311–320 of 464 posts
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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.
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To recenter the conversation - in a personal context idle complaints (ie. venting) are considered rude, and are often accompanied by an apology, for a reason. You're basically monopolizing a person's time, and expressing explicit disinterest in their perspective. Using complaint as a coping mechanism is a fundamentally selfish thing to do[1]. Therefore I don't think we should tolerate it idly. If you want to talk and…
> You're basically monopolizing a person's time, and expressing explicit disinterest in their perspective. Using complaint as a coping mechanism is a fundamentally selfish thing to do[1] Yep, and allowing other person to do all this to you is definitely spoiling. At the same time, a possibility and ability to spoil someone you love - is one of the biggest pleasures in life. (I’ve shown the video to my wife. She said:…
I couldn't agree more, I would amend the above with "unless you are sure you are loved by your listener, and are willing to impose on them" =)
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Or to an overweight person: "you know you'd be a lot healthier if you just lost weight" or "why don't you get a gym membership" or "it's just calories in minus calories out, bro"? Gee, thanks, you're the first person ever to tell me that I should lose weight and it's just a matter of diet and exercise, like every fat person on the planet doesn't already know. It's like saying to a smoker, "You know that's bad for you…
It can be helpful to tell smokers that.
I've yet to find a smoker who doesn't know that quitting would be good for them.
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…
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.
No, but what I'm saying was that usage of "just" is not the issue, a shitty environment is. If your boss / coworker / PM doesn't use "just" but still constantly makes it seem like a task should be easy to do in other ways (e.g. telling you your estimate is way too high for a task) and puts pressure on you not listening or accepting to your reasoning, is that better than them using the word "just", you explain why and they get that things aren't as simple as they thought? The underlying issue is not the particular choice of word.
You might say as advice "don't presume a task is easy, if you want to avoid people think/misunderstand it can help to avoid the following words:...". But the really important part would be the first part of this advice.
Though to be fair I don't even know if I'd agree with that advice either. Stuff is misunderstood or not well understood all the time. Expectations exist if you want them to or not. Maybe it's better to communicate those expectations.
> "Why so long? It's just a button that does stuff. Can't you just..."
a) The core aspect to address is not the word "just", but that the person asks you something they consider simple. Changing the wording (removing "just" or other such words) doesn't change the actual sentiment.
b) The "just" in the example does emphasize to the listener further that the speaker is underestimating the task at hand or doesn't yet grasp the full context. While I would see this as problematic usage, it precisely is what can help the listener in identifying that they might have to spend some time to address that misconception in their follow-up reply.
Whether it's ultimately super useful or not I don't know, but it does provide extra signal. I personally would rather have someone use "just" if they do in fact think the task is simple/trivial than beating around the bush. I then understand that there could be an issue of misalignment or even disagreement on difficulty. You really do want to get that out of the way instead of each party in silence, paralyzed, thinking "I still don't get why we cannot / need to do X / Y, but I don't want to sound like ...".
And that goes both ways. I have definitely gotten a good reset and ended up agreeing with the speaker that a solution can in fact be simpler albeit not perfect. And if the speaker and I then agree that it's sufficient, why not. I'm digressing. Important is that communication happens in good faith. Politeness likely doesn't fix this if that's not the case.
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Mmmm, well, I'm all about being accommodating and gracious to people under stress, but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction, there are some expectations of those who are being asked questions. If you don't want to be pestered with my every guess about what you may have already done, likely hitting several things you have, you really ought to be able to answer the question "what have y…
> but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction Odds are the person you are talking to have tried several dozens of things, 2/3 of what they don't even remember anymore. Asking "what have you tried" is very often an unprofessional display of power disguised as a time-waster question. The one exception when the person answering has not had time to try several dozen options.
Withholding useful information and being rude about it is not the best way to get help.
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Or to an overweight person: "you know you'd be a lot healthier if you just lost weight" or "why don't you get a gym membership" or "it's just calories in minus calories out, bro"? Gee, thanks, you're the first person ever to tell me that I should lose weight and it's just a matter of diet and exercise, like every fat person on the planet doesn't already know. It's like saying to a smoker, "You know that's bad for you…
At least in this case, any advice would be helpful. But it also depends on the person. If the person has been trying several things, and is curious to learn more and work on the suggestion, even small help can make a huge difference. When it comes to things like working out in the gym, or nutrition. There are often some small optimisation/hacks you can do on top of the things you are already doing that can significan…
It's not clear what you mean by "this case". It's a rare case where "any advice would be helpful."
> Beyond this, learning itself requires lots of humility. You must be prepared to be offended in one way or other to learn any person, in any way.
The mistake you're making is assuming that the person is having this discussion with you because he wants to learn for you. And that, after all, is the point of several other comments in this thread.
It was definitely years before I understood what people meant by "I don't want your advice or solution. I want you to listen."
Losing weight is a simple equation of calories in vs out. The reason people are not losing weight is not because they don't understand that. If you want to help, don't suggest ways they can reduce calorie intake or burn more calories. Understand what the barriers are that's preventing them from acting. It's almost never a lack of knowledge about nutrition/exercise.
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…
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It also implicitly discounts one of the most valuable processes: verbal processing. Some people, myself included, find themselves verbalizing a problem and the tensions in every choice and monitoring the logic and emotional response present in saying it out loud. In this way, listening and solving aren't too dissimilar. Simply listening can give the speaker an appropriate environment in which to solve their problem.…
> It also implicitly discounts one of the most valuable processes: verbal processing. Not really. The question, more generally, is: what should my role be in this conversation? Should I be an active participant in solving the problem? Or should I support you as you work through it?
As with so many things in life, the hard part is working out if your actions should be motivated by actually helping or feeling like you helped.
Related: if someone has a chronic condition, don't drop on them unsolicited medical advice, especially things like "have you tried yoga?", "you just need more sunshine", "you must try my cousin's healing tea!". You're not their doctor, and they haven't shared all the medical details with you. Your 3-second diagnosis is almost certainly terrible. They've heard it a dozen times already, and it's difficult and tiring to…
what if they complain about it chronically? are you then justified to offer unsolicited advice, or do you have to just listen (i.e. be their outlet)?
You've exhibited what the book Crucial Conversations calls A Fool's Choice. There are other options. The recommended one would be to express to them the pain you have in always hearing it, and exploring with them their need to always talk to you about it.
They have a need, which is causing them to express it to you (perhaps in a suboptimal manner). You have your own needs, but are having trouble expressing your needs. It's a skill to learn, and it won't come easy, but it is learnable.