10 ms·

Do nothing (2020)

208 points by gurjeet 5y ago

Redheir 5y ago
Very true. Knowing how to prioritize the most pressing work at hand is very important for the person having to make those choices. For those on the receiving end, try to remember the story of the boy who cried wolf.
tsjq 5y ago
Good one. My challenge is about remembering to respond after that x minutes gap .
- another-dave 5y ago
  Sounds like a good Slack plug-in — mute the original notification & only ping you after X minutes. Bonus points if it could be disabled for particular channels/users.
trhoad 5y ago
Good advice. I (proudly) ignore about 60-70% of communication I receive. The important stuff bubbles to the top naturally. The rest goes away. If I jumped on everything, all the time, I'd actually end up getting nothing done.
- disgruntledphd2 5y ago
  I work with someone who uses this strategy, and normally what happens is that they ignore the original communication and then come back months later wondering why their data/product/whatever isn't available. Personally, I think this strategy can work if you intentionally ignore things after reading, but tends to fail hard otherwise.
joelbluminator 5y ago
Your boss should do the same maybe. Copple: Hey can I get a raise? Boss:
- sdevonoes 5y ago
  Copple: ah no worries - it's sorted already (I just quit!)
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    Going to be me in a couple of days. Although it's been six months in my case (since I last brought it up, actually been a couple of years since I started pushing for one, would have left already if not for the pandemic).
- Deestan 5y ago
  Copple: Hey, I forgot my key card, can you let me in? Colleague: [no response] 30 minutes pass Copple: Ergh... nevermind, I set up a mobile hotspot and am working from the cafeteria on my laptop until it runs out of battery and then I'm heading back home. PROBLEM SOLVED .-~'~ '
krona 5y ago
I use the same technique when I feel the person has the experience/wherewithal to answer the question themselves without help. Basically it's like being treated like a rubber duck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
Waterluvian 5y ago
I have a jr. engineer this works well with. You need to be very very careful not to let this become an excuse to not do your job. But sometimes you gotta take the training wheels away.
ToFab123 5y ago
The military has a writing style to combat this issue. BLUF is a military communications acronym—it stands for "bottom line up front"—that’s designed to enforce speed and clarity in reports and emails. It has previously been discussed here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20964907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20964907
- another-dave 5y ago
  I think you're responding particularly to the pointless "hi copple", first message? I know some people find that annoying, but personally, I thin k that's fine. If I _am_ interruptible & I do respond to the initial ping it's nice to have some human interaction before the "down to business" part. Esp when we're all remote. If not, I just get the first & second message at the same time and respond to the query. I think the author is also calling out "doing nothing" even for the meat & bones of the real request — e.g. in his example, even if the collegue did BLUF ("Live Client Issue: Strip integration missing from Xero") the issue still "went away" by itself without his attention if he left it 5min.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    I hate those pointless messages, to the point I developed a stress reaction to them. In business contexts[0], you don't have to choose between being impolite to some people and annoying others. There's a solution that satisfies everyone: just follow your pleasantry with the thing you really wanted to say. Do it immediately. Start typing your request immediately after sending "Hi $name", so that the other side sees the typing indicator. Or better yet, use the magic of Shift+Enter, supported by most IMs out there. Send a single message containing a bunch of pleasantries, followed by a newline (Shift+Enter), followed by the real payload. -- [0] - This is slightly different in personal space. When a long-forgotten acquaintance reaches out to me, I already know they want something, and I wouldn't be offended if they skipped the useless pleasantries - but apparently enough people demand to be taken through the "how are you and your kids?" dance first, that it's unsafe to state the actual purpose up front. But in business conversation, you're not supposed to go deeply personal like this, so there's no ambiguity - the reason for communication is business-related, by definition.
alfor 5y ago
I find I resolve a lot of problems by speaking about them to someone, I think that is a big part of this. We think that we think alone like a computer, but when we are stuck we often need to talk it through to someone.
- jeroenvlek 5y ago
  That sounds a lot like Rubber Duck Debugging [0]. I do it all the time and in my first full-time job, my colleagues gave me an actual rubber duck. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
k__ 5y ago
I building an microblogging tool for company internal communication. One thought I had, was, enforcing a delay for every message written. But I don't know if I choose one or ten minutes, or if it's a good idea at all. Or if I should just impose a fequency, like times a day new messages, etc The idea I had was something like in the "Do nothing" article here. People could write messages and might even delete them a few minutes later, because they solved themselves. Also, it would remove "emergencies" communication from the timelines.
- mauli 5y ago
  Nice idea coming to my mind reading your problem: time based growing circle visibility The person's close cycle is seeing the post first, then his team, then sub-org, until everyone has it on the news feed. Poster can choose to pause/stop the growth. Peiple getting the link are able to view all details, but do not immidiatelly have it on their timeline.
  - sovietmudkipz 5y ago
    I like this idea. It maps nicely to the concept of ‘andon cord’ applied to software engineering. If an engineer has an issue, pull the cord to broadcast to someone on your team. Then your entire team. Then a sister team. Then eventually to everyone in your org. Maybe even the initial message only gets sent out after a reasonable amount of minutes, in case the engineer wants to rescind the call for help.
  - k__ 5y ago
    Interesting idea. Thanks for the input!
sdan 5y ago
As someone who's gone through this recently, I don't think this is the best advice Better to over-communicate and let others know what you're up to than to stay silent and do nothing
- mlac 5y ago
  Especially working from home. It just looks like you were away from the computer and not paying attention. I get uninterrupted flow states, but if you’re in a customer facing role (and nearly everyone is or has some customer they provide a service to), you need to be able to respond and gauge the priority, manage expectations, and point people in the right direction. Often times in large companies people are trying to find the right person and you may know who it is. Other times it may be a question of how to solve the problem themselves. If someone approaches you with an emergency multiple times, it may be a problem with that person, or it may signify a larger process problem, which can be fixed to make the organization more efficient. Doing nothing creates churn and pisses people off.
torh 5y ago
A lot of times, people ask questions before they even know what they are trying to accomplish. Give them 5 minutes, and they may solve their own problem, which is a win-win.
- woutr_be 5y ago
  I often face the same problem. Sometimes I just don’t really know what to look for or how to search, asking for help through email / IM often helps, because I need to explain the issue to someone else, and articulate what is expected. It just helps me rephrase my internal thought process, and take a step back.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
brushfoot 5y ago
This is called the Napoleon technique. The idea is to postpone addressing something that's likely to resolve itself. Article: https://effectiviology.com/napoleon/ https://effectiviology.com/napoleon/ HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24419042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24419042
- siva7 5y ago
  seems like an useful technique for learning
- julianlam 5y ago
  The key word is POSTPONE. There are many comments in this thread mistakenly thinking that OP was advocating outright ignoring the ticket forever.
Stubb 5y ago
"If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." —Calvin Coolidge
neilv 5y ago
Two problems here: 1. Someone is ignoring a colleague's request for help. At least give some sense of whether and when you're going to help. 2. Don't just say "hello" in chat. https://www.nohello.com/ https://www.nohello.com/
codingdave 5y ago
> The reason people make these requests is that it removes a burden from the requestor. It also raises a question about your product/system. Someone had a problem. They asked for help. They figured it out. All is well... but they did have a problem, and that should be acknowledged. The software industry is moving more and more towards a UX and even a CX focus, where disregarding problems is questionable behavior. I'm not saying it is a junior engineer's job to identify, explore, and devise a fix for every problem, but it should get logged in a way that the product team can see trends in questions to know where to improve.
booleandilemma 5y ago
I had this happen to me yesterday. Hey, can you tell me why my query is slow? <5 minutes later> Nevermind! I had a typo. It’s like people want to outsource their problem solving to other people’s brains.
- majewsky 5y ago
  In many cases, they actually need a rubber duck and don't know it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
  - WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
    You need to actually believe that the rubber duck is going to bestow its wisdom upon you for it to work. I usually write a detailed question to a colleague whom I believe to be more knowledgeable than me. The trick is, I never send it unless I'm really stuck despite my research. When I do send it, though, the question is good and usual suspects are ruled out.
    - evilduck 5y ago
      In your case, your rubber duck is the email editor. The trick is that your efforts to summarize and clarify the problem for someone else and doing your due diligence for others that you may not have done for yourself at first before you _actually_ press send is oftentimes enough to solve the problem outright. If it doesn't work, you're ready to go with an amazing summary of the problem already.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      I do the same thing - I just haven't quite managed to reach the level where I do it as a deliberate method, I always think I'm going to send it! I've on occasion done it to StackExchange sites too, nice thing about that is when you have your Aha moment, you can just tick 'Answer my own question', detail the answer, and post both together for other people's (your future) benefit.
  - swader999 5y ago
drloser 5y ago
Doing nothing is often a good way of naturally assessing the importance of a request. Generally, if the request is really important, the person will keep on asking until you respond.
aaronschroeder 5y ago
Please don't follow this advice if you are in any kind of IT support role. It may make sense for developers who need large blocks of uninterrupted focus time, but even then the issue to resolve is working with team members on best practices for interrupting developers. Doing nothing is akin to saying my time is more valuable than yours, you silly plebian. It's the sort of attitude that reinforces the unfortunate stereotype that IT people are arrogant and view their expertise and role as more important than others'. I found great success providing IT support by always responding immediately when I'm available, and establishing focus times where others know I may not respond right away. An attitude of service and humility can go a long way in winning the respect and trust of your colleagues and supervisors.
- Deestan 5y ago
  Exactly. And in either scenario, responding "bit busy, will check in 30 mins" both allows short lived transient problems to fix themselves, and lets the sender know that yes you got their message and that you can not look at it now but you are not ignoring it either.
  - rytis 5y ago
    But it can also have a different effect. If you don't reply, the requestor does not know if you even read the message, so they might try resolving the problem by themselves. However if you say "I'm busy, will check later" they know they don't need to even try, as you are going to resolve the problem for them. That's the best case. Worst case, they'll report to their manager that you're "blocking" them and they aren't able to work for the next 30 mins because of you.
    - pc86 5y ago
      > they know they don't need to even try, as you are going to resolve the problem for them It's unlikely that the team is best served by you treating your coworkers like children who you are responsible for teaching. > Worst case, they'll report to their manager that you're "blocking" them and they aren't able to work for the next 30 mins because of you. If you are, what's the problem?
wombatmobile 5y ago
> Do nothing "I follow this advice all the time." - Solo entrepreneur with no customers and no income.
271828182846 5y ago
there's definitely something to that approach. maybe not "do nothing" but "do little". I observed many times that doing less is even preferrable. it helps staying out of trouble. instead everyday you do just as much that you can refer to it - most of the times nobody seems to care about how "much" that actually contributed. as long as you can say I worked on X during your slot in the daily. beyond that learn from George Costanza how to seem busy - ask questions, complain about something, have a little meeting about every other day. especially the latter helps you appear as a committed teamplayer. doing more usually just increases risk of being blamed for something and attracts more work due to having to fix your own stuff in stressful and observed situations.
- loopz 5y ago
  Or, learn what applies to each situation, and either apply it yourself or delegate to the correct person to have a look at it, when their time allows it. There are so much that always need fixing. If everyone would do what you suggest, nothing would ever move forward. The need to have meetings for every minor issue, is like running on brakes - unless the meeting really can be used to resolve something. The downside is nobody notices your work, but there are upsides to it and less risk.
  - 271828182846 5y ago
    you deliberately misread my comment. f.x. I have no idea where I suggest meetings for every minor issue ... having said that my suggested mo is directly related to organisations that fail to properly motivate and instead implement punish dedication. ime that's the norm in many teams.
makeitdouble 5y ago
> At some point we realise that we aren't paid to be psychologists, we are paid to solve problems in the order of most important first. This advice will have wildly different effects depending on the organization you work in. Hopefully you already know how it would go down for you.
motohagiography 5y ago
Very close to another concept called, "masterly inactivity," that appears in a number of disciplines. https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Masterly+inactivity https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Masterly+in... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/may/10/busy-doing-nothing-mastering-the-art-of-masterly-inactivity https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/may/10/busy-doing-... and: https://timharford.com/2021/04/cautionary-tales-masterly-inactivity/ https://timharford.com/2021/04/cautionary-tales-masterly-ina... (podcast from FT columnust)
- einpoklum 5y ago
  Indeed, "Masterly Inactivity" is an established concept: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/masterly_inactivity https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/masterly_inactivity and used to great comedic effect in Season 1 of "Yes, Prime Minister": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIJ_C9mUBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIJ_C9mUBI > Q: I've been asking myself what can I do to continue this run of success? > A: Have you considered... masterly inactivity? > Q: No, Humphrey. A Prime Minister must be firm. > A: Indeed. How about _firm_ masterly inactivity?
ajuc 5y ago
In my first job we had guidelines for using communication: - if it needs to be answered immediately - phone or come personally - if it needs to be answered within 15 minutes (or was it 1 hour? at any rate - not immediately and not long time) - use jabber (text communicator used at the time) - if it needs to be answered some time today - write an e-mail I quite liked the system. It reduced distractions a lot.
soheil 5y ago
Sadly IT support and to some extend sysadmins (SRE?) need to cope with the fact that even though they may work closely with engineers their pay is typically much less and are there to help those teams. This causes resentment and sadly leads to the arrogant sysadmin/IT support stereotype. Now there is concrete reason why it makes sense to be arrogant and not respond right away. I hope no one takes this advice except the very overworked and stressed who'd probably be wiser taking another job anyway.
- loopz 5y ago
  Even if the pay is a bit less, all the work in IT may unfortunately often be both more urgent and important, than tending to developers. This is why one should have proper ticket system and internal SPOC for IT support. It's just patently false that IT works as support for developers first and foremost. Who gave developers that idea? Maybe that would be a great idea, or maybe developers should be able to make their own sandboxes. These are questions for collaborative projects and for leadership to prioritize (just as with "pipeline" - which was an old idea developers resisted until leadership got involved). The problem is expecting "magic", when nobody is hired to tend to your exact problems with technology. This is btw exactly what DevOps aimed to solve, developers and operations working together towards shared goals. It's a two-way street, or it doesn't work.
Markoff 5y ago
More like slow down your response (to see if things won't sort themselves out) than do nothing.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
RalfWausE 5y ago
I personally call this 'fish market' system: Whoever shouts the loudest get served ;-)
pif 5y ago
As an industrial software developer, my golden rule when dealing with support requests is: I will not do anything until they tried whatever they can try. If they just want to offload the issue to me, it will be a dead end.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Yup, don't try and fix a problem they themselves don't understand either. Don't try to fix a problem if they just say they have a problem - see if they ask you to fix it (= offload it to you) or if they ask you a specific question that you can help or refer them to something. This goes for non-work stuff as well; I see a trend happening (on- and offline) where people just posit a Problem, instead of asking a question or working towards a solution. Stupid example: people saying "I'm hungry" instead of a "Wanna get some lunch?" or solving the problem for themselves in silence. There was a thing on Facebook as well (remember Facebook? That was a thing) where people would make posts or comments to the tune of "The worst thing happened today!" without explaining themselves, instead waiting for / fishing for people to ask "What's wrong???". It's a way to fish for attention in a sense.
  - cogman10 5y ago
    Any tips on how to do this nicely? I always like lending a hand to someone and helping them solve problems, but as of late some of my new coworkers have been taking advantage of my nature. They don't even try to look up the docs, I'll give them a bit of sample code and if it doesn't work without blind copy/paste they'll come back and have me go through a debug session with them. I have a hard time saying no because they are in India and have stayed up late so they could get me on a call. Yet, I also am irritated because it's apparent they've not made any effort to solve the problem themselves.
    - swader999 5y ago
      I typically ask them what they've tried to address and then tell them the tasks to try that they haven't already. There was significant cost savings to offshore to India on paper but its not up to you to fix the reality of a 12 hour offset in team availability. If it takes 3 sessions to fix a problem, there's no going around it. They need to learn and learn by doing and you cheat them if you do it for them.
WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
There are questions, and there are questions. You learn which to react to, it's an experience thing. You also learn about people who want you to do something, only to have you redo it, and redo it yet again, until it's back to the original state. In which case, you learn to do nothing. And there are people who think they are important, but in fact it's _your_ job that's more important. Postpone it, maybe they pester someone else or it can wait.
timomax2 5y ago
This is crap advice. Way to piss off your clients.
- fart32 5y ago
  I wouldn't follow this advice when it comes to clients or other developers. But I intentionally postpone stuff like this when it comes to pretty much everyone else. I read it, evaluate if it's critical and then I'll either take an action, or postpone it (usually replying I'll deal with it the next morning). Some people tend to ask as a last resort, others do it before trying literally anything else. Well, at least they used to back when I was failing to prioritize my work. Now some of them can figure out the problem on their own pretty fast, because they were forced to learn and become more understanding of the system.
indigodaddy 5y ago
I have my own rule— it’s that I don’t respond to “hi and wait”’s on Slack (unless of course from within my own team/group/mgmt). “External” hi’s just go unanswered. Simply because I get too many of them. If the person can’t take the time to include a concise summary of exactly what they need with that “hi,” well then, they’ll move on to someone else (they’ll be simultaneously pinging various other people on our team in any case). Usually they will get the picture and follow up within 15-20 minutes with their actual ask, but if it’s not important enough for them to make that extra effort, then it’s definitely not important enough for me. BTW, I never do the “hi and wait” thing myself. If I need something from someone on another team, I of course say hi. But in the same initial communication, the next sentences are a summary of exactly what I need, as concisely as possible. I do this as a courtesy, because no one has time for hi’s, nor chit-chat. As far as the actual article though— I highly do NOT agree with telling someone something is OK or resolved, when it’s actually not. That is simply very bad.
- hermannj314 5y ago
  I found this only works with my American and Indian colleagues. My co-workers in the UK and Europe made it clear it was rude if I didn't do a good morning / how was your weekend /.etc. song and dance with them on every interaction.
  - indigodaddy 5y ago
    That is my rule for external teams/groups/pings. Within my own team/group/mgmt, I relent to chit-chat.
  - NortySpock 5y ago
    I haven't had any complaints (yet) if I gently push the conversation towards business with a response to the initial pleasantries followed by "What's up?", "What's cracking?", "What's going on?" etc. Them: Hey! Me: Hey, what's up? Them: How is your morning going? Me: Pretty good, yourself? Working on X, had a relaxing weekend. What's going on? Them: Yeah, good. [back to business]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
m3kw9 5y ago
Maybe by doing nothing, he went to someone else that did it for you! Or he sorted it out himself, but you won’t know. Usually this “do nothing” solution is very situational and you will need lots of experience to know when. Sometimes is do nothing for a time period to see if it escalates, that’s what you can usually do.
slmjkdbtl 5y ago
At least respond a "No" or "I'll look into it tomorrow / next week", basic courtesy and respect.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
huijzer 5y ago
This reminds me of a lesson I got from a guy working in a specialised factory. Always when he got a call, in panic, for some new part that was needed, he would do nothing and call them back 30 minutes later to ask for details. In 90% of the cases, they solved the problem themselves. In the other 10%, he started working on it straight away
yellowapple 5y ago
This exact scenario happened to me twice just today. Amazing what waiting for a little while before responding can do. The downside of this, however, is that you miss out on information. What if it's multiple folks asking the same question, but then figuring it out on their own? Or what if the requester "figured it out" in a way that doesn't actually solve the issue or outright introduces new ones? For me, the "nvm I figured it out" message is almost more frustrating than the "hey can I ask you a question" message.
pdimitar 5y ago
> At some point we realise that we aren't paid to be psychologists, we are paid to solve problems in the order of most important first. As a senior programmer I'm paid to do both. Sometimes to answer a question you have to guide the other person through the entire process of clearing up their problem until they get the "a-ha!" moment. So depending on your seniority and responsibilities, you might have to teach people how to acquire problem-solving skills.
epakai 5y ago
I did nothing. Mom's email was broken (@verizon via aol). The web mail is working. So what, the imap/smtp server is down. Tell her the server is broken. If she has immediate need just use webmail for now. It'll probably work later. Come back the next day and she's blown 2 hours waiting on phone tech support. They've got her generating temporary passwords or some shit that their documentation has no mention of (This is standard imap/smtp config with SSL and a slightly modified username). She's frustrated and deletes the whole account in her email client. Sometimes it backfires.

Do nothing (2020)

208 points by gurjeet 5y ago

Very true. Knowing how to prioritize the most pressing work at hand is very important for the person having to make those choices. For those on the receiving end, try to remember the story of the boy who cried wolf.

tsjq 5y ago

Good one. My challenge is about remembering to respond after that x minutes gap .

another-dave 5y ago
Sounds like a good Slack plug-in — mute the original notification & only ping you after X minutes. Bonus points if it could be disabled for particular channels/users.

trhoad 5y ago

Good advice. I (proudly) ignore about 60-70% of communication I receive. The important stuff bubbles to the top naturally. The rest goes away. If I jumped on everything, all the time, I'd actually end up getting nothing done.

disgruntledphd2 5y ago
I work with someone who uses this strategy, and normally what happens is that they ignore the original communication and then come back months later wondering why their data/product/whatever isn't available. Personally, I think this strategy can work if you intentionally ignore things after reading, but tends to fail hard otherwise.

joelbluminator 5y ago

Your boss should do the same maybe. Copple: Hey can I get a raise? Boss:

sdevonoes 5y ago
Copple: ah no worries - it's sorted already (I just quit!)
- cableshaft 5y ago
  Going to be me in a couple of days. Although it's been six months in my case (since I last brought it up, actually been a couple of years since I started pushing for one, would have left already if not for the pandemic).
Deestan 5y ago
Copple: Hey, I forgot my key card, can you let me in? Colleague: [no response] 30 minutes pass Copple: Ergh... nevermind, I set up a mobile hotspot and am working from the cafeteria on my laptop until it runs out of battery and then I'm heading back home. PROBLEM SOLVED .-~'~ '

krona 5y ago

I use the same technique when I feel the person has the experience/wherewithal to answer the question themselves without help. Basically it's like being treated like a rubber duck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

Waterluvian 5y ago

I have a jr. engineer this works well with. You need to be very very careful not to let this become an excuse to not do your job. But sometimes you gotta take the training wheels away.

ToFab123 5y ago

The military has a writing style to combat this issue. BLUF is a military communications acronym—it stands for "bottom line up front"—that’s designed to enforce speed and clarity in reports and emails. It has previously been discussed here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20964907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20964907

another-dave 5y ago
I think you're responding particularly to the pointless "hi copple", first message? I know some people find that annoying, but personally, I thin k that's fine. If I _am_ interruptible & I do respond to the initial ping it's nice to have some human interaction before the "down to business" part. Esp when we're all remote. If not, I just get the first & second message at the same time and respond to the query. I think the author is also calling out "doing nothing" even for the meat & bones of the real request — e.g. in his example, even if the collegue did BLUF ("Live Client Issue: Strip integration missing from Xero") the issue still "went away" by itself without his attention if he left it 5min.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  I hate those pointless messages, to the point I developed a stress reaction to them. In business contexts[0], you don't have to choose between being impolite to some people and annoying others. There's a solution that satisfies everyone: just follow your pleasantry with the thing you really wanted to say. Do it immediately. Start typing your request immediately after sending "Hi $name", so that the other side sees the typing indicator. Or better yet, use the magic of Shift+Enter, supported by most IMs out there. Send a single message containing a bunch of pleasantries, followed by a newline (Shift+Enter), followed by the real payload. -- [0] - This is slightly different in personal space. When a long-forgotten acquaintance reaches out to me, I already know they want something, and I wouldn't be offended if they skipped the useless pleasantries - but apparently enough people demand to be taken through the "how are you and your kids?" dance first, that it's unsafe to state the actual purpose up front. But in business conversation, you're not supposed to go deeply personal like this, so there's no ambiguity - the reason for communication is business-related, by definition.

alfor 5y ago

I find I resolve a lot of problems by speaking about them to someone, I think that is a big part of this. We think that we think alone like a computer, but when we are stuck we often need to talk it through to someone.

jeroenvlek 5y ago
That sounds a lot like Rubber Duck Debugging [0]. I do it all the time and in my first full-time job, my colleagues gave me an actual rubber duck. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

k__ 5y ago

I building an microblogging tool for company internal communication. One thought I had, was, enforcing a delay for every message written. But I don't know if I choose one or ten minutes, or if it's a good idea at all. Or if I should just impose a fequency, like times a day new messages, etc The idea I had was something like in the "Do nothing" article here. People could write messages and might even delete them a few minutes later, because they solved themselves. Also, it would remove "emergencies" communication from the timelines.

mauli 5y ago
Nice idea coming to my mind reading your problem: time based growing circle visibility The person's close cycle is seeing the post first, then his team, then sub-org, until everyone has it on the news feed. Poster can choose to pause/stop the growth. Peiple getting the link are able to view all details, but do not immidiatelly have it on their timeline.
- sovietmudkipz 5y ago
  I like this idea. It maps nicely to the concept of ‘andon cord’ applied to software engineering. If an engineer has an issue, pull the cord to broadcast to someone on your team. Then your entire team. Then a sister team. Then eventually to everyone in your org. Maybe even the initial message only gets sent out after a reasonable amount of minutes, in case the engineer wants to rescind the call for help.
- k__ 5y ago
  Interesting idea. Thanks for the input!

sdan 5y ago

As someone who's gone through this recently, I don't think this is the best advice Better to over-communicate and let others know what you're up to than to stay silent and do nothing

mlac 5y ago
Especially working from home. It just looks like you were away from the computer and not paying attention. I get uninterrupted flow states, but if you’re in a customer facing role (and nearly everyone is or has some customer they provide a service to), you need to be able to respond and gauge the priority, manage expectations, and point people in the right direction. Often times in large companies people are trying to find the right person and you may know who it is. Other times it may be a question of how to solve the problem themselves. If someone approaches you with an emergency multiple times, it may be a problem with that person, or it may signify a larger process problem, which can be fixed to make the organization more efficient. Doing nothing creates churn and pisses people off.

torh 5y ago

A lot of times, people ask questions before they even know what they are trying to accomplish. Give them 5 minutes, and they may solve their own problem, which is a win-win.

woutr_be 5y ago
I often face the same problem. Sometimes I just don’t really know what to look for or how to search, asking for help through email / IM often helps, because I need to explain the issue to someone else, and articulate what is expected. It just helps me rephrase my internal thought process, and take a step back.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

brushfoot 5y ago

This is called the Napoleon technique. The idea is to postpone addressing something that's likely to resolve itself. Article: https://effectiviology.com/napoleon/ https://effectiviology.com/napoleon/ HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24419042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24419042

siva7 5y ago
seems like an useful technique for learning
julianlam 5y ago
The key word is POSTPONE. There are many comments in this thread mistakenly thinking that OP was advocating outright ignoring the ticket forever.

Stubb 5y ago

"If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." —Calvin Coolidge

neilv 5y ago

Two problems here: 1. Someone is ignoring a colleague's request for help. At least give some sense of whether and when you're going to help. 2. Don't just say "hello" in chat. https://www.nohello.com/ https://www.nohello.com/

codingdave 5y ago

> The reason people make these requests is that it removes a burden from the requestor. It also raises a question about your product/system. Someone had a problem. They asked for help. They figured it out. All is well... but they did have a problem, and that should be acknowledged. The software industry is moving more and more towards a UX and even a CX focus, where disregarding problems is questionable behavior. I'm not saying it is a junior engineer's job to identify, explore, and devise a fix for every problem, but it should get logged in a way that the product team can see trends in questions to know where to improve.

booleandilemma 5y ago

I had this happen to me yesterday. Hey, can you tell me why my query is slow? <5 minutes later> Nevermind! I had a typo. It’s like people want to outsource their problem solving to other people’s brains.

majewsky 5y ago
In many cases, they actually need a rubber duck and don't know it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
- WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
  You need to actually believe that the rubber duck is going to bestow its wisdom upon you for it to work. I usually write a detailed question to a colleague whom I believe to be more knowledgeable than me. The trick is, I never send it unless I'm really stuck despite my research. When I do send it, though, the question is good and usual suspects are ruled out.
  - evilduck 5y ago
    In your case, your rubber duck is the email editor. The trick is that your efforts to summarize and clarify the problem for someone else and doing your due diligence for others that you may not have done for yourself at first before you _actually_ press send is oftentimes enough to solve the problem outright. If it doesn't work, you're ready to go with an amazing summary of the problem already.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I do the same thing - I just haven't quite managed to reach the level where I do it as a deliberate method, I always think I'm going to send it! I've on occasion done it to StackExchange sites too, nice thing about that is when you have your Aha moment, you can just tick 'Answer my own question', detail the answer, and post both together for other people's (your future) benefit.
- swader999 5y ago

drloser 5y ago

Doing nothing is often a good way of naturally assessing the importance of a request. Generally, if the request is really important, the person will keep on asking until you respond.

aaronschroeder 5y ago

Please don't follow this advice if you are in any kind of IT support role. It may make sense for developers who need large blocks of uninterrupted focus time, but even then the issue to resolve is working with team members on best practices for interrupting developers. Doing nothing is akin to saying my time is more valuable than yours, you silly plebian. It's the sort of attitude that reinforces the unfortunate stereotype that IT people are arrogant and view their expertise and role as more important than others'. I found great success providing IT support by always responding immediately when I'm available, and establishing focus times where others know I may not respond right away. An attitude of service and humility can go a long way in winning the respect and trust of your colleagues and supervisors.

Deestan 5y ago
Exactly. And in either scenario, responding "bit busy, will check in 30 mins" both allows short lived transient problems to fix themselves, and lets the sender know that yes you got their message and that you can not look at it now but you are not ignoring it either.
- rytis 5y ago
  But it can also have a different effect. If you don't reply, the requestor does not know if you even read the message, so they might try resolving the problem by themselves. However if you say "I'm busy, will check later" they know they don't need to even try, as you are going to resolve the problem for them. That's the best case. Worst case, they'll report to their manager that you're "blocking" them and they aren't able to work for the next 30 mins because of you.
  - pc86 5y ago
    > they know they don't need to even try, as you are going to resolve the problem for them It's unlikely that the team is best served by you treating your coworkers like children who you are responsible for teaching. > Worst case, they'll report to their manager that you're "blocking" them and they aren't able to work for the next 30 mins because of you. If you are, what's the problem?

wombatmobile 5y ago

> Do nothing "I follow this advice all the time." - Solo entrepreneur with no customers and no income.

271828182846 5y ago

there's definitely something to that approach. maybe not "do nothing" but "do little". I observed many times that doing less is even preferrable. it helps staying out of trouble. instead everyday you do just as much that you can refer to it - most of the times nobody seems to care about how "much" that actually contributed. as long as you can say I worked on X during your slot in the daily. beyond that learn from George Costanza how to seem busy - ask questions, complain about something, have a little meeting about every other day. especially the latter helps you appear as a committed teamplayer. doing more usually just increases risk of being blamed for something and attracts more work due to having to fix your own stuff in stressful and observed situations.

loopz 5y ago
Or, learn what applies to each situation, and either apply it yourself or delegate to the correct person to have a look at it, when their time allows it. There are so much that always need fixing. If everyone would do what you suggest, nothing would ever move forward. The need to have meetings for every minor issue, is like running on brakes - unless the meeting really can be used to resolve something. The downside is nobody notices your work, but there are upsides to it and less risk.
- 271828182846 5y ago
  you deliberately misread my comment. f.x. I have no idea where I suggest meetings for every minor issue ... having said that my suggested mo is directly related to organisations that fail to properly motivate and instead implement punish dedication. ime that's the norm in many teams.

makeitdouble 5y ago

> At some point we realise that we aren't paid to be psychologists, we are paid to solve problems in the order of most important first. This advice will have wildly different effects depending on the organization you work in. Hopefully you already know how it would go down for you.

motohagiography 5y ago

Very close to another concept called, "masterly inactivity," that appears in a number of disciplines. https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Masterly+inactivity https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Masterly+in... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/may/10/busy-doing-nothing-mastering-the-art-of-masterly-inactivity https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/may/10/busy-doing-... and: https://timharford.com/2021/04/cautionary-tales-masterly-inactivity/ https://timharford.com/2021/04/cautionary-tales-masterly-ina... (podcast from FT columnust)

einpoklum 5y ago
Indeed, "Masterly Inactivity" is an established concept: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/masterly_inactivity https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/masterly_inactivity and used to great comedic effect in Season 1 of "Yes, Prime Minister": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIJ_C9mUBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESIJ_C9mUBI > Q: I've been asking myself what can I do to continue this run of success? > A: Have you considered... masterly inactivity? > Q: No, Humphrey. A Prime Minister must be firm. > A: Indeed. How about _firm_ masterly inactivity?

ajuc 5y ago

In my first job we had guidelines for using communication: - if it needs to be answered immediately - phone or come personally - if it needs to be answered within 15 minutes (or was it 1 hour? at any rate - not immediately and not long time) - use jabber (text communicator used at the time) - if it needs to be answered some time today - write an e-mail I quite liked the system. It reduced distractions a lot.

soheil 5y ago

Sadly IT support and to some extend sysadmins (SRE?) need to cope with the fact that even though they may work closely with engineers their pay is typically much less and are there to help those teams. This causes resentment and sadly leads to the arrogant sysadmin/IT support stereotype. Now there is concrete reason why it makes sense to be arrogant and not respond right away. I hope no one takes this advice except the very overworked and stressed who'd probably be wiser taking another job anyway.

loopz 5y ago
Even if the pay is a bit less, all the work in IT may unfortunately often be both more urgent and important, than tending to developers. This is why one should have proper ticket system and internal SPOC for IT support. It's just patently false that IT works as support for developers first and foremost. Who gave developers that idea? Maybe that would be a great idea, or maybe developers should be able to make their own sandboxes. These are questions for collaborative projects and for leadership to prioritize (just as with "pipeline" - which was an old idea developers resisted until leadership got involved). The problem is expecting "magic", when nobody is hired to tend to your exact problems with technology. This is btw exactly what DevOps aimed to solve, developers and operations working together towards shared goals. It's a two-way street, or it doesn't work.

Markoff 5y ago

More like slow down your response (to see if things won't sort themselves out) than do nothing.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

RalfWausE 5y ago

I personally call this 'fish market' system: Whoever shouts the loudest get served ;-)

pif 5y ago

As an industrial software developer, my golden rule when dealing with support requests is: I will not do anything until they tried whatever they can try. If they just want to offload the issue to me, it will be a dead end.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Yup, don't try and fix a problem they themselves don't understand either. Don't try to fix a problem if they just say they have a problem - see if they ask you to fix it (= offload it to you) or if they ask you a specific question that you can help or refer them to something. This goes for non-work stuff as well; I see a trend happening (on- and offline) where people just posit a Problem, instead of asking a question or working towards a solution. Stupid example: people saying "I'm hungry" instead of a "Wanna get some lunch?" or solving the problem for themselves in silence. There was a thing on Facebook as well (remember Facebook? That was a thing) where people would make posts or comments to the tune of "The worst thing happened today!" without explaining themselves, instead waiting for / fishing for people to ask "What's wrong???". It's a way to fish for attention in a sense.
- cogman10 5y ago
  Any tips on how to do this nicely? I always like lending a hand to someone and helping them solve problems, but as of late some of my new coworkers have been taking advantage of my nature. They don't even try to look up the docs, I'll give them a bit of sample code and if it doesn't work without blind copy/paste they'll come back and have me go through a debug session with them. I have a hard time saying no because they are in India and have stayed up late so they could get me on a call. Yet, I also am irritated because it's apparent they've not made any effort to solve the problem themselves.
  - swader999 5y ago
    I typically ask them what they've tried to address and then tell them the tasks to try that they haven't already. There was significant cost savings to offshore to India on paper but its not up to you to fix the reality of a 12 hour offset in team availability. If it takes 3 sessions to fix a problem, there's no going around it. They need to learn and learn by doing and you cheat them if you do it for them.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago

There are questions, and there are questions. You learn which to react to, it's an experience thing. You also learn about people who want you to do something, only to have you redo it, and redo it yet again, until it's back to the original state. In which case, you learn to do nothing. And there are people who think they are important, but in fact it's _your_ job that's more important. Postpone it, maybe they pester someone else or it can wait.

timomax2 5y ago

This is crap advice. Way to piss off your clients.

fart32 5y ago
I wouldn't follow this advice when it comes to clients or other developers. But I intentionally postpone stuff like this when it comes to pretty much everyone else. I read it, evaluate if it's critical and then I'll either take an action, or postpone it (usually replying I'll deal with it the next morning). Some people tend to ask as a last resort, others do it before trying literally anything else. Well, at least they used to back when I was failing to prioritize my work. Now some of them can figure out the problem on their own pretty fast, because they were forced to learn and become more understanding of the system.

indigodaddy 5y ago

I have my own rule— it’s that I don’t respond to “hi and wait”’s on Slack (unless of course from within my own team/group/mgmt). “External” hi’s just go unanswered. Simply because I get too many of them. If the person can’t take the time to include a concise summary of exactly what they need with that “hi,” well then, they’ll move on to someone else (they’ll be simultaneously pinging various other people on our team in any case). Usually they will get the picture and follow up within 15-20 minutes with their actual ask, but if it’s not important enough for them to make that extra effort, then it’s definitely not important enough for me. BTW, I never do the “hi and wait” thing myself. If I need something from someone on another team, I of course say hi. But in the same initial communication, the next sentences are a summary of exactly what I need, as concisely as possible. I do this as a courtesy, because no one has time for hi’s, nor chit-chat. As far as the actual article though— I highly do NOT agree with telling someone something is OK or resolved, when it’s actually not. That is simply very bad.

hermannj314 5y ago
I found this only works with my American and Indian colleagues. My co-workers in the UK and Europe made it clear it was rude if I didn't do a good morning / how was your weekend /.etc. song and dance with them on every interaction.
- indigodaddy 5y ago
  That is my rule for external teams/groups/pings. Within my own team/group/mgmt, I relent to chit-chat.
- NortySpock 5y ago
  I haven't had any complaints (yet) if I gently push the conversation towards business with a response to the initial pleasantries followed by "What's up?", "What's cracking?", "What's going on?" etc. Them: Hey! Me: Hey, what's up? Them: How is your morning going? Me: Pretty good, yourself? Working on X, had a relaxing weekend. What's going on? Them: Yeah, good. [back to business]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

m3kw9 5y ago

Maybe by doing nothing, he went to someone else that did it for you! Or he sorted it out himself, but you won’t know. Usually this “do nothing” solution is very situational and you will need lots of experience to know when. Sometimes is do nothing for a time period to see if it escalates, that’s what you can usually do.

slmjkdbtl 5y ago

At least respond a "No" or "I'll look into it tomorrow / next week", basic courtesy and respect.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

huijzer 5y ago

This reminds me of a lesson I got from a guy working in a specialised factory. Always when he got a call, in panic, for some new part that was needed, he would do nothing and call them back 30 minutes later to ask for details. In 90% of the cases, they solved the problem themselves. In the other 10%, he started working on it straight away

yellowapple 5y ago

This exact scenario happened to me twice just today. Amazing what waiting for a little while before responding can do. The downside of this, however, is that you miss out on information. What if it's multiple folks asking the same question, but then figuring it out on their own? Or what if the requester "figured it out" in a way that doesn't actually solve the issue or outright introduces new ones? For me, the "nvm I figured it out" message is almost more frustrating than the "hey can I ask you a question" message.

pdimitar 5y ago

> At some point we realise that we aren't paid to be psychologists, we are paid to solve problems in the order of most important first. As a senior programmer I'm paid to do both. Sometimes to answer a question you have to guide the other person through the entire process of clearing up their problem until they get the "a-ha!" moment. So depending on your seniority and responsibilities, you might have to teach people how to acquire problem-solving skills.

epakai 5y ago

I did nothing. Mom's email was broken (@verizon via aol). The web mail is working. So what, the imap/smtp server is down. Tell her the server is broken. If she has immediate need just use webmail for now. It'll probably work later. Come back the next day and she's blown 2 hours waiting on phone tech support. They've got her generating temporary passwords or some shit that their documentation has no mention of (This is standard imap/smtp config with SSL and a slightly modified username). She's frustrated and deletes the whole account in her email client. Sometimes it backfires.