Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Just don’t

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 464 posts

Re: Just don’t

#91

Post by spiffytech »

laputan_machine wrote: post #37
pornel wrote: post #6

Related: if someone has a chronic condition, don't drop on them unsolicited medical advice, especially things like "have you tried yoga?", "you just need more sunshine", "you must try my cousin's healing tea!". You're not their doctor, and they haven't shared all the medical details with you. Your 3-second diagnosis is almost certainly terrible. They've heard it a dozen times already, and it's difficult and tiring to…

It depends. If you're complaining to me about your chronic condition then I will feel compelled to give you advice on things that I think might help you. That's the crux. It turns out people just want to be free to whinge about their issues without doing anything about it. That's fine, but don't talk to me about it, then. At the very least, tell me that you just want to whinge. Edit: Obviously this is to my friends a…

I have a chronic condition that comes up lot because it dominates my life. It touches everything I do, so bringing it up is unavoidable.

Early on I liked people trying to help. But after years of working on the issue, I've learned how specialized my situation is and how useless most advice is for me.

But friends & family don't have anything to offer besides the usual armchair advice. When I open up to someone new I always have to go through the phase of defending why I can't "just" do X, and that gets very tiring.

I'll get someone to understand that neither they nor I know how to improve my situation, but people eventually forget why X is off the table and I have to defend my decisions all over again.

I don't want to whine about it - I don't need to vent, and I've looked into everything anyone's thought of. It's just that this is an inextricable part of what's going on with me. If I can't talk about this with a person, I can't really talk about my life at all.

Re: Just don’t

#92

Post by jkingsbery »

You know what else doesn't help? That obnoxious thing where each word in a sentence gets a period after it. I'm pretty sure that doesn't help either.

Just write out sentences with the period at the end so you don't sound condescending.

Re: Just don’t

#93

Post by gjvc »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #72
gjvc wrote: post #35

Interesting how single words can have such an impact. I find it jarring to hear someone begin a sentence with "So", as if they have given the current topic some thought (when 9 times out of 10 they haven't), or to hear them end a statement with ", no?" where turning a positive assertion into a question sounds somewhat underhand.

Many people for whom English is like their third language (coming from Russian or Ukrainian background specifically) tend to abuse “So,” as a sentence opener, like other people may abuse “Well,”. Same thing with “…, no?”. More cultural than linguistic. I’ve also heard it’s a Mexican quirk, too. Still annoys me, but I can see where they’re coming from.

Very true, but I've heard native speakers adopt it, too.

"Get off my lawn!"

Re: Just don’t

#94

Post by void_msgs »

I've been trying to remove the word 'Just' from my vocabulary.

As the author states when you use it speaking to someone else, it implies a sense of triviality to the person's problems.

When I use it in reference to my self, ie "I was just going to move this over" It implies a sense and feeling of defensiveness. Since realizing these things I find myself more confident when I check my speech and remove just from it.

Re: Just don’t

#95

Post by kamaal »

MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #11
pornel wrote: post #6

Related: if someone has a chronic condition, don't drop on them unsolicited medical advice, especially things like "have you tried yoga?", "you just need more sunshine", "you must try my cousin's healing tea!". You're not their doctor, and they haven't shared all the medical details with you. Your 3-second diagnosis is almost certainly terrible. They've heard it a dozen times already, and it's difficult and tiring to…

Or to an overweight person: "you know you'd be a lot healthier if you just lost weight" or "why don't you get a gym membership" or "it's just calories in minus calories out, bro"? Gee, thanks, you're the first person ever to tell me that I should lose weight and it's just a matter of diet and exercise, like every fat person on the planet doesn't already know. It's like saying to a smoker, "You know that's bad for you…

At least in this case, any advice would be helpful. But it also depends on the person. If the person has been trying several things, and is curious to learn more and work on the suggestion, even small help can make a huge difference.

When it comes to things like working out in the gym, or nutrition. There are often some small optimisation/hacks you can do on top of the things you are already doing that can significantly move the needle in terms of gains. If you are walking, something like carrying weights in a backpack could help you burn extra calories. If you are already doing push ups, introducing you to burpees can make a whole world of difference. Similarly if you are already doing Kettlebells, a complex could significantly move the needle in terms of gains.

Beyond this, learning itself requires lots of humility. You must be prepared to be offended in one way or other to learn any person, in any way. Chances are high nearly every one you meet has some idea about how to make progress but not the entire idea. You need to take in feedback from several people piece together some kind of a coherent strategy to win.

Re: Just don’t

#96

Post by nvahalik »

alex_young wrote: post #85

This usage of just is fascinating. For instance: Can't we just apply this small change to remediate the larger problem? Why not? Saying such a thing can actually be helpful. Perhaps (and in many cases probably) the other party hasn't considered doing so. However, we're also almost stating that the listener has spent considerable resources coming up with solutions which seem overly complicated to the speaker... "Just"…

I'd say yes. But only in one of a couple of contexts:

1. Its solicited advice. Hey so-and-so, what do you think about X? I've tried X, Y, and Z and they haven't worked.

2. Its part of a brainstorm/solution meeting. All ideas are on the table.

Re: Just don’t

#97

Post by [deleted] »

jerf wrote: post #60
huhtenberg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everything, nothing works". Few people like being asked open-ended questions when they are irritated.

Mmmm, well, I'm all about being accommodating and gracious to people under stress, but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction, there are some expectations of those who are being asked questions. If you don't want to be pestered with my every guess about what you may have already done, likely hitting several things you have, you really ought to be able to answer the question "what have y…

[deleted]

Re: Just don’t

#98

Post by sixhobbits »

KIFulgore wrote: post #54

Funny... my roommates and I used "just" for comedic effect in college. I was stuck writing an algorithm and asked my more-experienced roommate for help. He briefly scanned my code and said, "well, you kind of just... code it." I looked at him quizzically and just blurted, "straight up?" "Yep, just straight up code it." Then we all laughed at the absurdity. He wasn't trying to trivialize the problem, to be clear, but…

I remember a meeting at FAANG where there was a bunch of discussion about a difficult problem and then a higher-up manager stopped the conversation to interject with

> Guys, we're thinking about this in the wrong way. The solution is to just get the right people together into a room and build the solution.

Which was definitely true but also not useful.

Re: Just don’t

#99

Post by area51org »

robertlagrant wrote: post #90
quelltext wrote: post #79

Not saying it's not good to learn about how "just" might be perceived or avoided but I am surprised this article is getting so much support. I feel like in the environment I'm in "just" never implied anything negative (e.g. lack of understanding on the receiver's part, making it seem like they should have considered ... but didn't, etc.), rather: - I don't yet understand why steps x, y, z are necessary. To me it woul…

We're in a bit of an era of establishing finer- and finer-grained politeness laws, all of which presuppose that the recipient's perception of a communication is all that matters.

> all of which presuppose that the recipient's perception of a communication is all that matters

... and assuming that the listener is able to parse and then object to phrasing on the fly. Phrasing can matter, but fine-grained hypercriticism is mostly a useless exercise.

Re: Just don’t

#100

Post by marcosdumay »

jerf wrote: post #60
huhtenberg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everything, nothing works". Few people like being asked open-ended questions when they are irritated.

Mmmm, well, I'm all about being accommodating and gracious to people under stress, but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction, there are some expectations of those who are being asked questions. If you don't want to be pestered with my every guess about what you may have already done, likely hitting several things you have, you really ought to be able to answer the question "what have y…

> but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction

Odds are the person you are talking to have tried several dozens of things, 2/3 of what they don't even remember anymore.

Asking "what have you tried" is very often an unprofessional display of power disguised as a time-waster question. The one exception when the person answering has not had time to try several dozen options.

Post reply on HN