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I don't know

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Re: I don't know

#61

Post by rwallace »

chris_mahan wrote: post #16
joshdotsmith wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to be in Army Officer Candidate School at the moment, and this is how the majority of the selection and training process works. A lot of pressure for people to answer things right now , but most of us don't actually know the answer. Without fail, the most motivated and successful candidates are the ones who say "Sir, Officer Candidate ______, I don't know but I will have an answer to you by [hack time]."

How can one know how long it will take to get an answer? That's just a lie of bravado, a pressure-driven estimate. It's horrible in a business environment. What happens is the person will give the first answer that makes sense, which, while the answer may be correct, discourages deep analysis of the problem. I never give estimates, to the great fury of my boss, but I told him I don't want to lie. Lying is unethical,…

I try to avoid giving time estimates where possible as well. In practice sometimes you have to, though, and if you have said "I'll have the answer by tomorrow" and tomorrow comes and this turns out not to be the case, you say something along the lines of: This turns out to be a trickier problem than met the eye; here's what I've found out so far; do you want me to keep looking for a solution?

Re: I don't know

#63

Post by Jemaclus »

megablast wrote: post #59
Jemaclus wrote: post #8

It's not just "I don't know" that is important, but also the next part of the thought: "but I can find out." Just admitting you don't know is great, but it's not good enough. You have to also be able to take the next step and find out . If I ask two people if they know how to do something, and one of them says "I don't know" and the other says "I don't know, but I can find out," then... well, I don't really need to c…

> It's not just "I don't know" that is important, but also the next part of the thought: "but I can find out." This isn't about asking someone else to find out how to do it, this is about solving a problem, which may no solution. So saying, "but I can find out" it is comically ridiculous. Consider this, how are you going to solve the traveling salesman problem, for 10,000 nodes on your iPhone in 5 seconds? I don't kn…

Sometimes "that's impossible" or "you can't" is the answer you find out. :)

Re: I don't know

#65

Post by vacri »

alexandros wrote: post #27

The problem is that the engineer's "I don't know" gets beaten out of you when you speak to users and investors. You get made to feel like an amateur for admitting uncertainty. Which is absurd in the startup world of all places. So it's one of those doublethink situations, where you need to keep your internal accounting separate from the marketing talk. And then you need to know who to tell what on top of that. And th…

When I worked as a hospital tech, I was the 'user' of a few sales reps. My favourite sales rep was the guy who would say "I don't know" or "I can't tell you", and jot down the question in his notebook to find out and return with. He didn't always return (can't have everything, I guess), but "I don't know but will find out for you" was far superior to me as a user than the usual sales misdirection or bullshit.

It really depends on who your users are, I guess. The general public aren't particularly grateful as a whole, but niche users tend to be more understanding.

Re: I don't know

#66

Post by vacri »

Bahamut wrote: post #50

This reminds me of what a good PHP dev told me once - he interviewed a bunch of candidates for a company before as a favor, asking a bunch of specific tough domain questions. Almost all of the candidates tried to spew a bunch of nonsense & wiggle their way through them, but only one candidate had the confidence to tell him each time that "I don't know, I would google it". That was the candidate that got hired, and wh…

Herein lies the problem with DDG - it probably wouldn't sound as good to say "I don't know the answer to that question; I would Duck it."

Re: I don't know

#67

Post by adamzerner »

waylandsmithers wrote: post #39
adamzerner wrote: post #35

> Kiran explained that he likes it when people say I don’t know because it lends credibility to everything else that they’ve said. I'd take that a step further, and say that people who assign proper levels of certainty to their beliefs tend to be credible. Most people seem to only be able to think in absolutes.

Hey! I do this! It tends to drive people insane!

Well you did a good job by saying "tends to" :)

Re: I don't know

#68

Post by jmnicolas »

saosebastiao wrote: post #6

I swear to god, every time I read a post by Jason, I wish he was my manager. I consider myself a highly productive person, but constantly hampered, directly and indirectly, by terrible managers. Jason always comes off as the kind of person that amplifies the abilities of his team. That is all...I'm gushing and its embarrassing.

Until office politics doesn't allow anybody to be promoted in a management position, we will suffer from incompetent managers.

Ask me how I know.

Re: I don't know

#70

Post by thaumasiotes »

joeframbach wrote: post #15
nsomaru wrote: post #4

In Indian culture, knowledge (viveka) is always accompanied with humility (vinaya). Thus, counter-intuitively, saying 'I don't know' is an indicator of the speaker's knowledge, as he is aware of areas of his ignorance. Contrast with an arrogant attitude of "I-know-everything-or-can-find-it-out" and the fuck-ups that inevitably follow. Aside: I would really like to know what the solution to keeping the listings update…

It's interesting that you brought that up. As a westerner, I admit I don't have a great understanding of eastern cultures outside of the few movies I've seen. One stereotype, which I'd like some real clarification on, is the Chinese or Japanese societal culture of "saving face", or honor code. Could you give some insight on that cultural facet and how it pertains to knowledge/humility? I remember after the Fukushima…

You've got an interesting perspective on "The East". My favorite comment on the subject:

"""

In 1982, however, immigrant Indian and Pakistani businessmen, looking for low interest SBA loans and affirmative action in government contracting, talked the Reagan Administration into reclassifying them from white/Caucasian to Asian/Oriental, even though grouping Indians with Chinese rather than with Afghans makes little sense from the standpoint of physical, genetic, linguistic, or cultural anthropology.

"""

What was it about India that made you think it made sense to ask about China and Japan?

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