when it's said by someone you trust to be empathetic to your situation. i.e. You know they aren't underestimating your abilities, you trust they earnestly want to help, and you know you can ask them for help without being judged.

The "Stuck" example is different. The "just" underestimates the difficulty for the listener. So the speaker may respect their abilities and earnestly want to help, but they've underestimated the challenges of their disability -- and overcoming the challenge is not as simple as asking for help.

However, in both cases, the statements work the same without the word "just". Given how little information it adds and the risk of getting it wrong, I think I'll try to use "just" a little less.

Re: Just don’t

#184

Post by wldcordeiro »

hoistbypetard wrote: post #38
sfpotter wrote: post #8

I mentor students on research projects. I think it can be fine to use the word “just” in this context exactly to telegraph that I think a particular task should be easy. Student says, “But what about X?” I might say, “Oh, just do Y.” It’s fine if they feel the tension of me knowing how to do something and thinking it’s easy and them not. The key part is providing a supportive environment so that they know they can as…

> Student says, “But what about X?” I might say, “Oh, just do Y.” What would be lost if you said "I think it would be easier if you did Y instead."? That would convey the thing you think "would be fine" without any of the negative baggage that use of "just" can carry.

The negative baggage isn't something universal though from looking just at the comments here alone.

Re: Just don’t

#185

Post by [deleted] »

yourapostasy wrote: post #162
dspillett wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“CNR, not enough detail, ticket closed, reopen with more information if your problem persists”. I don't have time to dig information out of people in order to try to help them, if they can't make any effort to help me help them when I ask for more information. This is of course one of the reasons I'm not generally client facing these days!

I have the opposite problem with many technical support teams these days. I supply them with a full breakdown of what error I encountered, the reproduction code/commands/data, my configuration, what I think happened, how I tested for that, alternative explanations I came up with and tried, traces, trace markers, vendor-standard dumps, and a call to action of the next piece of information I need (usually an explanatio…

[deleted]

Re: Just don’t

#186

Post by lephty »

yboris wrote: post #171
blowski wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marriage has taught me to go even further than that. I now ask "are you telling me to get it off your chest, or you want help solving it?". If the former, I don't offer any solutions whatsoever, in any kind of format.

Thank you for the reminder -- it does feel like people can be in (at least) two different modes -- with a desire to vent and be heard, or inquiring about a solution. Yet it is not obvious which since the two can sound so similar. If someone is grieving it's probably time to just listen, but when someone is stuck with a social problem they may be rubber ducking with you rather than considering you to be a good approxi…

"Rubber ducking." As in speaking to your rubber duck with no expectation of a response? First time seeing this usage. Thanks.

Re: Just don’t

#187

Post by kweinber »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #134
blowski wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marriage has taught me to go even further than that. I now ask "are you telling me to get it off your chest, or you want help solving it?". If the former, I don't offer any solutions whatsoever, in any kind of format.

+1 to this advice. I've heard it as "do you want comfort, or solutions?"

This sounds really patronizing. I would be careful with that phrasing. People who don’t want their problem solved often know the solutions and don’t like the tradeoffs or change they entail. It is often not a knowledge problem.

Re: Just don’t

#188

Post by 1shooner »

If the recipient of "just" thinks the speaker is so dismissive that they can't pursue clarification, the two probably have bigger communication problems than a single word choice.

Re: Just don’t

#189

Post by derefr »

SnowHill9902 wrote: post #178
2devnull wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another useful thing to say, “oh no that sounds terrible, what are you going to do?” It can help reframe from complaining to strategizing, and that can make people more receptive to outside ideas.

I wouldn’t recommend this. First of all, you shouldn’t provide personal opinions such as “terrible”. Then, asking what they are going to do forces them to confront the problem which they may not be ready to do yet, or may not want to articulate to you.

Usually in the sort of situation where you'd say this, you're just reflecting the speaker's very-clearly-expressed emotional state back at them to demonstrate that you're actively engaged in listening and considering their statements.

It's not something you'd say in response to a text complaint, where there's not enough "bandwidth" to clearly communicate the complainant's emotional state; but it's something CSRs are trained to say on phone calls all the time.

It's also the reason that therapists vastly prefer speaking in person, to video calls, to phone calls; and almost never even consider doing "therapy via text chat." There's not enough bandwidth in text chat to enable a therapist to properly engage with and respond to the emotional content of a client's communication; but with each additional level (voice, video, in-person meeting), that's more possible.

(Interesting consideration, given that: suicide/crisis hotlines should probably consider offering video calls as an option, as the increased bandwidth for emotional content will allow the operator to engage with + potentially help the caller on a deeper level.)

Re: Just don’t

#190

Post by m000z0rz »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #166
vsareto wrote: post #160

I'm all for cutting this out with medical advice and such (unsolicited advice, and importantly wrong advice), but this example annoys me: >You look at some graphs and error messages. It’s easy (once again, I speak from experience) to say something like “Could you just cache the hot partition keys?” or “So, just scan the logs for the high-latency signals and frequency-sort them.” >This. Will. Not. Help. It's not fair…

> It's not fair to ask people for help and then complain about their word usage when trying to help. This is a situation where solicited advice was asked for. This is not wrong but it's not always useful. Being more kind in your language when giving help will carry your point across more clearly. Consider a junior engineer stressed out by deadlines -- sure, they should listen to you calmly and fix the problem, but it…

> Communication is about being understood, not being fair.

This is why in some cases it's better to say "Just" instead of trying to hide what you're trying to say in order to maybe be more sensitive without even knowing if that's necessary.

For this situation, I tend to phrase it as "Can we just "? which might be received better than "Just ", but "just" is an important word here - I want the other person to understand that I think this ought to be easy. If it's not, I probably want to know why, because that will give me more information about the problem and possible solutions.

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