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Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

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Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#361

Post by notyourwork »

Smaug123 wrote: post #348
notyourwork wrote: post #226

People are so grumpy. If you don't want notifications turn them off. If I approach you in person I don't say hi and spill out a paragraph. So saying hello to start a conversation is a low friction way to have a conversation in the same we humans do in real life. edit: Are people really so unfriendly and impersonable that a simple hello is considered offensive? For the same reason I disable most mobile apps notificati…

I'm regularly on a support rota as first-line triage for things which have just started going wrong. I need to be interrupted for important things, but I would strongly prefer not to be interrupted for unimportant things, because undivided attention is very scarce on such a rota; doubling the number of messages while we perform the SYN-ACK dance doubles the number of interruptions. Setting my status to "does not rece…

Sorry my teammates, peers and coworkers are not shopkeepers. If that is how you interact with your co-workers I don't want to work on your team.

Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#363

Post by alar44 »

corobo wrote: post #9

This feels like one of those internet rules that stems from a neurodiverse IRC-type crowd Neurotypical people use this sort of social foreplay as a way to handshake a conversation[1], where the tech types want an input/output process devoid of mood and feeling It is silly and quite time wasting online too, but it's what they need to feel comfortable asking you questions. I figure if they need to adapt to some of my q…

No one is complaining about pleasantries, it's the fact that you're presenting nothing to start with. Just say "Hey, good morning. ?"

I'm going to ignore a greeting with nothing following if I'm doing something else but if you say "Hi, we're unable to connect to the network shares, can you help?" You now have my attention.

Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#364

Post by scruple »

ravenstine wrote: post #313
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How are you doing?", 90% of the time it's said, is social coding for either "I exist, acknowledge me before I continue" or "I see you exist, may I continue?" It's literally the human equivalent of a file existence check.

I totally get that, and as someone who grew up in LA I'm accustomed to a frequency of pretense. To me personally, "how are you" and "what's up" are complicated questions no matter what mood I'm in. Where I live, if you respond with anything other than "good" or "great", they look at you funny even if they know you. Heaven forbid saying you're just "okay", because then you might need to see a therapist. /s Besides, no…

> To me personally, "how are you" and "what's up" are complicated questions no matter what mood I'm in. Where I live, if you respond with anything other than "good" or "great", they look at you funny even if they know you. Heaven forbid saying you're just "okay", because then you might need to see a therapist. /s

Reminds me of the "How To Talk Minnesotan" video. [0]

I'm a Midwestern transplant to SoCal and getting hit with "How's it going?" or the equivalent still gives me anxiety, 15 years later...

[0]: https://youtu.be/oiSzwoJr4-0?t=478

Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#365

Post by gilbetron »

dylan604 wrote: post #165
IceMetalPunk wrote: post #122

Yes, this, 100%. I find it very annoying to get a notification popping up on my screen for you to say "hi" when obviously you want to ask me for something...and then you don't ask or say anything else until I stop what I'm doing and say "Hi! What's up?" back to you. After another 5-10 minutes of waiting for you to see me ask "what's up?" and then type out what is up, which we all knew you were going to end up doing a…

Just because the chat app shows that you are logged in, it does not mean that you are immediately available to chat. If I want to leave a message for someone with a response accepted at their convenience, then I send an email. If I reach out via chat, it's because I expect a realtime exchange. Again, because the little green dot appears next to user's name does not mean they are not deep in the tall grass and readily…

That's not how chat works - you're using a wrong analogy, and probably causing confusion and frustration amongst your coworkers. Chat is nothing like walking up to someone. "got a sec" is a waste of time and an annoyance, the sooner you learn that the better. Just put the greeting with the question: "Got a sec, I was wondering if blahblahblah?" Or even better "Hey, I was wondering if blahblahblah". Then they can respond right away, or not, or say, "Give me a few and I'll get back to you". This is how modern chat works, please learn it!

Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#366

Post by TheCoelacanth »

_8j50 wrote: post #341
denimnerd42 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no because an in person convo doesn't have a 2-10minute delay of complete silence between the hello and what they are asking for. example just from yesterday: them 10:10am Hello me 10:10am hey what's up them 10:20am hey do you remember me? I used to work with so and so me 10:20am yeah I can help you with any questions now them 10:45am nvm I figured it out by reading the error message. I'm not full time support, I'm a…

Does your chat client not have a do not disturb mode? That's why i said have a chatroom for support. It's not just devs that use computers. This is how any office worker or random discord community talk. You can also ignore the interruption. I use to think like you until I jumped to security where people sometimes avoid responding when you bring up a task they need to implement (like patching something). I just drop…

> forced to respond

That is exactly why it is an asshole move. You are starting off with the assumption that they will behave unprofessionally before they've done anything to warrant it.

> Sometimes I would have a technical matter to ask about and there are multiple people to ask. I am not copy pasting the same question and having 5 people waste time answering. I will drop a Hi and ask the first person who responds.

So instead you waste five people's time because they don't know someone else already answered your question. If there are five people who might answer, ask the question where all five can see it so they know when it has been answered.

Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#367

Post by JimDabell »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #345
sneak wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That also isn't a good opener. Discuss what specifically about it? It's still waiting for a contentless "yes"/"sure". Just begin the discussion. I think a lot of people do this because they are bad/slow at typing and don't want to bother leveling up.

How would you do it differently? For someone I worked with closely, sure, I'd just paste the ticket ID and start talking to them about it. When I have to talk to someone whom I don't have an existing relationship with and maybe only have a tenuous recommendation to talk to them about an issue I think it's a reasonable place to start. They might actually not know about the thing I'm asking about and have a better idea…

> How would you do it differently?

Imagine somebody responded to that message with “Sure, what’s up?” Now imagine what you would write in response to that. Then just send that along with the original message.

So instead of:

> Hey Bob, this is Alice, I work on the QA team in Dublin. I'm looking at an issue I think you might be able to help me with http://jira.yourcorp.org/browse/ORDERS-1234. Would you have a minute to discuss this?

…you might write something like this:

> Hey Bob, this is Alice, I work on the QA team in Dublin. I'm looking at an issue I think you might be able to help me with http://jira.yourcorp.org/browse/ORDERS-1234. I’m following the steps, but I can’t reproduce the problem. I see it’s a couple of weeks old, is it possible this is fixed already? Can you still reproduce this?

In fact, normally a question like this is a sign something is wrong elsewhere anyway. Why isn’t the discussion about the issue taking place in the issue tracker? If anybody else has to pick this up, they will be missing all the info from the discussion that took place elsewhere.

Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#368

Post by VBprogrammer »

JimDabell wrote: post #367
VBprogrammer wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you do it differently? For someone I worked with closely, sure, I'd just paste the ticket ID and start talking to them about it. When I have to talk to someone whom I don't have an existing relationship with and maybe only have a tenuous recommendation to talk to them about an issue I think it's a reasonable place to start. They might actually not know about the thing I'm asking about and have a better idea…

> How would you do it differently? Imagine somebody responded to that message with “Sure, what’s up?” Now imagine what you would write in response to that. Then just send that along with the original message. So instead of: > Hey Bob, this is Alice, I work on the QA team in Dublin. I'm looking at an issue I think you might be able to help me with http://jira.yourcorp.org/browse/ORDERS-1234 . Would you have a minute t…

I don't think that is much of an improvement. Assuming you don't know the contents of the issue at hand your going to have to go away and take a look and by someone asking if you have a moment to look at it they are giving you an explicit opportunity to say I'll take a look at it this afternoon / tomorrow / before the heat death of the universe. Again, if there was an established relationship between me and the person asking then it may not be necessary. In any case it's still 100x better than a "hey, how are you?" from some random who couldn't give two shits about how you really were.

Issue trackers are poor at back and forth discussion in my experience. Yes, you need to make sure that any important information or the conclusion of a separate discussion is recorded in the ticket but it would take all day to have a short conversation about an item, the whole time every person who'd ever looked at the ticket in the wrong tone of voice gets an email alert.

Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#369

Post by corobo »

chousuke wrote: post #72
corobo wrote: post #9

This feels like one of those internet rules that stems from a neurodiverse IRC-type crowd Neurotypical people use this sort of social foreplay as a way to handshake a conversation[1], where the tech types want an input/output process devoid of mood and feeling It is silly and quite time wasting online too, but it's what they need to feel comfortable asking you questions. I figure if they need to adapt to some of my q…

Why would a neurodiverse person want a conversation devoid of mood and feeling? Maybe their feelings just work differently and you can't understand them. Polling people with non-informative questions is a good way to distract them for no reason if they can't help you. I think that's impolite. As someone with ADHD, that can be disruptive and at times gets extremely frustrating because I can easily lose half an hour to…

Personally it’s because I find conversations full of mood and feeling kinda boring, usually very light in substance and often gossip based

Also ADHD (inattentive) for what it’s worth. I understand the problem, I’m saying this solution is ineffective and just comes off a bit bellendary

You’re just gonna come off as some Big Bang Theory Sheldon-type asshat by giving people a massive document to read before they can besmirch your presence. Do they also have to read the XY problem article first or do you wait for them to ask a question before springing that trap card?

It’s not good optics for nerd kind and it’s way more hassle on both parties than is needed

Re: Don't ask to ask, just ask (2019)

#370

Post by somebodythere »

blablabla123 wrote: post #8

True words for 1:n communication. For 1:1 communication it's a different thing though. I really prefer people to warn me before dropping a bomb

Which is why when someone says "do you have a minute" or "can we talk", I don't know if they're about to drop a bomb! It is stressful!
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