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Ask vs. Guess Culture

jeanhsu.substack.com

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Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#451

Post by gwbas1c »

Question for adults in "Ask" cultures: How do you deal with adults who ask for unreasonable things or continue to ask for something after you have politely said no?

One example is a salesman at a store like Best Buy who continues to push extended warranties after you say no. (I often resort to losing my temper and saying "If you say another word about the extended warranty, I am going to walk out of the store!")

Another example is an adult that I carpooled with to a political rally. When I told him I telecommuted, he asked me to help him on the campaign during the day. The request was insulting because he assumed that I sat around and did nothing from most of the day.

Later the adult asked me to take a day off of work to fix his computer. At first I pointed out that that was a rude request to make, but he continued to push on me to fix his computer. A day or two later he emailed me screenshots from his computer without me asking for them.

(I should point out that if he had merely asked, "Hey could you look at my computer and help me with something," I probably would have found the time to visit him and help him.)

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#452

Post by distances »

tharkun__ wrote: post #442
distances wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely true, and this also applies to getting things without asking. As a somewhat tongue in cheek example -- if you have guests over you should offer coffee three times. They may refuse the first two and accept the third time. But if you do not offer thrice, they'll go home and complain that you were too stingy to even provide coffee. You should read the manner of refusal in these kinds of cases, and offer more…

This kind of thing is so foreign to me. Why all the dance? It makes no sense to me. I'll offer you a choice of coffee, tea, water, juice. Whatever we currently have basically. You say which one you want or you get nothing. Your choice.

It's just a different culture, so it's not an active, rational decision about which way to react -- that's not how we work. My first instinct always is to refuse the offer before I really consider if I want it or not. It's built-in, it's in my bones. The polite way, not being a burden or causing extra hassle. Then with a follow-up offer I have maybe considered the circumstances and my wants a bit more and can accept if I feel so.

> You say which one you want or you get nothing. Your choice.

It doesn't work if I'm visiting you, that's for sure. It works well and without any friction in my own culture. So there's the need to be mindful of the situation and perhaps consider a bit longer before going with my instincts.

And if the worst comes to pass and you don't offer again, then maybe I'll realize our differences and just ask for that coffee after all.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#453

Post by tenebrisalietum »

jzb wrote: post #12

"It’s rude to put someone in a position where they have to say no to you" I feel this in my bones. When I was a kid my dad went off on me after we visited someone's house and I saw cake on the counter and asked for a slice. That was just unacceptable. (Context: He was raised by people who lived through the depression. Food scarcity was a real thing in living memory.) Even though his reaction was way overboard, I stil…

You can set the stage to be offered, by asking about something adjacent to what you want. Compliments also help.

"This is a beautiful cake. What's it for? Is there a celebration?"

If you are not offered a slice after that, assume you can't have one.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#454

Post by solarmist »

RangerScience wrote: post #404
jiggawatts wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, this is not my experience. I work with many immigrant software developers, and the vast majority have not realised that they have to switch to an "ask" approach. They will say "yes" to everything , no matter what, and then never ever ask a followup question. For example, if assigned a task that I know they cannot possibly complete (i.e.: due to a lack of access), they'll say "yes" and then... I won't h…

My brother had a good tip when traveling internationally; ask questions where the correct answer is “no”. So don’t ask if the food is vegetarian, ask if there’s meat in it. Of course, that was for language barriers. Also, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that doesn’t sound like an “ask” culture- that sounds like a “yes-man” situation.

Or in this case don't ask yes/no questions. Don't give them he option to give the answer they think you want to hear.

What have you done?

What is your next step?

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#455

Post by vhiremath4 »

This feels like a good thing to know about co-workers. Feels like you could avoid a lot of misunderstanding by just understanding which culture they more closely ascribe to vs. things like Meyers Briggs or True Colors. Might implement this as a simple question for onboarding.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#456

Post by idopmstuff »

gwbas1c wrote: post #451

Question for adults in "Ask" cultures: How do you deal with adults who ask for unreasonable things or continue to ask for something after you have politely said no? One example is a salesman at a store like Best Buy who continues to push extended warranties after you say no. (I often resort to losing my temper and saying "If you say another word about the extended warranty, I am going to walk out of the store!") Anot…

Regardless of culture, at some point you just have to be able to tell someone to shut up, particularly those who are incentivized to abuse their ability to ask you things (e.g. salespeople).

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#457

Post by gwbas1c »

idopmstuff wrote: post #456
gwbas1c wrote: post #451

Question for adults in "Ask" cultures: How do you deal with adults who ask for unreasonable things or continue to ask for something after you have politely said no? One example is a salesman at a store like Best Buy who continues to push extended warranties after you say no. (I often resort to losing my temper and saying "If you say another word about the extended warranty, I am going to walk out of the store!") Anot…

Regardless of culture, at some point you just have to be able to tell someone to shut up, particularly those who are incentivized to abuse their ability to ask you things (e.g. salespeople).

Well yes obviously!

What's frustrating is that sometimes I hit the pattern of saying "no," and then the salesperson ignores my response and continues to sell the warranty.

At that point I will usually raise my voice and say something like "I said no," as if I was talking to a nagging teenager. Then the clerk will take an insulted tone and say something like, "I'm just doing my job."

So what do you do in those situations??

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#458

Post by idopmstuff »

gwbas1c wrote: post #457
idopmstuff wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of culture, at some point you just have to be able to tell someone to shut up, particularly those who are incentivized to abuse their ability to ask you things (e.g. salespeople).

Well yes obviously! What's frustrating is that sometimes I hit the pattern of saying "no," and then the salesperson ignores my response and continues to sell the warranty. At that point I will usually raise my voice and say something like "I said no," as if I was talking to a nagging teenager. Then the clerk will take an insulted tone and say something like, "I'm just doing my job." So what do you do in those situati…

In that case I think it helps to acknowledge that you understand their incentives/motivations and be even clearer than "no" - salespeople are trained that if you hear no the first ten times you ask and yes on the eleventh, that's still a sale.

e.g. "Look, I recognize that it's your job to try to sell me a warranty, but there's absolutely no chance that I'm going to buy a warranty, so let's focus on the product."

If that doesn't work, then you go straight at their incentives - "Listen, like I said, I'm not going to buy a warranty, and this is becoming distracting. If we can't drop the warranty talk, I'm going to guy buy from somewhere else." They want to sell the warranty, but if they know that's not possible then their next incentive is not to have to explain to their boss why they had a customer who spent a significant amount of time with them but didn't close.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#459

Post by quacked »

huijzer wrote: post #293
quacked wrote: post #7

I am from the northern US (Protestant Scandinavian/German) and my wife is from the southern US (Protestant English/German) [1]. In the first several years of our relationship, we had several big disputes about how to treat each other, and how to treat guests. After a while we realized that she had been brought up to feel extreme insecurity over responding to the needs of guests, and I had been brought up to be blithe…

I‘ve gone through a ton of comments below and see a lot of contradicting evidence to your thoughtful suggestion. Also my girlfriend and I are both from north Europe and I notice a similar difference. Maybe the difference is mostly > she had been brought up to feel extreme insecurity This reminds me of a quote from Buffett from about 40 years ago. He said something along the lines of "when women are raised, they hear…

> I‘ve gone through a ton of comments below and see a lot of contradicting evidence to your thoughtful suggestion.

When you make a huge generalization like "the northern states I'm from primarily developed their culture from Scandinavia and Germany and tend to be more 'ask' than 'guess'", it's possible to immediately find tons of counterexamples. It tends to make people feel good to find flaws with generalizations, but they then argue too far the other way. "Since there are many counterexamples, your claim that the North is mostly 'ask' and the South is mostly 'guess' doesn't hold water."

But what exactly are they saying? The Northern US and the Southern US are exactly the same? There's no possible generalization to make about the cultures from either place?

Instead, at every possible delineation people have made in their counterarguments (poor vs. rich, urban vs. rural, man vs. woman), I find the same generalizations mostly apply. A poor northerner is likely more "ask" than a poor southerner, based on who I've met. Northern men are generally more "ask" than southern men. My wife's father is certainly less intensely curious about my needs than my own mother, but he's far, far more curious about my needs than my father, and almost every other northern father I've met. I've met a great many people, and lived all around the US, so I'm not just shooting from the hip here.

Re: Ask vs. Guess Culture

#460

Post by curiousgal »

quacked wrote: post #7

I am from the northern US (Protestant Scandinavian/German) and my wife is from the southern US (Protestant English/German) [1]. In the first several years of our relationship, we had several big disputes about how to treat each other, and how to treat guests. After a while we realized that she had been brought up to feel extreme insecurity over responding to the needs of guests, and I had been brought up to be blithe…

> whereas I find the English hilariously polite

I think it boils down to people mistaking being polite to being nice.

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