I've noticed it puts people on the defensive when I put 'just' in a sentence, even though I have no intent to disparage others with my words, so I make an effort to avoid using that word at all in any business setting. I've found it goes over much better when framing suggestions as 'Maybe you could try..." than 'Just do...'.
Just don’t
231–240 of 464 posts
Re: Just don’t
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I changed the orientation of the PDF as requested. This did not add any white space next to line items, since the line items table uses 98 % width either way, unlike when printing from Excel I guess. This is what I tried and failed to get heard yesterday. Also now in Landscape the cover page header takes up like 50% of the page. But hey “just make it landscape”. What the client needs me to do, I suspect without being…
> What the client needs me to do, I suspect without being able to confirm because my questions are “wasting their time”, is give the warehouse a place to pencil stuff in next to line items. have you thought that maybe this is not the reason at all why they want this ? maybe they have a scanner somewhere that works better with the landscape format ? some regulation to comply with ? I find it absolutely insufferable wh…
If you ask me to implement something and I don't understand why you need it, then I may not do it right, and you may get regressions in this functionality in the future. Developers need to build a mental model of the problem they're solving. If the answer is "we've always done it this way" that's not very compelling especially when we're building a new system! But if you say "this is required because of XYZ", then this is something that I can understand, and more importantly, document as a requirement.
Re: Just don’t
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the situation where help is clearly needed, 'let's consider possible solutions' is a better entry point, along with 'let's ensure we don't make it worse' - i.e. take a snapshot of the current situation, store the current working file, etc. Meh. Just goes to show how communication is a very subjective and personal thing. To my ears, both of those phrases would sound extremely condescending and patronizing. If I wer…
So what would you want people to say to you in that situation? It's also true that at some point, if people are overly prickly, but the problem absolutely has to be solved, then it's going to be 'show me the logs of exactly what you've been doing, now go take a break and let me work on it.' That also will piss people off, most likely.
There's an awful lot of "it depends" to all of these scenarios. It may even be possible that there is, in fact, some scenario where I'd be OK with what's quoted above. But generally speaking, I would not be happy with something that comes off as smug and suggesting a "I'm the teacher, and you're the student, now let me show you how stupid you are" mind-set. But if the person speaking had the right standing in my world-view and I was really stuck, well then maybe I would tolerate that (even if it wouldn't be my preference).
I lean towards the kind of language I mentioned in another comment, with things like "Hmm... have you tried _______?" or "The first thing that occurs to me when I see ______ is ________" and so on. Or even "Do you think that maybe _________?"
Re: Just don’t
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I changed the orientation of the PDF as requested. This did not add any white space next to line items, since the line items table uses 98 % width either way, unlike when printing from Excel I guess. This is what I tried and failed to get heard yesterday. Also now in Landscape the cover page header takes up like 50% of the page. But hey “just make it landscape”. What the client needs me to do, I suspect without being…
> What the client needs me to do, I suspect without being able to confirm because my questions are “wasting their time”, is give the warehouse a place to pencil stuff in next to line items. have you thought that maybe this is not the reason at all why they want this ? maybe they have a scanner somewhere that works better with the landscape format ? some regulation to comply with ? I find it absolutely insufferable wh…
> have you thought that maybe this is not the reason at all why they want this ?
Yes, that is the reason I ask questions about who is using this and what their objectives are.
> They're paying you for your time, no?
No. They're paying me for the value my skillset and experience brings. I don't bill hourly, I bill bi-weekly, 2 weeks in advance.
At any time they can fire me or I can fire them. Most likely we're setting the stage for either of those two outcomes right now, unless we can get our communication in sync.
I'll try to find a replacement client who's interested in communicating the problems they're facing, working with me to come up with solutions, then working with me to iterate on them.
> If they ask you to dig in a hole and then fill it back after you do it.
I'm not currently at the point of desperation that accepting something like this would require.
This is more like something a prison or internment camp might do to mentally break prisoners.
Re: Just don’t
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
This can be a cultural thing. In particular, if I understand correctly, in India it is considered rude not to make small talk before jumping into work. (I'm slightly autistic too but it's not completely useless. I ended up taking a trip to India at one point, and such trips are much easier if you've put in the effort to understand the culture, and your coworkers everyday lives.) I would suggest trying not to be so br…
Coming from India, we do not talk like that in our native language. I am guessing it is because we have been repeatedly told that is how americans talk (reinforced by movies and TV shows). Now, I start with just a greeting and jump to the issue.. "Hey P!! Good morning.. I just want to check about issue XXX". It sounds less rude, but does not ask the banal questions.
So it seems we have found a self-referencing loop of assumptions about each others' culture! Interesting.
Re: Just don’t
#236Not 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…
Is it a surprise that people don't all work in the supportive environment that you have? Here's a more accurate example for me: "This feature will take about 3 weeks to ship." "Why so long? It's just a button that does stuff. Can't you just..." When the other side of the argument is a PM who can't describe what an HTTP call is, it's hard to look at it as a good faith discussion.
Context would matter here, but the above question on its own wouldn’t typically rise to bad faith, even if phrased as written.
The job of the PM often demands creating project schedules, delegating assignments, spurring their team to deliver assigned tasks on time, and managing the team. It very much is their business to have some sense of how long things take, why they take so long, and get a sense whether the bottleneck is a personnel skill or motivation issue or the technical nature of the problem space.
A good faith answer would likely include an explanation why shipping a button took 3 weeks, would likely explain the relevance of those HTTP calls in your use case, and would help to give them a better sense of the work involved so they can better mentally cost out new interface items without creating expectations you’d be unlikely to meet.
Re: Just don’t
#237I see this when giving and receiving form advice in a few physical disciplines. "Just relax your shoulders here and move naturally."
Physical mastery often looks relaxed, natural, and simple, because all extraneous effort has been removed. When you're training hard to reach that state, the "just" can really sting. It feels like: "not only are you bad at this, but it's simple to not be bad at this".
Re: Just don’t
#238Earlier 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.
The only problem is that you often hear the same variation of the problem multiple times with no action taken to resolve it in between. That frustrates me.
I'm guessing it frustrates you because you like solving problems? You hear someone stuck in a rut and you want to help them out of it?
Totally with you on this. I'm a solutions architect by day, and my entire skillset is helping people solve problems.
Do a role-play: someone comes to me complaining about how it's really frustrating having to type all this crap into Excel, so I suggest using OCR, or taking a course on getting quicker with the numpad. Unfortunately, I missed their real problem: they hate their job. Me telling them "here's how you could be better at a job you hate" doesn't really help them, it simply looks uncaring and assumes they haven't already thought of those things.
So I could just nod and say "oh that's sound terrible" every time they mention it. You're right, it might look crass and robotic.
Even better here would be saying "Wow, typing all that crap into Excel, you mentioned it last week as well. Sounds like you really don't enjoy doing that?" and encourage them to expand a bit. Is it the typing? What makes it so frustrating? Do they think it's their job in the first place?
Eventually, they admit to you (maybe they hadn't realised themselves) that they hate this bit of their job, and need to discuss with their manager not doing it any more. (Or maybe they hate the company they work for, and need to find a new job. Or it's actually the keyboard they're using they hate. Or whatever, you need to listen to find out.)
This is how you help them out of their rut. They feel that you're interested in their problem, and when they do find a solution, they'll own it because they found it.
Re: Just don’t
#239Earlier 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.
I'd prefer we live in a world where idle complaints are not entertained. If you want advice, complain. If you do not, keep silent.
Then shouldn't you, by your own principles, have kept silent instead of posting that complaining?