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Nobody Cares

bennesvig.com

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Re: Nobody Cares

#61

Post by pirateking »

nicolethenerd wrote: post #15

"Does your server really care how the first few bites are?" On first pass, I read this and thought he spelled 'bytes' wrong. ^_^

Same. Funny how meanings of words have different precedence for different people. I imagine if I was an expert at waiting in lines, the word "waiter" might not immediately bring up an image of a person bringing food to my table. If I was from the UK, the word "line" might cause me to think of a telephone line or something, because they use the word "queue" instead. Does that mean they visualize people waiting in line when they hear the word "queue" in a computer science context?

Strange.

Re: Nobody Cares

#63

Post by hardik988 »

Recently, many articles (including this one) on HN have provoked one reaction from me : "Um, yeah. What's so special about this? Maybe if you look harder, you're wrong"

I always ask back, "How are you doing?", and have always received a smile and a "Good, thank you" in response - never offense.

Maybe if you didn't lie to the cashier at Target and told them what you didn't find, you would notice that some people might go out of their way to help you.

Have a good one? If we start being so literal about everything in English, we're going down a very dangerous road.

It's funny that the author is writing on the topic of "caring", but himself comes across as cynical and overtly negative.

Re: Nobody Cares

#64

Post by sbank »

plnewman wrote: post #16

I return the "how are you?" question with equivalent replies in shops all the time and if recipients were annoyed by it, I don't recall noticing. Being pleasant frequently helps me feel more pleasant. And anyway, I actually do hope they have a great day. I hope everyone has a great day.

I almost always ask how they are doing too, and never have I noticed (or don't remember) someone being annoyed by me asking.

Re: Nobody Cares

#65

Post by Muzza »

StavrosK wrote: post #43
protomyth wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pretty cynical to me too, but I've lived in either North Dakota or Minnesota for a couple of decades. It takes so little effort to be nice and have a conversation with people. Who knows, you might make the teller laugh and get through their day easier. [from the article] Does anyone who has ever said “have a good one” actually mean it? Yep, I do mean it. I'm that sap. I wish you well and still sign all my e-mai…

I am rather dismayed by the lack of interaction between people in my country (Greece). We don't talk to strangers at all, not even to say hi or hold a door open or anything. It's a cultural thing, people just don't think to talk to other people. That's all I wanted to say, have a good day!

Strange. A common complaint among Swedes is that we don't talk to strangers... like they (supposedly) do in Greece (or Spain or France).

Re: Nobody Cares

#66

Post by MarkMc »

This article identifies a secret weapon that startups have when competing with a large, established business.

I have worked as a programmer for (a) several large banks and (b) my own startup business: Nothing comes close to the level of care you feel to your users when you run your own business.

When a user gets a NullPointerException, I take personal responsibility and want to fix it as soon as possible. When a user emails me a question, I want to answer it well and as soon as possible. If the software looks ugly or is not intuitive, I get a strong urge to improve it.

They say that a good programmer can be 10 times as productive as an average programmer. Well it is also true that a good programmer can be 10 times as productive as him/herself - it depends on the environment.

Re: Nobody Cares

#67

Post by robryan »

code177 wrote: post #6

This seems like a very cynical article. On the behalf of everyone in Canada, the UK, and Australia, it's very common for people to reciprocate this sort of courtesy and genuinely mean it. In fact, I'd go as far to say that most people would be downright offended if you didn't reciprocate. Similarly, most people go out of their way to thank transit drivers, and everyone holds doors. Perhaps an American could share som…

We absolutely have this at checkout in Australia, I go for self checkout whenever possible because of it. Most people working at checkout just don't care at all and just give out the minimum fake courtesies that their employer forces upon them.

Re: Nobody Cares

#68

Post by robryan »

sjtgraham wrote: post #20

The first thing I do when interacting with someone who is providing me a service is ask them how their day is going. Why? Because no one does this (I'm in London), more often than not it really makes a positive difference to this persons day, i.e. they are genuinely shocked that someone gives a shit (I do by the way) and it doesn't cost me a single thing to do. I think it's something everyone should do.

How often do they give a really honest answer though? I think for a lot of us, we aren't interested in meaningless pleasantries and if they are being totally honest often you just wouldn't care aout what they are saying. Sure you could happen upon an interesting conversation, often though it doesn't pan out like that.

Re: Nobody Cares

#69

Post by nemetroid »

sgdesign wrote: post #37

Somewhat related: am I the only one who's not in love with the new trend of startups sending fake "personal" messages to new users? I know you want to show you care, but I haven't had 5 minutes to try out your app and you're already asking me if I need any help and when we can schedule a Skype call so you can show me all your cool features. I usually just ignore these messages, but always feel slightly bad on the off…

The worst offenders to me are those that begin with a direct greeting ("Hi Jakob,") and are written by a specific person (in a personal tone and signed off by name). Am I supposed to believe that this was genuine (and not autogenerated)? That seems insulting to me.
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