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1. You don't actually know that the answer was obvious to the asker. They may have missed a critical piece of info. Or, you may have missed a critical piece of

1. You don't actually know that the answer was obvious to the asker. They may have missed a critical piece of info. Or, you may have missed a critical piece of nuance in their question. 2. Also, when someone asks if anyone has questions, and nobody has any questions, it can feel demoralizing and like nobody cared or understood what you were saying. Filling that space with an obvious question can be a small kindness. If you had a better question, maybe you should have asked it. Disclaimer: I felt the exact same way as you when I attended university and have gained some perspective since.

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
> can be a small kindness. "Kindness" seems to be in short supply, these days. It really is depressing to see how many people take kindness for weakness. I'm seeing that demonstrated in this very article's comments. One thing that I did learn in that corporation, was how to be an effective member of an effective team. There is no culture on earth that comes close to the Japanese for effective teams. There's a ton of downsides to their culture (but I won't get into that); but their teams are incredibly tight and effective. Being an effective member of a team requires far more than "hard" skills. It requires a lot of "soft" skills, and, in my experience, those lessons seem harder to learn. One of the lessons that I learned, very early on, is that the person I denigrate now, may the one that I depend on to pull my ass from a fire, down the road. At that time, they will remember whether I helped them, or tripped them up. To their credit, most of the Japanese that I know won't actually take that into account. If helping you helps the team, they will do it; regardless of how they feel about you. That's actually kind of amazing, and rather humbling.
- watwut 7y ago
  > One of the lessons that I learned, very early on, is that the person I denigrate now, may the one that I depend on to pull my ass from a fire, down the road. Why would you denigrate someone in the first place? Imo, the kind thing is not to denigrate anyone, including people that can not possibly be useful.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
    > Imo, the kind thing is not to denigrate anyone, including people that can not possibly be useful. Exactly. In fact, I have always found it advantageous to treat people "far down the ladder" with respect and kindness. This has always worked out well for me. These people know everything.
  - darkerside 7y ago
    Interestingly, I've especially struggled with this with those in closest with. It can be hard to "turn off" your friendship and be more respectful with someone you are comfortable with. But when you're in a meeting with other folks, a joke that might come off as friendly (giving someone a hard time) is suddenly misinterpreted by others.
watwut 7y ago
> Or, you may have missed a critical piece of nuance in their question. In such case, nuance would be visible from answer. I am not saying that every question is bad. But had experience of few individuals flooding lectures with too many such questions and it was not good experience. (They did it systematically, but lecturers eventually figured out to how to limit them - but it took multiple stalled lectures for that to happen. )
loeg 7y ago
There were clearly attention-seeking non-questions presented as questions in my larger university lectures (1). They were not good questions, and could accurately be described as bad questions or really just non-questions. You see the same kind of people grab the mic during Q&A at conferences and proceed to pontificate without any real question. The (2) case is sort of nuanced, sure. I think there were sort of two cases of "dumb" question here: (2a) the person really just hasn't been paying attention and asked a question covered earlier in the same lecture, potentially even quite recently; if they didn't understand it, they should have asked when it was introduced, and if they weren't paying attention, they should've been. And (2b), remedial-type questions, which would be good in a class prior to the current one, but just demonstrate that the asker isn't ready for the course they're in. These are bad questions for everyone else in lecture, who get to be distracted and sidelined from learning. I didn't get the impression that anyone was throwing freebie questions to the professor to invite more questions from the tentative, but that's just my anecdotal experience. What makes for good questions? I think good questions are timely and on-topic — relevant to recently discussed material. Save the questions about homework for after (or before) class, or office hours.

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

> can be a small kindness. "Kindness" seems to be in short supply, these days. It really is depressing to see how many people take kindness for weakness. I'm seeing that demonstrated in this very article's comments. One thing that I did learn in that corporation, was how to be an effective member of an effective team. There is no culture on earth that comes close to the Japanese for effective teams. There's a ton of downsides to their culture (but I won't get into that); but their teams are incredibly tight and effective. Being an effective member of a team requires far more than "hard" skills. It requires a lot of "soft" skills, and, in my experience, those lessons seem harder to learn. One of the lessons that I learned, very early on, is that the person I denigrate now, may the one that I depend on to pull my ass from a fire, down the road. At that time, they will remember whether I helped them, or tripped them up. To their credit, most of the Japanese that I know won't actually take that into account. If helping you helps the team, they will do it; regardless of how they feel about you. That's actually kind of amazing, and rather humbling.

watwut 7y ago
> One of the lessons that I learned, very early on, is that the person I denigrate now, may the one that I depend on to pull my ass from a fire, down the road. Why would you denigrate someone in the first place? Imo, the kind thing is not to denigrate anyone, including people that can not possibly be useful.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
  > Imo, the kind thing is not to denigrate anyone, including people that can not possibly be useful. Exactly. In fact, I have always found it advantageous to treat people "far down the ladder" with respect and kindness. This has always worked out well for me. These people know everything.
- darkerside 7y ago
  Interestingly, I've especially struggled with this with those in closest with. It can be hard to "turn off" your friendship and be more respectful with someone you are comfortable with. But when you're in a meeting with other folks, a joke that might come off as friendly (giving someone a hard time) is suddenly misinterpreted by others.

watwut 7y ago

> Or, you may have missed a critical piece of nuance in their question. In such case, nuance would be visible from answer. I am not saying that every question is bad. But had experience of few individuals flooding lectures with too many such questions and it was not good experience. (They did it systematically, but lecturers eventually figured out to how to limit them - but it took multiple stalled lectures for that to happen. )

loeg 7y ago

There were clearly attention-seeking non-questions presented as questions in my larger university lectures (1). They were not good questions, and could accurately be described as bad questions or really just non-questions. You see the same kind of people grab the mic during Q&A at conferences and proceed to pontificate without any real question. The (2) case is sort of nuanced, sure. I think there were sort of two cases of "dumb" question here: (2a) the person really just hasn't been paying attention and asked a question covered earlier in the same lecture, potentially even quite recently; if they didn't understand it, they should have asked when it was introduced, and if they weren't paying attention, they should've been. And (2b), remedial-type questions, which would be good in a class prior to the current one, but just demonstrate that the asker isn't ready for the course they're in. These are bad questions for everyone else in lecture, who get to be distracted and sidelined from learning. I didn't get the impression that anyone was throwing freebie questions to the professor to invite more questions from the tentative, but that's just my anecdotal experience. What makes for good questions? I think good questions are timely and on-topic — relevant to recently discussed material. Save the questions about homework for after (or before) class, or office hours.