7 ms·

"Everything, nothing works". Few people like being asked open-ended questions when they are irritated.

jerf 4y ago
Mmmm, well, I'm all about being accommodating and gracious to people under stress, but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction, there are some expectations of those who are being asked questions. If you don't want to be pestered with my every guess about what you may have already done, likely hitting several things you have, you really ought to be able to answer the question "what have you tried" with something a bit more specific. I'm not asking for total accuracy. I've certainly experienced on both sides accidentally giving the impression something was tried that in fact wasn't and all sorts of such verbal errors and mistakes. But you do need to give something in response to that question.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction Odds are the person you are talking to have tried several dozens of things, 2/3 of what they don't even remember anymore. Asking "what have you tried" is very often an unprofessional display of power disguised as a time-waster question. The one exception when the person answering has not had time to try several dozen options.
  - theamk 4y ago
    Nah, it is a basic "getting to know" question. "I rebooted the machine" will get one response, "I cleared the cache and local storage; and also reproduced in incognito window" will get the other and "I am not going to answer that, also you are unprofessional" will get yhe third type. Withholding useful information and being rude about it is not the best way to get help.
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  > but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction, there are some expectations of those who are being asked questions. The expectation is that they speak the same language. Whether they understand what I'm asking is on me, and helping them understand what I'm asking is also on me. "What have you tried?" is such challenging question, because you don't know the technical skill of the person involved. Will they use the same terminology as you? Do they know what upload/download mean? Servers? Anything? And then there is the case of someone coming to you after trying many things. They won't necessarily have a list of things they've tried. What I find most useful is going back and confirming assumptions. "What have you tried" assumes a lot. It assumes a problem, it assumes a direction of the problem, and it also guides you into thinking of the solutions rather than the problem, even if subconsciously. Always start by verifying assumptions. That, and going to the source. Both of these revolve around going to the source and verifying.
  - jerf 4y ago
    In the context of a professional interaction, which I remind you is the context and which I explicitly refreshed, I think everything you said is fully covered. We wouldn't be talking in the first place if there wasn't a problem. If not... frankly, in the context of a professional interaction, if someone starts making the bizarre excuse that it's just too hard to tell me what they've already tried, or that it's somehow offensive that I'm asking them this question, I may very well be having a professional interaction with that person's professional manager about their suitability for the professional job. It's not something I've done often, but it has come up, and I've never been the only one raising such questions about an employee when I've had to do that. It's far from the first thing I reach for, but it has come up. I honestly have no idea what you or the other replier are banging on about with regard to how hard a question this is to answer. Unless you're just being contrary for contrariness' sake. It's a basic question, and as I said up front, I don't expect a 100% accurate recitation of everything up front, I mean, I never expect any statement to necessarily be 100% accurate up front, I expect a process of getting closer to the truth over time, but the idea that someone would just be unable to answer any questions about what they've already done boggles my mind, and the idea that I should maybe feel bad about asking it is just insane. If you, personally, are having trouble answering that question, you should get better. Take better notes if you can't rely on your memory. But the problem lies with you, not anyone asking the question. There is no way that anyone being paid to solve problems should respond to such a basic question with "I don't really know", let alone offense.
theamk 4y ago
Yep, and that's a good reason to professionally avoid people who become irritated too often. I have been lucky enough so far this was possible.. and if this could not be avoided, one stategy was to try to deflect any specific promise with "I need to research this first", and then ask same question again when the person cools down. It does mean that irritable people get help slower, but that's how the life is in general anyway.
dspillett 4y ago
“CNR, not enough detail, ticket closed, reopen with more information if your problem persists”. I don't have time to dig information out of people in order to try to help them, if they can't make any effort to help me help them when I ask for more information. This is of course one of the reasons I'm not generally client facing these days!
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  > This is of course one of the reasons I'm not generally client facing these days! That's like someone who isn't a C/C++ developer having opinions on C/C++ development.
  - tremon 4y ago
    > these days Or rather, it's like someone who used to be a C/C++ developer having opinions on C/C++ development.
- yourapostasy 4y ago
  I have the opposite problem with many technical support teams these days. I supply them with a full breakdown of what error I encountered, the reproduction code/commands/data, my configuration, what I think happened, how I tested for that, alternative explanations I came up with and tried, traces, trace markers, vendor-standard dumps, and a call to action of the next piece of information I need (usually an explanation of what is exactly happening inside a specific function call that the trace doesn't reveal). I did what I dreamed of receiving when I fielded technical calls back in the day but never did, and am trying to follow all the vendors' own support guidelines of what they want to save everyone time. There are so many offshore teams these days that I wonder whether the volume of what I supply in my support tickets overwhelms the English as a second language support engineers' total comprehension abilities, between the combined English-to-native language parsing and internalization of the case details itself. About 9 out of 10 times now when I reach offshore engineers, there are responses with blatant signals they simply did not read through even a third of what I painstakingly put together. With English native speakers, it is closer to 1-5% depending upon the vendor. No shade to the offshore teams, but it adds an unnecessary debugging cycle for them, I suspect they're under insane metrics to uphold incentivizing this behavior and I just politely point out where I already gave them the information they're requesting. Most of the time they simply escalate the case straight towards the development team.
derefr 4y ago
"Can you give me three examples of things you've tried that didn't work?"
allenu 4y ago
It's funny, I think hearing somebody say this in person and seeing the exasperation on their face would invite empathy on my part and help me understand their situation (i.e. they're in a bad mood because of this problem), BUT seeing somebody say "Everything, nothing works." in a Slack message would absolutely annoy the f out of me. I'd immediately assume they're not communicating properly. I'm not saying the latter is their fault, but just that communication differs based on medium. Anyway, the nice thing about in-person conversation (or even over video call) is the conversation can flow a lot more easily, so even if you said "Hey, just do X" and they angrily respond, you can adjust quickly and say "Oh, sorry, I figured we'd go for the most obvious thing first. Okay, let's figure this out." I think opening lines matter way less when it's in person, and tone matters way more. You could say "Oh, just try X" in a friendly manner or "Oh, just try X!" in a condescending manner. In text, it's up to the receiver of the message to interpret.
jimbokun 4y ago
In a professional work context, you are responsible for managing your own emotions in order to solve the problem at hand.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
Depends on the person. I’ve found it effective to ask questions like “would it be helpful to tell me what you’ve tried? Or for me to share my intuitions about how I’d look into this?” Depending on what’s being addressed I may add something like “or is there something else you have in mind?” or even begin with “how can I be most supportive? [And it’s okay if you don’t know right now]”

jerf 4y ago

Mmmm, well, I'm all about being accommodating and gracious to people under stress, but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction, there are some expectations of those who are being asked questions. If you don't want to be pestered with my every guess about what you may have already done, likely hitting several things you have, you really ought to be able to answer the question "what have you tried" with something a bit more specific. I'm not asking for total accuracy. I've certainly experienced on both sides accidentally giving the impression something was tried that in fact wasn't and all sorts of such verbal errors and mistakes. But you do need to give something in response to that question.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
marcosdumay 4y ago
> but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction Odds are the person you are talking to have tried several dozens of things, 2/3 of what they don't even remember anymore. Asking "what have you tried" is very often an unprofessional display of power disguised as a time-waster question. The one exception when the person answering has not had time to try several dozen options.
- theamk 4y ago
  Nah, it is a basic "getting to know" question. "I rebooted the machine" will get one response, "I cleared the cache and local storage; and also reproduced in incognito window" will get the other and "I am not going to answer that, also you are unprofessional" will get yhe third type. Withholding useful information and being rude about it is not the best way to get help.
jasonlotito 4y ago
> but as this is all generally in the context of a professional interaction, there are some expectations of those who are being asked questions. The expectation is that they speak the same language. Whether they understand what I'm asking is on me, and helping them understand what I'm asking is also on me. "What have you tried?" is such challenging question, because you don't know the technical skill of the person involved. Will they use the same terminology as you? Do they know what upload/download mean? Servers? Anything? And then there is the case of someone coming to you after trying many things. They won't necessarily have a list of things they've tried. What I find most useful is going back and confirming assumptions. "What have you tried" assumes a lot. It assumes a problem, it assumes a direction of the problem, and it also guides you into thinking of the solutions rather than the problem, even if subconsciously. Always start by verifying assumptions. That, and going to the source. Both of these revolve around going to the source and verifying.
- jerf 4y ago
  In the context of a professional interaction, which I remind you is the context and which I explicitly refreshed, I think everything you said is fully covered. We wouldn't be talking in the first place if there wasn't a problem. If not... frankly, in the context of a professional interaction, if someone starts making the bizarre excuse that it's just too hard to tell me what they've already tried, or that it's somehow offensive that I'm asking them this question, I may very well be having a professional interaction with that person's professional manager about their suitability for the professional job. It's not something I've done often, but it has come up, and I've never been the only one raising such questions about an employee when I've had to do that. It's far from the first thing I reach for, but it has come up. I honestly have no idea what you or the other replier are banging on about with regard to how hard a question this is to answer. Unless you're just being contrary for contrariness' sake. It's a basic question, and as I said up front, I don't expect a 100% accurate recitation of everything up front, I mean, I never expect any statement to necessarily be 100% accurate up front, I expect a process of getting closer to the truth over time, but the idea that someone would just be unable to answer any questions about what they've already done boggles my mind, and the idea that I should maybe feel bad about asking it is just insane. If you, personally, are having trouble answering that question, you should get better. Take better notes if you can't rely on your memory. But the problem lies with you, not anyone asking the question. There is no way that anyone being paid to solve problems should respond to such a basic question with "I don't really know", let alone offense.

theamk 4y ago

Yep, and that's a good reason to professionally avoid people who become irritated too often. I have been lucky enough so far this was possible.. and if this could not be avoided, one stategy was to try to deflect any specific promise with "I need to research this first", and then ask same question again when the person cools down. It does mean that irritable people get help slower, but that's how the life is in general anyway.

dspillett 4y ago

“CNR, not enough detail, ticket closed, reopen with more information if your problem persists”. I don't have time to dig information out of people in order to try to help them, if they can't make any effort to help me help them when I ask for more information. This is of course one of the reasons I'm not generally client facing these days!

jasonlotito 4y ago
> This is of course one of the reasons I'm not generally client facing these days! That's like someone who isn't a C/C++ developer having opinions on C/C++ development.
- tremon 4y ago
  > these days Or rather, it's like someone who used to be a C/C++ developer having opinions on C/C++ development.
yourapostasy 4y ago
I have the opposite problem with many technical support teams these days. I supply them with a full breakdown of what error I encountered, the reproduction code/commands/data, my configuration, what I think happened, how I tested for that, alternative explanations I came up with and tried, traces, trace markers, vendor-standard dumps, and a call to action of the next piece of information I need (usually an explanation of what is exactly happening inside a specific function call that the trace doesn't reveal). I did what I dreamed of receiving when I fielded technical calls back in the day but never did, and am trying to follow all the vendors' own support guidelines of what they want to save everyone time. There are so many offshore teams these days that I wonder whether the volume of what I supply in my support tickets overwhelms the English as a second language support engineers' total comprehension abilities, between the combined English-to-native language parsing and internalization of the case details itself. About 9 out of 10 times now when I reach offshore engineers, there are responses with blatant signals they simply did not read through even a third of what I painstakingly put together. With English native speakers, it is closer to 1-5% depending upon the vendor. No shade to the offshore teams, but it adds an unnecessary debugging cycle for them, I suspect they're under insane metrics to uphold incentivizing this behavior and I just politely point out where I already gave them the information they're requesting. Most of the time they simply escalate the case straight towards the development team.

derefr 4y ago

"Can you give me three examples of things you've tried that didn't work?"

allenu 4y ago

It's funny, I think hearing somebody say this in person and seeing the exasperation on their face would invite empathy on my part and help me understand their situation (i.e. they're in a bad mood because of this problem), BUT seeing somebody say "Everything, nothing works." in a Slack message would absolutely annoy the f out of me. I'd immediately assume they're not communicating properly. I'm not saying the latter is their fault, but just that communication differs based on medium. Anyway, the nice thing about in-person conversation (or even over video call) is the conversation can flow a lot more easily, so even if you said "Hey, just do X" and they angrily respond, you can adjust quickly and say "Oh, sorry, I figured we'd go for the most obvious thing first. Okay, let's figure this out." I think opening lines matter way less when it's in person, and tone matters way more. You could say "Oh, just try X" in a friendly manner or "Oh, just try X!" in a condescending manner. In text, it's up to the receiver of the message to interpret.

jimbokun 4y ago

In a professional work context, you are responsible for managing your own emotions in order to solve the problem at hand.

eyelidlessness 4y ago

Depends on the person. I’ve found it effective to ask questions like “would it be helpful to tell me what you’ve tried? Or for me to share my intuitions about how I’d look into this?” Depending on what’s being addressed I may add something like “or is there something else you have in mind?” or even begin with “how can I be most supportive? [And it’s okay if you don’t know right now]”