Comment by DoreenMichele
6 years ago
Not everyone is equally socially astute. Some people aren't good at inferring such things. Such people need to work at it to make their life work.
Even if you are innately good at it, you may not automatically know how to handle it well if it's a new context in some way. This can include being a foreign national or facing other cultural barriers.
The most socially astute people aren't simply "born with" such talents. They work at it on top of whatever natural talents they are fortunate to have.
> Some people aren't good at inferring such things.
And my advice to those people is exactly what I said: if you're not sure how to communicate what you think is a good suggestion, or how to ask a question you're curious about, without giving offense, because you don't know the people or their work well enough, then don't do anything. That uncertainty you feel is a clue: it means you shouldn't be doing anything at all. Heed it.
For many people, such advice boils down to "Just be a prisoner of your limitations and don't ever try to overcome them or grow as a person."
I cannot fathom why you have such a big problem with someone using a blog post to crowd source suggested wording to try to explore how to do X better.
> For many people, such advice boils down to "Just be a prisoner of your limitations and don't ever try to overcome them or grow as a person."
You are seriously misinterpreting what I said.
What I said applied to a very specific scenario, the one described in the article: you have something you want to tell or ask people when you don't know them or their work very well, and you aren't sure how to say it or ask it without giving offense.
If you don't like the fact that the best thing to do in that situation is nothing--don't tell or ask them--then you have an obvious way to change the situation so that's no longer the only good option you have: get to know the people and their work better. In other words, connect with them, exactly as you describe. Once you've connected with them, you will either know how to tell or ask them what you wanted to tell or ask them, or you will have found out that you don't need to tell or ask them any more, because you have found out the information you originally wanted without having to.
I understand that connecting with people like this is very hard for many people, particularly techies. It's hard for me. But that doesn't mean you should try to avoid it, and I never said you should.
> I cannot fathom why you have such a big problem with someone using a blog post to crowd source suggested wording to try to explore how to do X better.
Because he's doing it backwards. He's trying to tell or ask something potentially offensive to people he doesn't know well, without trying to get to know them better first. In other words, instead of asking how to do X better, he should realize that he needs to do Y first, before even thinking about doing X.