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Just don’t

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Re: Just don’t

#41

Post by coldpie »

mbreese wrote: post #27
andsoitis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if they complain about it chronically? are you then justified to offer unsolicited advice, or do you have to just listen (i.e. be their outlet)?

Most people don’t want you to solve their issues. They just want you to listen and understand them. If someone asks for advice, that’s another thing entirely. But I’ve learned over the years that just listening and appreciating what someone else is feeling is the most helpful thing you can do.

This is one of those personality differences that I find utterly fascinating. I think you're right that most people feel the way you say, but I feel the exact opposite! If I'm talking about a problem, it's because I haven't figured out how to solve it and would be happy for ideas. Otherwise why talk about it? You're certainly not interested in my problems, and it's by definition a problem for me, so it's not like I enjoy just talking about it for no reason.

It was definitely a learning curve realizing that most people don't feel how I do about this. Still baffles me to this day, but I've learned to put that aside and just shut up because I guess people want that.

Re: Just don’t

#42

Post by gavinray » 

  > "They’re not making good progress, and someone’s asked you if you can help. You look at some graphs and error messages. It’s easy (once again, I speak from experience) to say something like “Could you just cache the hot partition keys?” or “So, just scan the logs for the high-latency signals and frequency-sort them.” 

  > This. Will. Not. Help.
I wouldn't have thought to do this and would have appreciated this advice. I'm also not an SRE. Fixing issues/helping others isn't about sparing their feelings, it's about effectively solving a problem.

Not that you should go out of your way to be hurtful, but any genuinely useful advice/suggestions should be given without regard for emotion. You're at work, not a social club.

Re: Just don’t

#43

Post by sfpotter »

hoistbypetard wrote: post #38
sfpotter wrote: post #8

I mentor students on research projects. I think it can be fine to use the word “just” in this context exactly to telegraph that I think a particular task should be easy. Student says, “But what about X?” I might say, “Oh, just do Y.” It’s fine if they feel the tension of me knowing how to do something and thinking it’s easy and them not. The key part is providing a supportive environment so that they know they can as…

> Student says, “But what about X?” I might say, “Oh, just do Y.” What would be lost if you said "I think it would be easier if you did Y instead."? That would convey the thing you think "would be fine" without any of the negative baggage that use of "just" can carry.

I don’t think the two usages are significantly more or less negative. Body language, intonation, context, etc. are everything here.

Re: Just don’t

#45

Post by huhtenberg »

andsoitis wrote: post #10
unsupp0rted wrote: post #7

I get a lot more mileage out of "have you tried..." than "why don't you just...". As a recent example, I wrote a system that auto-generates PDF packing slips from an order form, to send to a warehouse for picking and packing. Yesterday a client told me to "just make it landscape" while I was explaining why "just making it landscape" won't solve the problem of giving the warehouse whitespace to pencil stuff in, becaus…

> "have you tried..." Or: "what have you tried?"

"Everything, nothing works".

Few people like being asked open-ended questions when they are irritated.

Re: Just don’t

#46

Post by taneq »

For bonus points, suggest they “should just quickly” do X. Because if you tell someone that a task is quick, you’re not asking as much from them, right? /s

Re: Just don’t

#47

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

If I had had a nickel for every time someone has said "Can't you just write me a little app?", I'd be obscenely wealthy.

One of the downsides of being good at something, is that we make it look easy, so people think it's easy.

Re: Just don’t

#48

Post by miroljub »

mbreese wrote: post #27
andsoitis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if they complain about it chronically? are you then justified to offer unsolicited advice, or do you have to just listen (i.e. be their outlet)?

Most people don’t want you to solve their issues. They just want you to listen and understand them. If someone asks for advice, that’s another thing entirely. But I’ve learned over the years that just listening and appreciating what someone else is feeling is the most helpful thing you can do.

It may be the most helpful thing for them, but listening to someone else's problems could be emotionally taxing to the person listening. Double so, if the listener has a feeling that he's there just to listen, and that the person talking about the problem just wants to offload their issue to the listener, and is not at all interested about what the listener have to say about the topic.

If you want someone to just listen, go get a psychologist. They are at least paid to listen to other people's problems, and have tools not to take stuff personally and not to feel bad about it. And they get paid in the end.

Re: Just don’t

#49

Post by hoistbypetard »

sfpotter wrote: post #43
hoistbypetard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Student says, “But what about X?” I might say, “Oh, just do Y.” What would be lost if you said "I think it would be easier if you did Y instead."? That would convey the thing you think "would be fine" without any of the negative baggage that use of "just" can carry.

I don’t think the two usages are significantly more or less negative. Body language, intonation, context, etc. are everything here.

That's completely fair for face-to-face verbal communications. I was, for some reason, putting it in the context of written text-only exchanges. IME, in that context "just" has a significant chance of carrying very negative baggage compared to a more explicit "I think it would be easier if...".

Re: Just don’t

#50

Post by grimjack00 »

mbreese wrote: post #27
andsoitis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what if they complain about it chronically? are you then justified to offer unsolicited advice, or do you have to just listen (i.e. be their outlet)?

Most people don’t want you to solve their issues. They just want you to listen and understand them. If someone asks for advice, that’s another thing entirely. But I’ve learned over the years that just listening and appreciating what someone else is feeling is the most helpful thing you can do.

"just listen" isn't necessarily any easier than all the other "just " phrases.
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