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Ask HN: How do you deal with irritating dumb coworker?
How do you deal with a coworker? that keeps asking for your help on something. But never really listen to you. and keeps asking you the same question in different ways?
it's really killing my productivity. plus its creates bad atmosphere.
- dozzie 9y agoHave you talked to your manager? It's his/her job to straighten and resolve such things, after all.
- k0t0n0 9y agonot yet, I don't want to be the bad guy. but a nice suggestion. thanks
- LifeQuestioner 9y agoThink you're either gonna have to say something to your co-workers, who may be unaware they're doing this. Or that it's bothering you. Or speak to your manager. Or, accept this is the case and you don't want too, and help them with a positive attitude.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoInstead of answering questions, I made one page tutorials for certain things. When asked the same thing again, I emailed them the tutorial... Again, if necessary.
- tyingq 9y agoCouldn't you just ask them in a somewhat nicer tone? "Hey, you seem to keep asking me the same question in different ways. I feel like I've already provided the answer. But, you keep asking. So there must be some misunderstanding here. What is it I haven't provided you?"
- konradb 9y agoI have been in the same situation as the OP and in my own experience this wouldn't have helped, though that is not to say your advice won't work in this situation. In my situation the issue wasn't that they hadn't been given the message in a constructive way, it was that they were incapable of receiving it, or rather their own needs and instincts meant they weren't really aware of the request. It was like noise around them. The same thing that stopped them just learning and figuring out the technical issues was the same thing that meant they couldn't be receptive to friendly constructive suggestions in that direction. To OP if your experience is like mine the situation was only fixed by the person not working in the same area of the business. Hopefully you are able to navigate to a successful solution!
- partisan 9y agoIt could be that OP is not really doing a good job of explaining. Calling the coworker dumb is a red flag to me. I had an employee who seemed to have trouble receiving my guidance. In his case, there were several issues at play, his and mine. Ultimately, I found the level at which I had to interact with him in order to get my message across. I was assuming that he was where I was in the process of rationalizing the solutions I was proposing. What I came to understand is that he didn't take orders well. It just wasn't in him to do so. Instead, he was driven by understanding why we were doing things a certain way. I was frustrated by him and that never went away, but I knew that it was my responsibility to get him to understand.