I've had the same thing when asking in person for practical, physical help with something. Occasionally someone has decided a simple request for assistance is

I've had the same thing when asking in person for practical, physical help with something. Occasionally someone has decided a simple request for assistance is really a request for them to completely redesign the solution I already have bought the expensive components for, and half built and tested. Start from scratch, appoint themselves project leader, do all the experiments themselves that were already done, etc. If we're really lucky, they'll do this despite months of work preceding the request. No, sometimes I just asked for some simple practical assistance, end of. And I rarely want to delete the work so far, so we can all start from the beginning.