Are you an Asker or a Guesser? (2010)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37176703 (946 points | 19 days ago | 479 comments)
https://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground-bet...
I read docs, I read code, I read SO questions, I read forum posts, I read blog posts, I read chat histories, I read GitHub issues.
And then, after I lost 1h-20h I ask someone.
Why?
When I started programming, people didn't help me. They were angry when I didn't know things. They laughed at me when I didn't know things. They explained things very badly. They didn't have time to explain things. They didn't know what they were doing themselves.
People still get annoyed when I ask. Dude, I’m just trying to save time. You can say “I don’t know” and I’ll go read. You don’t have to talk in circles, you don’t have the make something up (that will often be wrong), just admit the truth.
I’m happy to research and guess. But if it’s convenient (for everyone) I’ll pipe up asking for whatever morsels you have that will save time.
Growing up on the Internet has led, for me, to have a very eclectic and fragmented knowledge base.
Speaking with someone affords me to skip all the BS and more precisely target the information I'm after, it also gives the other person the opportunity to spot and fix XY problems, or to refer me to somewhere that will be more fruitful.
Also, I don't know where the threshold for "polite" is. I can research something for a decade, and people will still be frustrated with me.
I'm not sure how to handle it sometimes. It seems like asking too many questions can get me judged and potentially make people see me as stupid. But trying to figure it out myself rubs people the wrong way too..
It feels like the solution is some magic that makes everyone stop trying to make assumptions instead of just clarifying things but obviously that's a pipe dream.
Makes it easier to ask questions, and when someone is asking you silly questions, it allows you to direct your frustration towards the subject itself rather than the person.
Doesn’t work so well with things that weren’t designed however, such as physics, or Rust
Rust wasn't designed...?
I’ve found mentorship, especially code mentorship, to be extremely overrated. I seem to end up in two situations:
* the problem I’ve run across is so far out of my depth that I don’t really know how to explain it. If I did, I’d research what I’m trying to do. A mentor either doesn’t have the time for me or can only provide a surface level explanation.
* the problem is mostly within my skills, but I need to figure out a small component. Asking someone is going to annoy them for it being such a trivial piece.
My favourite example of a "Guess culture" is that of Iranian taarof[0]:
Another example occurs if a Western individual is not familiar with taarof in Iranian culture. When an Iranian individual is offering taarof, it is to first view it as a sincere offer with the hope of decline up to four or five times. If the individual offers more than five times, it can be concluded that the individual is not doing taarof, and the opposite side should respectfully thank that individual and accept the offer with gratitude.
In that example one has to decline about 5 times (!) to be sure the offer is genuine, most people unfamiliar with that custom will take the offer the second or third time or will be enraged that they don't understand a "No, thank you".
The most laborious combination is a "genuine offer" and you deciding to decline it. The person signaling the genuine offer will try to double down, - so expect an 8th time - until your genuine rejection is "accepted" and while you are at it firmly holding your ground try to sneak in a counter-offer, too ;) In the end you will end up most likely accepting a "symbolic offer" of the genuine offer. E.g. if you decline a ride you are offered genuinely (say because you want to have a comfortable ride with a taxi), you can decline eventually by accepting the symbolic offer that e.g. a taxi is called up for you.
Pretty hard to figure out if you are coming from an ask culture.
The wikipedia article states the "Taarof is a ritual politeness that levels the playing field and promotes equality in a hierarchical culture" but the expectation that you repeatedly say no to something that is being offered and that you want out of social nicety seems nonsensical, and I don't see how it promotes equality. Can someone shed some light on this?
In some ways, the analogy to currency holds: If you do a favor for me, I'm more likely to do a favor for you, there's a baked in "inflation" in that reputation decays over time. But in a lot of important ways, it differs: Me doing a favor for someone actually can make me more likely to do a future favor for them, versus no exchange taking place at all, depending on our level of rapport and the size of the favor. Reputation also rewards things that no-one would bother to quantify under currency economies: small favors, being enjoyable company, loyalty. Reputation is also aggressively local: just because Alice thinks very highly of me, it doesn't mean that Bob is more likely to help me, unless he and Alice have some kind of relationship, in which case I'd be leveraging not only what little rapport I have with Bob, but also my rapport with Alice, and Alice's rapport with Bob. This is a main weakness of such systems, because currency lets you deal with people you've never met before just as easily as your local barber. That leads to the necessity of strong hospitality cultures, because outsiders otherwise have no access to resources at all.
From a modeling perspective, currency lives in the nodes of a graph: Alice has some money, Bob has some money, I have some money. Reputation, in contrast, lives on the edges: I have rapport with Bob and Alice, Bob has rapport with Alice and I, etc.
On tangentially related note, it's been a bug-bear of mine that primary education history lessons always present barter as the premonetary economic system. This is absurd on its face: if Bob is a brilliant cobbler, and I'm a farmer with shoes that regularly need repairs, I'm not going to break down into whole negotiation of how many bushels of wheat or worse yet something more perishable like vegetables from my garden a new shoe sole costs, and how I'm going to save up and store enough for when my shoes need a fix. I'm going to build a reputation with Bob, by sharing with him excess from my garden, and in exchange he'll be willing to fix up my shoes when needed. Straight-up "I'll give you 4 chickens for a coat" barter is very rarely observed in societies before the introduction of currency.
But barter in pre monetary cultures often involved the exchange of a third commodity that was commonly traded - things like salt, spices, alcohol, oil, copper and silver. Things that were in high demand and were non-perishable. Coins developed as standardised units of the precious metals that were already being exchanged.
I'm also reflecting on the times where I've changed my mind during repeat offers, basically because it gave me enough time to think.
No conclusions on your question, just ruminations from some one who wonders the same.
Second that. Just asking takes out the guesswork, and helps to avoid misunderstandings. Feels like a more efficient way to communicate.
But I do prefer to minimize annoying others. For example by learning some of the culture of people you're dealing with, context of the subject matter, etc. Most people will appreciate if you show to 'have done your homework'.
Kind of like RTFM before asking on a forum. You're more likely to get a helpful response if they see you read the relevant section of the manual, and tried x or y, but something remains unclear. Versus "I'm lazy & need this fixed, plz help".
But I think it depends on how well you're tuned into the culture of some group (call it the in-crowd).
If you're like a Zen master of that group's way of doing things, and many exchanges have been made between members of that group & yourself, then with a request you know who to ask, how to ask, and likely meet willingness from the other side.
But if you're clueless.. then better give a hint to that fact, and ask explicit questions that don't leave room for misunderstanding.
"Those who ask may be a fool for one day. But those who don't ask, may remain a fool forever".
It becomes part of the social game, and can be quite fun to take part in We move you start to understand the rules. But is confusing at hell if you’ve arrived from an Anglo culture.
Being paid for feels infantilizing to me. Often the person with the highest status pays, by accepting being paid for you are accepting your role beneath them.
I initially thought, on reading your first sentence, that you are trying to be nice/kind to others by paying for them, but then the rest of the comment gave the opposite impression, making it sound like you're infantilising the other person/trying to avoid an unpleasant feeling on your part by pushing it onto someone else.
As a diehard “asker” I can’t help but see “guessing” as narcissistic. Why would you presume you know what I want? Of course from the other side “asking” can be seen as self centered—why can’t they read the room?
Yes, but that qualifier is crucial, as the Metafilter post referenced upthread points out: "Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people -- ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have to embrace Ask behavior."
In fact, as the scenario described in the Metafilter thread shows, even sharing considerable background doesn't always make Guess work. The wife and the friend in the scenario were from the same home town and knew each other's families, but the wife's attempts to hint, in Guess fashion, that the friend wasn't a welcome visitor didn't take, and now the wife and husband are struggling with the (necessary in this case) switch to Ask behavior (or more precisely the correct Ask response, which is to Just Say No instead of hinting).
I'm in the same boat as k__ above. Some have been indoctrinated into an "asking is wrong" culture.
On my job, if you ask:
* You're given a rude response. * You're treated like an idiot. * You're told you're wasting the other person's time.
and many other less than ideal responses.
Given these reactions enough, one can get tired of it (or angry, or ashamed depending on your personality), and just begin to avoid the situation entirely by guessing.
Then of course when you guess wrong, see the above points.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
It definitely changed how I approach that stuff now and, as I've expressed in another comment, for the worse in some people's eyes. I have gotten reprimanded for NOT asking questions a couple times in more recent years and I'm confused as hell which is the right way to go with it.
My approach now adays is, if it's something I know to some degree or think I can find an answer to it, timebox to a small amount of digging before asking someone. It's imperfect and I wish there was a better solution but the only real solution seems to be expecting other people to be more gracious with my asks and there's no real way to control another person's reactions so I just shy away from asking.
The answer contains just 1 bit of information, yes or no.
The request carries much more information. Did you chose me specifically from all my colleagues for this request? This informs me about you and how you operate. Did you wait until a specific moment to make this request? This informs me about you and how you operate. Did you attach special conditions to your request? Did you formulate it like it's nothing, when in fact it is a big deal? Etc.
The Askers think there is no information in the request itself and its specific formulation, and just care about the 1 bit of information in the answer. They also believe that the request-answer is a stateless transaction, i.e. that nothing gets memorized, or changes the environment going forward.
The Guessers are the opposite, are very careful with what the information disclosed in the request itself can do to the environment, the people, and the relationship going forward.
"You could've just said no" is what Askers say when they want to say: please ignore all the information in my request.
Example:
You are a friend who often scratches/dings his car, has occasional accident, etc. and you ask me to loan you my car, which I saved a lot for, restored old model, etc.
I will say, NO.
But I also learned something about you, that besides being careless you are also not self-aware, so I will take that into consideration going forward.
Imagine that every time you said "no" to anything, it cost you $5.
If that were the case, would you probably find it rude if people made requests of you without much consideration - because every time you have to say "no" to such a request, $5 disappears from your bank account. I mean, you can still say "no", of course, but after a while all that money you are paying out starts to take a toll on you.
"Guess" culture doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists in places where saying "no" to a request, even an onerous request that you have every right to refuse, exacts a social toll on the person refusing the request. Most people don't like awkwardness and don't like being perceived as rude or inhospitable, so if you live in a culture where refusing a request will lead to you being perceived that way, no matter how unreasonably, then you would probably resent being forced to saying no to requests. You might even end up saying "yes" to a few requests you would otherwise have said "no" to.
Guessers are not generally narcissistic, they are just trying to be considerate, trying to avoid placing a negative burden on your shoulders when they are the ones who want something.
Of course, if you are someone who doesn't have to pay $5 every time you say no to something, then all the incentives are misaligned and I can see why it's frustrating to deal with the guesser. But try to keep in mind that there are lots of people out there who really are paying that $5 every time.
I was raised in a hardcore guess culture, but now I have seen more of the world I have no problem asking for things directly so long as the person I am asking has no problem saying no. Without knowing that, I am still a guesser.
it's just as bad when you can't ask. it really doesn't help if your subordinates try to guess what you meant because they are afraid to ask for clarifications.
Giving it a quick think with the people I know (given that I don't know the mental health status of people without diagnoses) it's an almost perfect split.
A secondary wonder comes in due to the theory of mind deficit that can come with those disorders - thinking, or guessing, that other people have the same information you do even if it's not been communicated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
Maybe sprinkle in some illusion of transparency too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_transparency
Of course there are a billion other variables, just a possible pattern that popped into mind as I was reading the article.
It could just be that people who socialise less in general are more likely to become guessers possibly (Caveman programming: If you ask for something and get rejected you are risking your position in the tribe)
I have ADHD and RSD and this is me when asking anything: https://twitter.com/sensorystories_/status/16956149519377409...
"Guesser" doesn't seem deprecating at all. You might as well say "asker" sounds demanding and impertinent, but it's not meant to be either.
And you could just as easily say that askers are the ones who empathize and think about others because they want to avoid misunderstandings and stress by just being direct.
But at the end of the day, it's just different communication styles. It's a valid and real distinction, and neither is "right". Or, they're both right.
Sure, the asker can be a "demanding idiot". But a guesser can also expect everyone to be able to read their mind -- which is being just as much of a "demanding idiot".
You seem to actually be insisting that one cultural pattern is better than the other, when there's simply no objective basis for that assertion whatsoever.
You're concluding that the article/analysis is written from one bias, but I think it's actually revealing your own personal bias here. The article seems entirely objective and neutral to both viewpoints, whereas your reactions are clearly not.
Nope. Nothing changed. Where do I submit a formal complaint?
Does every advertisement or claim about a product upset you?