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How to ask for help from people who don't know you

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Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#61

Post by jongjong »

It's incredibly difficult for me to ask for help because I was raised to always pull myself up by the bootstraps. This attitude has seeped into my moral framework. If I get help, it's special treatment; it's an unfair advantage that I'm getting which will harm other people who have to compete against me.

I wish people would just stop 'helping' each other (as it is currently). Help should only be given to people who are in dire need and it should only be enough to allow them to stay afloat. Helping someone to become a multi-millionaire is not 'help', it's injustice; it only exacerbates the problem. It creates a system where success is impossible without receiving help. This, in turn, creates a totalitarian system where people are just trading favors with each other since everyone who succeeded helped each other to various extents and everything they're doing is balancing favors.

'Paying forward' really means; giving favors to someone new in order to obtain favors from them in the future. It's not good for anyone.

Also, no real trust is being built here. It's not trust if you need to keep paying. It's dependency.

Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#62

Post by sokoloff »

FinnLobsien wrote: post #8

The problem here is that most points are about how to formulate your ask. I think the biggest thing is that you're much more likely to get help if you show you're doing the best to solve it yourself. There's a big difference between: "Hey, I saw this job at [company you work at], could you refer me please? I'm [lists skills and experience]" and "Hey I'm thinking of applying to [company you work at] for the product de…

> whether [design flaw] is intentional to deter abuse or if that's something I could fix?

The chance that I know whether or not it’s intentional is extremely low. If I don’t work on that part of the app, I’m not going to go chase down the product person would might know.

I think it’s much, much less likely to get any response, despite being higher effort on the sender. It’s too specific and too likely to step on a landmine of “I don’t know the answer and I’m not going to go on a side quest to find it for someone I don’t know…”

Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#63

Post by ValdikSS »

jongjong wrote: post #61

It's incredibly difficult for me to ask for help because I was raised to always pull myself up by the bootstraps. This attitude has seeped into my moral framework. If I get help, it's special treatment; it's an unfair advantage that I'm getting which will harm other people who have to compete against me. I wish people would just stop 'helping' each other (as it is currently). Help should only be given to people who a…

Many have different definition of 'help' where they expect the job to be done for them, and not just a help in a form of advice.

That's flaweed though.

Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#64

Post by thangalin »

jackconsidine wrote: post #14

This was an excellently written, salient post with some good tidbits. I've learned some of these lessons the hard way. I'll add a few. Proof of work is important, but it's not about the magnitude of energy you spend. I went through two iterations of reaching out to my college network. The first time I put so much time into handwriting notes and trying to provide my relatable background. 100 notes, not a single respon…

> 100 notes, not a single response.

Similar story. Sent out 900+ emails to scientific illustrators; about 25 accepted. Here's the result:

* https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf

* https://impacts.to/bibliography.pdf

Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#65

Post by rconti »

Proof of work is tricky, IMO. I think I tend to over-prove my work. I'll explain the request, and then mention the first three-or-five-or-whatever things I've tried, including what went wrong. I always thought it was most important to show I'm serious and that I've tried everything I can try before asking for help, but I think this hurts response rates. I think the reality is that most people don't want to read a wall of text before they can begin to engage with the idea of helping you.

I'm trying to inoculate myself against the imaginary idea that I'm an idiot, but the reality is, by the time I get to idea #5, I'm probably grasping at straws. The 5 most obvious solutions might not be someone else's 5. What I need their help with is not coming up with idea #6 in terms of likelihood, but _their_ best first idea -- which might send me in a totally different direction!

Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#66

Post by fn-mote »

currymj wrote: post #22
lisper wrote: post #16

For technical requests, one of the most effective ways to demonstrate that you are serious is to cite something about the person's published work that is relevant to the request. There is no more effective way to get someone's attention than showing that you have read and appreciated something they've written.

unfortunately everyone is now doing this with LLMs, it actually feels like it might be on its way to being a negative signal, as strange as that sounds.

Yes, this is dangerous because the author is an expert who will know bullshit when they read it.

On the other hand, at least make sure you have looked into what the LLM says about your questions. It is aggravating to get a request which an LLM can answer correctly.

Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#67

Post by pinter69 »

mtlynch wrote: post #40
mrtb wrote: post #12

I've been DM'ing randos on LinkedIn for lightweight consults and found that offering to pay up front and asking strangers to price their own time can help to show seriousness and often results in free interactions or buy-me-a-coffee pricing. e.g. "Hey I love your work on X, I've been thinking about / working on related thing Y and would love your feedback on aspect Z. How much $$ to rent your brain for 20 minutes? I'…

This is what Jason Cohen did when he was getting WPEngine off the ground. He messaged 40 WordPress consultants on LinkedIn and offered to pay them higher than their hourly rate since it was a one-off task.[0] Out of 40 messages, 38 replied and agreed to a phone call, and none of them actually asked for the money. [0] https://mtlynch.io/notes/designing-the-ideal-bootstrapped-bu...

Interesting, thanks

Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#68

Post by devmor »

Showing what you have done to help yourself is by far the most effective way to get help in my experience - not only does it show that you aren’t just helpless and will be a drain on resources, it also gives the person helping you a jumping-off point, avoiding potential troubleshooting and back-and-forth questions.

I make sure to do this at work, when I’m asking questions about things outside of my domain. I do it when talking to tech support for my ISP or phone, when I contact maintenance for my apartment and when I take my car in for service.

Re: How to ask for help from people who don't know you

#69

Post by anitil »

rconti wrote: post #65

Proof of work is tricky, IMO. I think I tend to over-prove my work. I'll explain the request, and then mention the first three-or-five-or-whatever things I've tried, including what went wrong. I always thought it was most important to show I'm serious and that I've tried everything I can try before asking for help, but I think this hurts response rates. I think the reality is that most people don't want to read a wal…

I do the same. But the benefit to me is that by the time I've written out the message and checked my work I've usually solved the problem. So it's like rubber-ducking but with social consequences attached which makes my brain actually pay attention.
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