271–280 of 440 posts
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Sometimes people just want someone to listen. Sometimes there’s nothing else you can do.
Sometimes people just want someone to blame. If you listen, you might become that someone.
This community consistently poo-poos MBAs and business people who, it says, don't contribute and just shuffle paper or find ways to lay people off. I felt that way when I started my first company, finishing my physics degree. I figured, I helped launch a satellite, I can do what we needed. A couple patents later, we got our first funding and I knew how to solve what problems came our way. I could break down any probl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With my wife, when she was upset about something, I'd tell her how to fix it. That... didn't go well. Eventually, I learned to just let her talk, and for me to say "Uh huh", for about five minutes. Then I could tell her how to fix the problem. But I had to listen for five minutes first. Note well: Five minutes worked for me talking to my wife . For person X talking to person Y, the correct time may range from 0 to in…
Made me chuckle. Your "just let them talk for 5 minutes", is another person's "wait until they're receptive to feedback." :) I've never met a frustrated or angry person who is receptive to actual feedback. I'm the same way. Validate my emotional concern first, then move on to the next step. Most of the time all I need to do is vocalize my problem... and that works best when I "have the floor." If you don't mind me su…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With my wife, when she was upset about something, I'd tell her how to fix it. That... didn't go well. Eventually, I learned to just let her talk, and for me to say "Uh huh", for about five minutes. Then I could tell her how to fix the problem. But I had to listen for five minutes first. Note well: Five minutes worked for me talking to my wife . For person X talking to person Y, the correct time may range from 0 to in…
Same here. I learned the hard way that I have to pay the entry fee of listening for 5-10 minutes and affirming emotions before I'm allowed to offer solutions. This wasn't immediately obvious for me, because in my case, the optimal listening time is 0 - if I didn't want actionable advice or knew how to solve a problem, I wouldn't be bringing it up in the first place.
While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…
With my wife, when she was upset about something, I'd tell her how to fix it. That... didn't go well. Eventually, I learned to just let her talk, and for me to say "Uh huh", for about five minutes. Then I could tell her how to fix the problem. But I had to listen for five minutes first. Note well: Five minutes worked for me talking to my wife . For person X talking to person Y, the correct time may range from 0 to in…
While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…
You noted the irony that you're giving us advice about not giving advice. But there's actually a double irony because you're giving advice about not giving advice due to your friend giving you advice about not giving advice.
I feel like this is anti-progress. My industry's success depends on me sitting in my room coding and not having a gf.
Once you get past a certain point in your engineering career, in order to grow more you'll need to take on more responsibility than one person can reasonably do. Then it's more about leading and influencing others and getting them to jump onboard, even if you're an individual contributor.
While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…
I've been working on this since I noticed it in myself a few years back. It's really difficult because I'm the "problem-solver," but I'm also the person that people want to vent to. So I've come to realize - After a friend/coworker shares something that they're sad/angry about, my standard MO is: 1) Say something like "Wow, that must really feel terrible. I'm sorry to hear that!" (I always feel the need to add more t…
While some of you may make light of the fact that I am giving you advice, my single most important piece of advice to people who are highly analytical and/or always solving problems is to not give unsolicited advice to friends, family, acquaintances, or even strangers. People will ask for advice if they really want it. People are not “broken pieces of code” begging to be fixed. I’ve lost friends over this, until one…