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Marriage has taught me to go even further than that. I now ask "are you telling me to get it off your chest, or you want help solving it?". If the former, I don

Marriage has taught me to go even further than that. I now ask "are you telling me to get it off your chest, or you want help solving it?". If the former, I don't offer any solutions whatsoever, in any kind of format.

BlueTemplar 4y ago
This is soooo important ! (And not just in marriage...)
2devnull 4y ago
Another useful thing to say, “oh no that sounds terrible, what are you going to do?” It can help reframe from complaining to strategizing, and that can make people more receptive to outside ideas.
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  I wouldn’t recommend this. First of all, you shouldn’t provide personal opinions such as “terrible”. Then, asking what they are going to do forces them to confront the problem which they may not be ready to do yet, or may not want to articulate to you.
  - derefr 4y ago
    Usually in the sort of situation where you'd say this, you're just reflecting the speaker's very-clearly-expressed emotional state back at them to demonstrate that you're actively engaged in listening and considering their statements. It's not something you'd say in response to a text complaint, where there's not enough "bandwidth" to clearly communicate the complainant's emotional state; but it's something CSRs are trained to say on phone calls all the time. It's also the reason that therapists vastly prefer speaking in person, to video calls, to phone calls; and almost never even consider doing "therapy via text chat." There's not enough bandwidth in text chat to enable a therapist to properly engage with and respond to the emotional content of a client's communication; but with each additional level (voice, video, in-person meeting), that's more possible. (Interesting consideration, given that: suicide/crisis hotlines should probably consider offering video calls as an option, as the increased bandwidth for emotional content will allow the operator to engage with + potentially help the caller on a deeper level.)
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      I’m sort of inclined to think that people calling suicide hotlines are probably not that enthusiastic to hop on a video call. Just reaching out is hard, and you want to be as anonymous as possible.
- blowski 4y ago
  Depends on the person as to whether I'd say that. With an employee who's constantly moaning about everything - I'd absolutely say that. With my wife? Noooo, it would sound like I'm saying "I'm not interested in your problems unless you have solutions". As her partner, she wants me to share the burden of her problems, even those for which she has no solution.
jakelazaroff 4y ago
+1 to this advice. I've heard it as "do you want comfort, or solutions?"
- kweinber 4y ago
  This sounds really patronizing. I would be careful with that phrasing. People who don’t want their problem solved often know the solutions and don’t like the tradeoffs or change they entail. It is often not a knowledge problem.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    It also implicitly discounts one of the most valuable processes: verbal processing. Some people, myself included, find themselves verbalizing a problem and the tensions in every choice and monitoring the logic and emotional response present in saying it out loud. In this way, listening and solving aren't too dissimilar. Simply listening can give the speaker an appropriate environment in which to solve their problem. A listener can play a part in helping to solve the problem, but helping foster the environment in which the problem can be solved. Don't mistake this as a silver bullet, but simply recognize that being a listener is an underappreciated role and listener vs solver isn't as dichotomous as it sounds.
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      > It also implicitly discounts one of the most valuable processes: verbal processing. Not really. The question, more generally, is: what should my role be in this conversation? Should I be an active participant in solving the problem? Or should I support you as you work through it?
      - etothepii 4y ago
        I think the implication is that by listening passively you can be an active participant. That is to say, speaking the problem out loud causes it to run through alternate pathways in the brain which helps the person sharing their issue resolve their own problem. As with so many things in life, the hard part is working out if your actions should be motivated by actually helping or feeling like you helped.
pkoird 4y ago
Or, the way I do it: "do you want me to just listen, or do you want me to offer advice?"
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
yboris 4y ago
Thank you for the reminder -- it does feel like people can be in (at least) two different modes -- with a desire to vent and be heard, or inquiring about a solution. Yet it is not obvious which since the two can sound so similar. If someone is grieving it's probably time to just listen, but when someone is stuck with a social problem they may be rubber ducking with you rather than considering you to be a good approximation of an oracle ;)
- lephty 4y ago
  "Rubber ducking." As in speaking to your rubber duck with no expectation of a response? First time seeing this usage. Thanks.
  - 98codes 4y ago
    Moreso than that, imagine a rubber duck floating in the water: silently looking at you, nodding in understanding.
    - idontpost 4y ago
  - kudos200 4y ago
    I think they’re probably referring to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
  - Scarblac 4y ago
    A way to deal with really perplexing bugs is to just carefully explain the code to an actual rubber duck. "This code is obviously correct, right duck? Look here, this line first does x, then y happens and here... Wait a minute, that doesn't do z at all!"
  - scubbo 4y ago
    Congratulations, you are one of today's Lucky Ten Thousand! https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
kelseyfrog 4y ago
Thank you for bringing this up. This was a life lesson that unfortunately had to be spelled out for me in a very embarrassing way. My ultimate takeaway is to now default to listening without advice. The result are on average better as people who want to vent are more put-off by advice givers than advice seeks who receive a good listener. It's also made me quite a bit more appreciative of times when I need to vent and someone is there to simply listen.
- vasco 4y ago
  What do you do though? Just stand there quietly nodding? When I try to do this I end up basically saying "that sucks", "hmm hmm", "yeah", etc which is very frustrating to me as I'd hate someone doing that to me. Or worse, sometimes I get the feeling that those "that need a listener" actually want mindless agreement with whatever the situation was or I feel like I'll be reinforcing insecurities. Let's say someone is telling you they are fearful for their job, they think they will get fired soon, even though they have nothing specific to point to. As a listener, are you agreeing with this or are you neutral nodding your head? Because my default would be to reply that they should do the best they can and if it comes to that they will surely find better pastures, but then I'm giving advice already. I hear this advice but I have little clue how to put it into practice, moreover because of what I mentioned above, if I'm telling someone something, I definitely want them to think about it and try and help me with advice, otherwise I feel like they don't even care and would not share again with the same person.
  - abnercoimbre 4y ago
    There's a term that's useful here: active listening. If they are fearful for their job, express concern and ask them to tell the story: "Oh no, that's terrible! Why are you fearful, are you all right?" and you remain active by asking follow-up questions. For example to plug gaps in the story: "Wow! Did your manager say that to your face? Or was it hearsay through that one co-worker?" and so on. Expressing emotions is also perfectly fine: "I feel bad. Wish I could do something for you." I'd only interject long enough to get them talking again. If they need your help they'll have asked it by now :)
  - 4y ago
thegrimmest 4y ago
I'd prefer we live in a world where idle complaints are not entertained. If you want advice, complain. If you do not, keep silent.
- Jarwain 4y ago
  Venting is a pretty normal and healthy way of dealing with emotions.
  - thegrimmest 4y ago
    And responding to venting with advice/criticism is also (clearly) perfectly normal right?
    - blowski 4y ago
      Sure, nobody's saying "you're a bad person for offering advice". In some contexts, though, offering advice can feel like you want to close the person down rather than listen to them, that you think their problems aren't serious enough because you'd solve them easily. I'm guessing you've had at least one occasion where you have a work issue, and your manager is casually dropping solutions that didn't work, and you were frustrated with them as a result. As such, the consequence of offering solutions is that it can damage your relationships with people, or at least not use an opportunity to strengthen them.
      - thegrimmest 4y ago
        To recenter the conversation - in a personal context idle complaints (ie. venting) are considered rude, and are often accompanied by an apology, for a reason. You're basically monopolizing a person's time, and expressing explicit disinterest in their perspective. Using complaint as a coping mechanism is a fundamentally selfish thing to do[1]. Therefore I don't think we should tolerate it idly. If you want to talk and only be listened to, talk at an inanimate object. If you want to be an equal party in a conversation, speak to a human being. In a work context, it should (always) be about most efficiently solving the problem at hand. When I have a work issue, I preface my request for support with the steps I have taken to attempt to solve the problem. Anything else wastes the time of everyone involved. When this is done correctly, the first thing to come to the mind of the people I'm asking is often exactly what I'm looking for. > your manager is casually dropping solutions that didn't work Casual, useless, unsolicited advice is also a waste of time and energy (see "seagull management"). If my manager did this I would promptly tell them to either dig into the problem properly with me, figure it out themselves, or leave me to it. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIJYO4u5iug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIJYO4u5iug
Aeolun 4y ago
The only problem is that you often hear the same variation of the problem multiple times with no action taken to resolve it in between. That frustrates me.
- blowski 4y ago
  I'm guessing it frustrates you because you like solving problems? You hear someone stuck in a rut and you want to help them out of it? Totally with you on this. I'm a solutions architect by day, and my entire skillset is helping people solve problems. Do a role-play: someone comes to me complaining about how it's really frustrating having to type all this crap into Excel, so I suggest using OCR, or taking a course on getting quicker with the numpad. Unfortunately, I missed their real problem: they hate their job. Me telling them "here's how you could be better at a job you hate" doesn't really help them, it simply looks uncaring and assumes they haven't already thought of those things. So I could just nod and say "oh that's sound terrible" every time they mention it. You're right, it might look crass and robotic. Even better here would be saying "Wow, typing all that crap into Excel, you mentioned it last week as well. Sounds like you really don't enjoy doing that?" and encourage them to expand a bit. Is it the typing? What makes it so frustrating? Do they think it's their job in the first place? Eventually, they admit to you (maybe they hadn't realised themselves) that they hate this bit of their job, and need to discuss with their manager not doing it any more. (Or maybe they hate the company they work for, and need to find a new job. Or it's actually the keyboard they're using they hate. Or whatever, you need to listen to find out.) This is how you help them out of their rut. They feel that you're interested in their problem, and when they do find a solution, they'll own it because they found it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lazide 4y ago
    My challenge is that to be able to usefully respond to people’s rants, I need to empathize with them and expend at least some mental effort to understand their problem. If they go on a rant about something, that dumps emotional and mental load onto me. If they don’t resolve, or attempt to resolve it, that means they’ll continue to dump it onto me - and even worse, it will be a boring, already heard it problem with no new information! If they continue to do that, and I continue to listen, I’m essentially their emotional garbage dump and enabling their lack of dealing with their actual problem and frustrations. Even worse, it is often hard for me to get my mind off an unresolved problem. So then it bugs me. I like solving problems because then I have a lot fewer things bugging me. They almost always result in progress in other ways too, and accomplishing things, which is nice. Even worse still if it’s the kind of problem they are making for themselves, or are intentionally not trying to solve. Of which there are many. Eventually, I just don’t want to be around them, or get progressively more blunt with changing the subject because it makes it exhausting and unpleasant for me being around them. Some people seem to be able to just ignore the emotional affect or load, and get whatever they want from the convo, and I can do so if I exert effort to do so. But life is too short for this kind of BS on the regular.
MikePlacid 4y ago
> Marriage has taught me to go even further than that. I now ask "are you telling me to get it off your chest, or you want help solving it?" I may be much slower to adapt. My wife of (almost) 30 years usually starts with explicit “I am telling you this to just get it off my chest”.
wglb 4y ago
A very useful and practical question at the right time is "Is there a request in there?"
scrozier 4y ago
Exactly. Being on the receiving end of unsolicited advice is truly annoying, which most posters here seem to be ignoring. Unsolicited advice is annoying, no matter what insincere bullsh*t you wrap it in
- rightbyte 4y ago
  What is the point of discussing a problem if you don't want advice? Implicitly whining about something is like giving advice to the listener what to not do or what does not work properly etc.
  - scrozier 4y ago
    1. To seek comfort from a fellow human being. 2. To vocalize it in hopes of coming up with your own solution. 3. To vent emotion; “get it off your chest.” 4. To share an aspect of your life with someone you like, love, or respect.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gernb 4y ago
I learned to announce my point when complaining as in saying "I'm just kvetching, I'm not looking for a answer" or similar phrase.

BlueTemplar 4y ago

This is soooo important ! (And not just in marriage...)

2devnull 4y ago

Another useful thing to say, “oh no that sounds terrible, what are you going to do?” It can help reframe from complaining to strategizing, and that can make people more receptive to outside ideas.

SnowHill9902 4y ago
I wouldn’t recommend this. First of all, you shouldn’t provide personal opinions such as “terrible”. Then, asking what they are going to do forces them to confront the problem which they may not be ready to do yet, or may not want to articulate to you.
- derefr 4y ago
  Usually in the sort of situation where you'd say this, you're just reflecting the speaker's very-clearly-expressed emotional state back at them to demonstrate that you're actively engaged in listening and considering their statements. It's not something you'd say in response to a text complaint, where there's not enough "bandwidth" to clearly communicate the complainant's emotional state; but it's something CSRs are trained to say on phone calls all the time. It's also the reason that therapists vastly prefer speaking in person, to video calls, to phone calls; and almost never even consider doing "therapy via text chat." There's not enough bandwidth in text chat to enable a therapist to properly engage with and respond to the emotional content of a client's communication; but with each additional level (voice, video, in-person meeting), that's more possible. (Interesting consideration, given that: suicide/crisis hotlines should probably consider offering video calls as an option, as the increased bandwidth for emotional content will allow the operator to engage with + potentially help the caller on a deeper level.)
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    I’m sort of inclined to think that people calling suicide hotlines are probably not that enthusiastic to hop on a video call. Just reaching out is hard, and you want to be as anonymous as possible.
blowski 4y ago
Depends on the person as to whether I'd say that. With an employee who's constantly moaning about everything - I'd absolutely say that. With my wife? Noooo, it would sound like I'm saying "I'm not interested in your problems unless you have solutions". As her partner, she wants me to share the burden of her problems, even those for which she has no solution.

jakelazaroff 4y ago

+1 to this advice. I've heard it as "do you want comfort, or solutions?"

kweinber 4y ago
This sounds really patronizing. I would be careful with that phrasing. People who don’t want their problem solved often know the solutions and don’t like the tradeoffs or change they entail. It is often not a knowledge problem.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  It also implicitly discounts one of the most valuable processes: verbal processing. Some people, myself included, find themselves verbalizing a problem and the tensions in every choice and monitoring the logic and emotional response present in saying it out loud. In this way, listening and solving aren't too dissimilar. Simply listening can give the speaker an appropriate environment in which to solve their problem. A listener can play a part in helping to solve the problem, but helping foster the environment in which the problem can be solved. Don't mistake this as a silver bullet, but simply recognize that being a listener is an underappreciated role and listener vs solver isn't as dichotomous as it sounds.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    > It also implicitly discounts one of the most valuable processes: verbal processing. Not really. The question, more generally, is: what should my role be in this conversation? Should I be an active participant in solving the problem? Or should I support you as you work through it?
    - etothepii 4y ago
      I think the implication is that by listening passively you can be an active participant. That is to say, speaking the problem out loud causes it to run through alternate pathways in the brain which helps the person sharing their issue resolve their own problem. As with so many things in life, the hard part is working out if your actions should be motivated by actually helping or feeling like you helped.

pkoird 4y ago

Or, the way I do it: "do you want me to just listen, or do you want me to offer advice?"

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

yboris 4y ago

Thank you for the reminder -- it does feel like people can be in (at least) two different modes -- with a desire to vent and be heard, or inquiring about a solution. Yet it is not obvious which since the two can sound so similar. If someone is grieving it's probably time to just listen, but when someone is stuck with a social problem they may be rubber ducking with you rather than considering you to be a good approximation of an oracle ;)

lephty 4y ago
"Rubber ducking." As in speaking to your rubber duck with no expectation of a response? First time seeing this usage. Thanks.
- 98codes 4y ago
  Moreso than that, imagine a rubber duck floating in the water: silently looking at you, nodding in understanding.
  - idontpost 4y ago
- kudos200 4y ago
  I think they’re probably referring to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
- Scarblac 4y ago
  A way to deal with really perplexing bugs is to just carefully explain the code to an actual rubber duck. "This code is obviously correct, right duck? Look here, this line first does x, then y happens and here... Wait a minute, that doesn't do z at all!"
- scubbo 4y ago
  Congratulations, you are one of today's Lucky Ten Thousand! https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

kelseyfrog 4y ago

Thank you for bringing this up. This was a life lesson that unfortunately had to be spelled out for me in a very embarrassing way. My ultimate takeaway is to now default to listening without advice. The result are on average better as people who want to vent are more put-off by advice givers than advice seeks who receive a good listener. It's also made me quite a bit more appreciative of times when I need to vent and someone is there to simply listen.

vasco 4y ago
What do you do though? Just stand there quietly nodding? When I try to do this I end up basically saying "that sucks", "hmm hmm", "yeah", etc which is very frustrating to me as I'd hate someone doing that to me. Or worse, sometimes I get the feeling that those "that need a listener" actually want mindless agreement with whatever the situation was or I feel like I'll be reinforcing insecurities. Let's say someone is telling you they are fearful for their job, they think they will get fired soon, even though they have nothing specific to point to. As a listener, are you agreeing with this or are you neutral nodding your head? Because my default would be to reply that they should do the best they can and if it comes to that they will surely find better pastures, but then I'm giving advice already. I hear this advice but I have little clue how to put it into practice, moreover because of what I mentioned above, if I'm telling someone something, I definitely want them to think about it and try and help me with advice, otherwise I feel like they don't even care and would not share again with the same person.
- abnercoimbre 4y ago
  There's a term that's useful here: active listening. If they are fearful for their job, express concern and ask them to tell the story: "Oh no, that's terrible! Why are you fearful, are you all right?" and you remain active by asking follow-up questions. For example to plug gaps in the story: "Wow! Did your manager say that to your face? Or was it hearsay through that one co-worker?" and so on. Expressing emotions is also perfectly fine: "I feel bad. Wish I could do something for you." I'd only interject long enough to get them talking again. If they need your help they'll have asked it by now :)
- 4y ago

thegrimmest 4y ago

I'd prefer we live in a world where idle complaints are not entertained. If you want advice, complain. If you do not, keep silent.

Jarwain 4y ago
Venting is a pretty normal and healthy way of dealing with emotions.
- thegrimmest 4y ago
  And responding to venting with advice/criticism is also (clearly) perfectly normal right?
  - blowski 4y ago
    Sure, nobody's saying "you're a bad person for offering advice". In some contexts, though, offering advice can feel like you want to close the person down rather than listen to them, that you think their problems aren't serious enough because you'd solve them easily. I'm guessing you've had at least one occasion where you have a work issue, and your manager is casually dropping solutions that didn't work, and you were frustrated with them as a result. As such, the consequence of offering solutions is that it can damage your relationships with people, or at least not use an opportunity to strengthen them.
    - thegrimmest 4y ago
      To recenter the conversation - in a personal context idle complaints (ie. venting) are considered rude, and are often accompanied by an apology, for a reason. You're basically monopolizing a person's time, and expressing explicit disinterest in their perspective. Using complaint as a coping mechanism is a fundamentally selfish thing to do[1]. Therefore I don't think we should tolerate it idly. If you want to talk and only be listened to, talk at an inanimate object. If you want to be an equal party in a conversation, speak to a human being. In a work context, it should (always) be about most efficiently solving the problem at hand. When I have a work issue, I preface my request for support with the steps I have taken to attempt to solve the problem. Anything else wastes the time of everyone involved. When this is done correctly, the first thing to come to the mind of the people I'm asking is often exactly what I'm looking for. > your manager is casually dropping solutions that didn't work Casual, useless, unsolicited advice is also a waste of time and energy (see "seagull management"). If my manager did this I would promptly tell them to either dig into the problem properly with me, figure it out themselves, or leave me to it. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIJYO4u5iug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIJYO4u5iug

Aeolun 4y ago

The only problem is that you often hear the same variation of the problem multiple times with no action taken to resolve it in between. That frustrates me.

blowski 4y ago
I'm guessing it frustrates you because you like solving problems? You hear someone stuck in a rut and you want to help them out of it? Totally with you on this. I'm a solutions architect by day, and my entire skillset is helping people solve problems. Do a role-play: someone comes to me complaining about how it's really frustrating having to type all this crap into Excel, so I suggest using OCR, or taking a course on getting quicker with the numpad. Unfortunately, I missed their real problem: they hate their job. Me telling them "here's how you could be better at a job you hate" doesn't really help them, it simply looks uncaring and assumes they haven't already thought of those things. So I could just nod and say "oh that's sound terrible" every time they mention it. You're right, it might look crass and robotic. Even better here would be saying "Wow, typing all that crap into Excel, you mentioned it last week as well. Sounds like you really don't enjoy doing that?" and encourage them to expand a bit. Is it the typing? What makes it so frustrating? Do they think it's their job in the first place? Eventually, they admit to you (maybe they hadn't realised themselves) that they hate this bit of their job, and need to discuss with their manager not doing it any more. (Or maybe they hate the company they work for, and need to find a new job. Or it's actually the keyboard they're using they hate. Or whatever, you need to listen to find out.) This is how you help them out of their rut. They feel that you're interested in their problem, and when they do find a solution, they'll own it because they found it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lazide 4y ago
  My challenge is that to be able to usefully respond to people’s rants, I need to empathize with them and expend at least some mental effort to understand their problem. If they go on a rant about something, that dumps emotional and mental load onto me. If they don’t resolve, or attempt to resolve it, that means they’ll continue to dump it onto me - and even worse, it will be a boring, already heard it problem with no new information! If they continue to do that, and I continue to listen, I’m essentially their emotional garbage dump and enabling their lack of dealing with their actual problem and frustrations. Even worse, it is often hard for me to get my mind off an unresolved problem. So then it bugs me. I like solving problems because then I have a lot fewer things bugging me. They almost always result in progress in other ways too, and accomplishing things, which is nice. Even worse still if it’s the kind of problem they are making for themselves, or are intentionally not trying to solve. Of which there are many. Eventually, I just don’t want to be around them, or get progressively more blunt with changing the subject because it makes it exhausting and unpleasant for me being around them. Some people seem to be able to just ignore the emotional affect or load, and get whatever they want from the convo, and I can do so if I exert effort to do so. But life is too short for this kind of BS on the regular.

MikePlacid 4y ago

> Marriage has taught me to go even further than that. I now ask "are you telling me to get it off your chest, or you want help solving it?" I may be much slower to adapt. My wife of (almost) 30 years usually starts with explicit “I am telling you this to just get it off my chest”.

wglb 4y ago

A very useful and practical question at the right time is "Is there a request in there?"

scrozier 4y ago

Exactly. Being on the receiving end of unsolicited advice is truly annoying, which most posters here seem to be ignoring. Unsolicited advice is annoying, no matter what insincere bullsh*t you wrap it in

rightbyte 4y ago
What is the point of discussing a problem if you don't want advice? Implicitly whining about something is like giving advice to the listener what to not do or what does not work properly etc.
- scrozier 4y ago
  1. To seek comfort from a fellow human being. 2. To vocalize it in hopes of coming up with your own solution. 3. To vent emotion; “get it off your chest.” 4. To share an aspect of your life with someone you like, love, or respect.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

gernb 4y ago

I learned to announce my point when complaining as in saying "I'm just kvetching, I'm not looking for a answer" or similar phrase.