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I frankly had the same impression. It felt it was less about the willingness to look to stupid, but rather the stupidity of people who surrounded him and their
by jszymborski 5y ago
I frankly had the same impression. It felt it was less about the willingness to look to stupid, but rather the stupidity of people who surrounded him and their inability to see this individual's brilliance.
Perhaps this is an unkind reading, but particularly the laptop scenario felt telling that this person might feel above explaining why they might prefer a laptop which comes in a smaller box.
On the surface that is very much a ridiculous request, regardless of how sensible it might actually be. Surely that shouldn't stop you from making the request, but you must understand that someone is merely doing their job to make sure that you understand what you're asking for.
If I go to a tuba shop and ask how many litres of ranch dressing it holds, I'm not going to scoff when the salesperson reminds me that it isn't a fancy brass bowl.
- davidivadavid 5y agoYeah, this looks like a typical case of the "XY problem" where it's really hard to tell if the person making the request is framing that request wrongly/with unnecessary constraints to satisfy what they actually want.
- myohmy 5y agoThis is why I look for sales training in my hires. Its clear that the Apple rep was asking probing questions trying to wrestle him into a decision funnel. I've sold laptops to a bunch of grandmas who've given me questions like that, and never to a "CPU designer". ...come to think of it, maybe one of the grandmas was a CPU designer all a long!!
- davidivadavid 5y agoShe's probably fuming right now that you dared ask her a concrete question about what she wanted.
- genewitch 5y agoWhat could possibly be more concrete than "bring me the computer what comes in the smallest box"?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- PebblesRox 5y agoOn the other hand, if I was in a situation where I wanted the computer with the smallest box for whatever reason, I would find it really difficult to ask for that because I would be embarrassed by how it doesn't fit the expected pattern of what I should be looking for. I will often wimp out and not be clear about my preferences in situations like these because I'm afraid of awkwardness. So I do admire the willingness to speak up about unusual preferences.