Are You an "Asker" or a "Guesser" at Work? | Hacker News Reader

Are You an "Asker" or a "Guesser" at Work?

spin.atomicobject.com

24 pointsingve15 comments

There are 2 kinds of people in the world, those that divide people in 2 clear categories, those that not, and those that understand that things may not be binary.

I see this clearly but over time my opinion is shifted a little: especially in writing an essay one often makes a distinction sharper than intended as a consequence of being clear.

Yes, in physics there’s a quantum world and a classical world.

But we teach little kids that there are polite ways to act outside the home and more relaxed rules at home. Then they spend another few decades figuring out that there isn’t a hard and fast separation. But they need to start with a simple model.

So if we're only ever presented with simple models like the article, isn't that infantilizing?

Not at all -- it's the right way to introduce a modeln because it focuses on the novel. The reader can take it from there.

I think the opposite is true: it's infantilizing to treat the reader like they take things literally, or interpret things in the worst way. Most novel categorizations are there to give you a new lens through which you can analyze the world yourself.

Things don't have to be binary to be placed into 2 categories. They can also be bimodal to a varying extent. Most of the time that's what people mean.

Personally, I had both "asker" and "guesser" qualities as defined in the article so it hasn't made it any clearer about how I am as an employee, or how to deal with other employees.

Interesting: this topic has appeared on HN several times over 15(!) years but this is the first time I’ve encountered it:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

This is a really useful article. I’ve long observed this subconsciously but never seen it framed this way. It’s quite cultural though. Different cultures have different tolerances for the amount of asking/guessing.

My parents came from two different ask and guess cultures — whole countries mainly of one or the other. I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of “askers” in the US — at first it was oppressive then (I know realize) exhilarating.

Note also that in the cultures I grew up in there’s a cultural (learned) gender difference in who is allowed to ask and who is not. That can change (daughters must guess, while grandmothers and mothers in law are almost ask only). IMHO in a less hierarchical society like the USA ironically these rules are enforced more strictly and don’t change as much as roles change because the roles themselves are more fluid.

I find these kinds of articles very helpful in professional communication. It's not because they're scientifically accurate, but I often find myself pausing and thinking about what I've heard and how I will respond. As someone with ADHD, just that small moment allows me to take in information and compose my thoughts to communicate better.

Before reading the article I had a different lens as to what these were.

Askers - Peers exhibiting learned helplessness about their problems and questions in work chat and meetings. No research done, ask easy LMGTFY questions, assume anyone responding are now equally (if not completely) responsible for the solution.

Guessers - Do research, shared what they've tried, are only looking for the tiniest directional hint. Can be frustratingly vague sometimes but are way more resourceful.

The article covers at least some kf the dimensions that makes these two types better or worse

* "Good" askers are tactful and generous in praise, "bad" askers are indifferent to the harm they inflict

* "Good" guessers document and share the whole context upfront, "bad" guessers just struggle in silence and only at or after failure do they reorient.

My professional life literally revolves around asking people what they want, need, and then trying to illicit what they really need because only a few people actually articulate specifically what they want.

It's painful and I wish more people were less coggy parts in a corporate machine.

I think it's better to characterize different activities as related to asking or guessing, less useful to typify people as being one or the other. I definitely do things from both lists, I bet you do too.

I must be so much of a Guesser that I can't even imagine taking this route to ask someone to work on something for me.

> “Did I spend a lot of time thinking about what I wanted and wishing they could pick up on that through subtlety? Was I hoping they would read between the lines, even if my hints seemed obvious to me?”

Is this like, "We need a postgres database set up figure it out," or "We need a database that allows full-text indexing (and I know I want us to use postgres but I'll let you figure it out and hope you picked the right one of many)."

I dont think I map into either one cleanly, it depends a lot on what it is, and what the context of it is.

Nor do I think most people are strictly one or the other either.

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