Blueslipper, why would you ask whether you could use a laptop computer as a drink rest? If she says yes and your drink spills and the computer is ruined, she could be blamed. She doesn’t want to answer your question and is looking to discourage future similarly annoying questions by giving you a dismissive answer. If you rest your drink on the computer and harm comes of it, it’s on you, but otherwise, she likely does not care.
I understand why this phrase irritates you. If people were always telling me to fly to work on my unicorn, I’d be annoyed too.
“Use common sense” is useful in some circumstances, but it drives me crazy when I ask how to do something and am met with that. I don’t know what common sense is in this case, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking!
Right now I’m going around and around with my boss on this one. I need to take more risks and be more confident in my own judgement, I get that. But when I’m trying to figure out what that line should be, advising me to ‘take reasonable risks’ is completely useless. I thought I was taking reasonable risks!