Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#221

Post by cm11 » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

basilikum wrote: post #149

david-gpu wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to select my words very carefully and feel frustration when people misinterpreted them or did not understand the precise angle behind that choice. Reading other people's communication would often be confusing because they were not nearly as precise in their language. At some point I realized that if I didn't want to be permanently frustrated, I had to adapt to the broad reality of how humans communicate. I int…

I'm usually precise in my wording and choose specific words for a reason and am also sometimes annoyed by people ignoring the preciseness. However I also sometimes cannot find the correct precise words to describe what I mean in unambiguous, but also concise words, so I sometimes choose much less precise words for lack of a better alternative. Oftentimes I denote that when I find it important, but it happens way too…

In the same way that the "worse" a speaker is at communicating the more likely something gets lost, the same is true the "worse" the audience is at listening or paying attention or understanding. Both ends make the connection. This will be easy to read as calling the audience dumb, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying the ability to understand involves trying and the audience has some control over successful communication much like the speaker does. They can sit with the idea for a second longer before responding, learn and pickup (or ask about) whatever gap they have if they’re not up to speed, or in many cases just listen without distraction.

Conversations have various power dynamics where one person may have more of the burden, but it is far from always a speaker pitching something to someone who isn't inclined to it. Peers leave hallway chats regularly having “aligned” on two different things. Lots of things we’re talking about are actually complex and simple communication will effectively be miscommunication.

I think we’ve moved too far to broadly attributing confusion to weak speaking. It can certainly help to keep polishing and reworking your words to overcome worse and worse listening habits. That can take one very far, but it doesn’t change that we’re making the bar higher and higher and therefore more messages/ideas dissipate into air.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#222

Post by hellohello2 » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 3:59 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #206

donatj wrote: post #127

I tend to be very exacting in my word choice. If I used a specific word, I meant it. Many people I find speak in what I would describe as tone poems. They circle around an idea using whatever word is within reach, and expect you to understand the meaning based on shared connotations. These people are tiring to interpret. When I write something, each and every word was chosen specifically and with intention. The numbe…

> The documentation was complete, correct, and relatively terse. Less than a page. No, that's YOUR IMPRESSION of your own writing. There are many reasons why others might not find what you wrote sufficient to understand it. You boss ran it through AI for a reason and that reason was most likely because it the document was not understandable or perhaps confusing. Did the document have usage examples? Did it explain co…

How can you be so critical of a stranger's work given that you haven't even seen it?

"that reason was most likely because" -> Bear in mind you do not actually know the given situation.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#223

Post by arduanika » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

welldoneator wrote: post #135

donatj wrote: post #127

I tend to be very exacting in my word choice. If I used a specific word, I meant it. Many people I find speak in what I would describe as tone poems. They circle around an idea using whatever word is within reach, and expect you to understand the meaning based on shared connotations. These people are tiring to interpret. When I write something, each and every word was chosen specifically and with intention. The numbe…

> They circle around an idea using whatever word is within reach, and expect you to understand the meaning based on shared connotations. These people are tiring to interpret. I find this notion a little strange. The implication here is that words are precisely bounded to bounds of thoughts. Language is a representation of our world (and our individual understanding of it) - we all (including you) will use different w…

There is a well-documented spectrum from direct to indirect styles of communication, among both cultures and individuals. The "tone poem" observation is a true description of that fact, even if it's a bit hyperbolic and colorful.

> Language is a representation of our world...we all... will use different words to describe similar-ish concepts...

Strangely enough, both the direct and the indirect communicators live under the postmodern condition, and yet somehow, the stylistic differences persist! Somehow, despite all the smart-sounding things you could say about semiotics or relativism, individuals are all different!

The problem (or at least, one of the problems) with what the manager did is that he dumped his employee's prose into the LLM in a one-size-fits-all way.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#224

Post by hellohello2 » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:01 PM UTC

donatj wrote: post #127

I tend to be very exacting in my word choice. If I used a specific word, I meant it. Many people I find speak in what I would describe as tone poems. They circle around an idea using whatever word is within reach, and expect you to understand the meaning based on shared connotations. These people are tiring to interpret. When I write something, each and every word was chosen specifically and with intention. The numbe…

Personally I love working with AI it beats talking with a person ;)

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#225

Post by slava_ » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #191

harvey9 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can still see a path where the manager was stupid but not malicious. The manager sent on a document which he was too lazy to check at least had the right endpoints but left the GP's contact details on. I could also imagine intentional harm to GP's reputation was the goal, with really clumsy execution.

Either way, that person should not be managing anything. And if it was an honest mistake, they need to come out and apologize both to the IC and to the team that is using the documentation.

I think it says a lot about micromanaging practice broadly. the person assigned for a task should be fully trusted and accountable. the manager could've criticize writing, recommend using LLM, but not interfere. what they've done shows lack of trust and responsibility first.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#226

Post by whimblepop » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #206

donatj wrote: post #127

I tend to be very exacting in my word choice. If I used a specific word, I meant it. Many people I find speak in what I would describe as tone poems. They circle around an idea using whatever word is within reach, and expect you to understand the meaning based on shared connotations. These people are tiring to interpret. When I write something, each and every word was chosen specifically and with intention. The numbe…

> The documentation was complete, correct, and relatively terse. Less than a page. No, that's YOUR IMPRESSION of your own writing. There are many reasons why others might not find what you wrote sufficient to understand it. You boss ran it through AI for a reason and that reason was most likely because it the document was not understandable or perhaps confusing. Did the document have usage examples? Did it explain co…

> There are many reasons why others might not find what you wrote sufficient to understand it. You boss ran it through AI for a reason and that reason was most likely because it the document was not understandable or perhaps confusing.

It could also be because their manager is less technical. It's not unusual in my life for a PM to try to "rephrase" or restate things I've written in order to make them "easier to understand" in a way that in fact falsifies them or makes them more difficult to understand for the people who will actually have to work on/with it.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#227

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:04 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #212

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I read documentation, I'm not there to enjoy the experience. I'm there to find out how the documented thing works and how to use it. It's not a novel. I'm not there for entertainment. Chasing readability without maintaining accuracy is a failure in the context of documentation no matter the motivations involved. I'm not saying that readability can't be a consideration when making documentation. I am saying that…

> I'm not saying that readability can't be a consideration when making documentation. I am saying that if you discard accuracy in the process, you've fucked up quite badly. You're right to elevate accuracy to a high level of importance, but that is NOT ENOUGH if the thing is has poor readability. The audience has to be able to understand the document if the document is to be useable. There's only a certain amount of…

I've struggled through some absolutely awful documentation over the years. I'll put up with incredibly broken English and other problems as long as the accuracy is there. Just last week I encountered a pinout diagram that used emojis to indicate which pins related to which data channel. Not a choice I would have made, and I found it made the diagram harder to read. But it was accurate - I wired it up per the diagram and everything worked as intended.

Documentation lacking accuracy is useless. It can be the most readable thing ever produced, but if it describes a different thing than what was intended to be documented, it's trash. Documentation that is hard to read but is accurate still has value.

Regarding "follow up the document with a lot of support" - did you catch the part of the anecdote where the author is having to deal with support requests because of the inaccuracies?

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#228

Post by arduanika » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:05 PM UTC

JTbane wrote: post #185

donatj wrote: post #127

I tend to be very exacting in my word choice. If I used a specific word, I meant it. Many people I find speak in what I would describe as tone poems. They circle around an idea using whatever word is within reach, and expect you to understand the meaning based on shared connotations. These people are tiring to interpret. When I write something, each and every word was chosen specifically and with intention. The numbe…

>he passed it through AI before handing it over to the other department I think you should throw him under the bus for that.

Depends on the context. Maybe consult with one of the tone poem people before trying to play hardball at office politics.

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#229

Post by zahlman » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:07 PM UTC

digi59404 wrote: post #54

Even here in the comments you see people who have read this article and fall victim to the very things it’s pointing out. It’s ironic. Let me add a couple to this list. 1. No amount of knowledge or discussion will make a person accept something they don’t want to accept. 2. To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state. Because you will likely hear things that run contrary to y…

> listening to the use case, looking for the pain, and finding a way to solve the pain points. As opposed to trying to understand what feature the user wants to request.

... What is the distinction you're drawing here? How is "the feature the user wants to request" (note: not necessarily the feature the user actually requests) different from "the solution to the pain point"? Why would the user want a feature that doesn't alleviate the pain?

Re: Stop trying to engineer your way out of listening to people

#230

Post by jjk7 » Mon, Apr 20, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

dsego wrote: post #123

b3lvedere wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To truly listen means to place yourself mentally and physically in a vulnerable state." If you can guarantuee me this will not be abused in every situation ever and/or come back to haunt me, i will gladly always give up as much time as i can to actually listen. :)

I was the yielding type, not speaking up, letting others take charge. In my experience, it's not always worth it, especially if you care about the thing you are working on. I went so far as to just dissociate from everything and distance myself from others. The problem is that people deserve your honest opinion if you care about them, even if it's not what they want to hear. But it's so hard to spend mental energy to…

They'll resent you insofar as it was confrontational vs. collaborative. If you can incept your conclusion into others they will not resent you. It's the whole raison d'etre of the Socratic method.

I had someone tell me, earnestly, that they hated me because it turned out that I was alright right. Not in the stubborn sense either.