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Just don’t

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Re: Just don’t

#411

Post by tremon »

edw519 wrote: post #254
vaidhy wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering why this answer was rubbing me the wrong way and I realized it is because your answer shows a complete lack of empathy for "the other side". I have worked on warehouses and it is complicated. >This says volumes about what they think about you and worse, what they think about their business and the problem at hand. Why is this bad? If someone who is not technical, asks you to explain in detail about ho…

shows a complete lack of empathy for "the other side" I must have misspoke or I'm just not the writer I used to be because this is exactly the opposite of what hundreds of warehouse and shop people have said about me for over 40 years. (about 10% of that work is mentioned here: edweissman.com) Why is this bad? Because NO ONE is working the real problem (which is certainly not changing report orientation to leave enou…

this is exactly the opposite of what hundreds of warehouse and shop people have said about me for over 40 years

Just don't. They specifically said "your answer shows a lack of empathy", it wasn't a personal attack. Your post doesn't show 40 years of experience.

I.T. should be a trusted business partner

Agreed, but you also rightfully admit that that's a management problem, and cannot be fixed by either side of the original conversation. So you discarding their work by "differentiating those who sling code from those who do real [work]" or calling users "fleas who used to jump 6 feet" does come across as juvenile.

Re: Just don’t

#412

Post by tremon »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #155
2devnull wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next trick to learn is that the customer will still blame you for not telling them that landscape won’t fix it. Then you’ll waste less time the next time your customer asks for something stupid. Fail fast can work well for client management.

Solid advice. I shouldn’t have pushed so hard to get heard. Should have just made it landscape (which took minutes) and let it fail. The trick is balancing that against wanting to be a consultant to them (i.e. somebody who knows what he’s doing and offers viable solutions that they themselves can’t think of) rather than a mindless pair of hands that gets directed by them to throw code at a wall.

wanting to be a consultant to them

Do you really want to be a consultant to people who don't value your input? Maybe you can find someone higher up in the organization to discuss your ideas with? They don't need to be your direct point of contact, but it sounds like you do need their buy-in.

Re: Just don’t

#413

Post by tremon »

jasonlotito wrote: post #325
dspillett wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“CNR, not enough detail, ticket closed, reopen with more information if your problem persists”. I don't have time to dig information out of people in order to try to help them, if they can't make any effort to help me help them when I ask for more information. This is of course one of the reasons I'm not generally client facing these days!

> This is of course one of the reasons I'm not generally client facing these days! That's like someone who isn't a C/C++ developer having opinions on C/C++ development.

> these days

Or rather, it's like someone who used to be a C/C++ developer having opinions on C/C++ development.

Re: Just don’t

#414

Post by ygouzerh »

reledi wrote: post #403
adenozine wrote: post #360

Alternatively, if you’re not fit for work, then don’t be at work? I mean, at what point is it over the line to be useless at a job you’ve agreed to do, and that you demonstrated competence for and interviewed for? Many times I’ve said things like “just restart the cronjob for this” or “just tag this issue to so-and-so if you can’t get it, they wrote the original” etc. I’m all for taking care of yourself, but if you c…

There are situations where it comes off condescending, and minimises the listener. But I will say that I sometimes appreciate hearing it when I'm overcomplicating things. It reminds me to keep it simple.

Yeah same ! I don't like hearing the word just, but sometimes it helps to stop over-engineering things, or to find arguments against the one saying "just"

Re: Just don’t

#415

Post by tremon »

torstenvl wrote: post #104
andsoitis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, exactly. The only caveat I'd offer is that sometimes this is not a good question to ask ("what have you tried?") because it can be interpreted as "are you doing anything about it?" Edge case, true, but still worth being intentional about.

Asking "what have you tried?" suggests that the answer to the question will lead to the answer to the problem. But the person seeking help already knows what they have tried, and they don't have an answer. So in the absolute best case, it's a useless question, you're just trying to get them to rubber duck it. In a less-than-great case, it'll be taken as a suggestion that they need your guidance in basic critical thin…

But the person seeking help already knows what they have tried

But the person being asked for help doesn't know. The question "what have you tried" is meant to avoid re-tracing steps that have already been taken.

Re: Just don’t

#416

Post by arpa »

ketzo wrote: post #140
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has suffered from migraines for 30 years, I can tell you that everyone just LOVES to tell you ALL the things you're doing wrong to cause them. As though I haven't been to every specialist I can find, and have tried -- literally -- every treatment known to man (except botox, yet).

Oh man, in my experience, migraines in particular are the worst for this because a ton of the common "justs" are actively conflicting "Just cut out caffeine/just try some caffeine when you feel one coming on!" "Just get more exercise/just make sure you're not exerting yourself too hard!" "Just get more sun/just make sure you're wearing sunglasses when you go out!"

"just change your lifestyle" is the best one ever.

Re: Just don’t

#417

Post by mrzool »

redhale wrote: post #368
adenozine wrote: post #360

Alternatively, if you’re not fit for work, then don’t be at work? I mean, at what point is it over the line to be useless at a job you’ve agreed to do, and that you demonstrated competence for and interviewed for? Many times I’ve said things like “just restart the cronjob for this” or “just tag this issue to so-and-so if you can’t get it, they wrote the original” etc. I’m all for taking care of yourself, but if you c…

Just don't feel alienated by articles like these.

The perfect response. Thanks for your comment :)

Re: Just don’t

#418

Post by adenozine »

kstenerud wrote: post #410
adenozine wrote: post #360

Alternatively, if you’re not fit for work, then don’t be at work? I mean, at what point is it over the line to be useless at a job you’ve agreed to do, and that you demonstrated competence for and interviewed for? Many times I’ve said things like “just restart the cronjob for this” or “just tag this issue to so-and-so if you can’t get it, they wrote the original” etc. I’m all for taking care of yourself, but if you c…

It's not about "say this and you'll break someone forever." It's about getting the best out of those you manage by engendering trust and respect. When you diminish someone's work or efforts (by any means; not simply by using the word "just"), you demonstrate to them that they can't confide in you, and should hide things from you whenever they can. As these events build up into a regular pattern, people learn that the…

It’s an assumption that you’ve made on your own.

I have been to over twenty weddings across my career, all from people I’ve shared a workplace with. I’ve bought baby shower gifts, I’ve been to graduations, birthdays, divorce hearings, rehab graduation, and more. I’d take a bullet for half the people in my contact list.

Work is work. You’re either there to work, or you go somewhere else. You think because you take a sick day, I don’t care about you? Have you ever known someone who never called in, and then one day they called in? That’s someone who needs to be checked on. But for someone who calls and says “hey, I’m taking a mental health day” or “hey, I got too fucked up last night and I can’t navigate the daytime world” those are different situations.

I respect my coworkers and colleagues enough to trust them to ask when they need help. If I say “hey, I need you or someone who can do it soon to just go through all the issues tagged merge and see which owners are here today” or something like that, then that person might say something like “ok, just to clarify, is there any simpler way to do that than by going all the tickets and then going through MS teams?” (ofc not, that would actually make sense)

“Just” is a signal of simplicity. To have apprehension about it is itself a signal of anxiety. These are workable factors.

What’s not workable is for you to say I have no empathy just because I have enough respect to treat my subordinates like adults and not coddle them.

Re: Just don’t

#419

Post by thaumasiotes »

vasco wrote: post #262
kelseyfrog wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for bringing this up. This was a life lesson that unfortunately had to be spelled out for me in a very embarrassing way. My ultimate takeaway is to now default to listening without advice. The result are on average better as people who want to vent are more put-off by advice givers than advice seeks who receive a good listener. It's also made me quite a bit more appreciative of times when I need to vent and…

What do you do though? Just stand there quietly nodding? When I try to do this I end up basically saying "that sucks", "hmm hmm", "yeah", etc which is very frustrating to me as I'd hate someone doing that to me. Or worse, sometimes I get the feeling that those "that need a listener" actually want mindless agreement with whatever the situation was or I feel like I'll be reinforcing insecurities. Let's say someone is t…

> When I try to do this I end up basically saying "that sucks", "hmm hmm", "yeah", etc which is very frustrating to me as I'd hate someone doing that to me.

Something my sister does, which I hate, is follow up "hello" with a falling-pitch "how are you". This really bothers me every time she does it to me, which is pretty often.

But I have a lot of problems responding to (strangers) asking me how I am, and I've tried her approach of mostly ignoring the question and reflecting back a falling-pitch "how are you", and it seems to work very well. No one ever complains that I ignored their question, and the focus goes back on them, where I want it, instead of me.

If I were to judge this strategy by how I personally feel about it, it would be one of the most grossly offensive things you could say. And it still makes me uncomfortable to use it. But the lesson here appears to be that I shouldn't use myself as a reference for how to interact with other people.

Re: Just don’t

#420

Post by PeterisP »

torstenvl wrote: post #104
andsoitis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, exactly. The only caveat I'd offer is that sometimes this is not a good question to ask ("what have you tried?") because it can be interpreted as "are you doing anything about it?" Edge case, true, but still worth being intentional about.

Asking "what have you tried?" suggests that the answer to the question will lead to the answer to the problem. But the person seeking help already knows what they have tried, and they don't have an answer. So in the absolute best case, it's a useless question, you're just trying to get them to rubber duck it. In a less-than-great case, it'll be taken as a suggestion that they need your guidance in basic critical thin…

The answer to that question is quite likely to lead to the answer to the problem. There usually are a multitude of different possible causes, and the answer to "what have you tried?" eliminate many of them, and the second valuable thing is that when they say what exactly happened when they tried that thing (other than that "it didn't help"), you may have different conclusions from that observation that they did.
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