That’s one particular reason that never crossed my mind, actually.
There’s a remedy for that.
It depends on context though, doesn’t it? Is thinking part of their job description? Is it their job to make corporate policy? I can understand the need to know why you are doing something, but if you keep questioning every little thing despite it not being in your description, then frankly it gets annoying. In my experience, people often question things like this because they don’t want to have to follow the rules and do work.
For example, procedural rules in litigation often seem arbitrary* but if you don’t follow them, you can be in big trouble legally. If someone working for me kept questioning why do we have to do this, it would get irritating especially since the answer often is “that’s just the way it is”.
Often times, the person charged with enforcing the rule or policy you are complaining doesn’t have the authority to make an exception or change the policy and doesn’t have time to get into an argument with someone for the thousandth time on it.
- One county requires that praecipes be printed on yellow paper, and that opposition cover sheets be printed on green paper.
One of the things I love about my job is that (at least with customers) the answer is often “because it’s the law”. A fringe benefit of being in a highly regulated industry.
I taught my techs to do this when I was running a call-center doing tech support. The question “Why” could, at the tech’s discretion, be answered with simply repeating the instruction.
The economic realities of a call center are that we were there to get your problem fixed, not give you a lesson in “How computers work, 101”.
The more insistent some know-it-all twerp was in demanding a “Why do I have to this silly apparently pointless step” every damned step, the longer the call took and the more our call-times went up and the more often that reasonable people had to wait.
So, yeah. The "Simply repeat the instruction over and over (“Ma’am? Have you pushed control-alt-C yet? Please let me know when you’ve done so.” / “But whyyyyy? I can’t want to be bothered by your petit bourgeois rules! I’m like the wind! A free spirit!” / “Ma’am? Have you pushed control-alt-C yet? Please let me know when you’ve done so.” repeat as needed. ) is a great way to deal with me-monkeys who want to challenge the rules and rock our humdrum world with their wacky and insightful questioning of authority.
The best part about repeating the instruction over and over is that you, the repeater win. You’re not engaging the crazy-person, you’re not giving them an opening for their tirade, you’re not bad-mouthing the company and/or giving them more ammo for more conversational opportunities. And it’s 100% polite (in a really passive/agressive way) so there’s nothing they can do. I heartily endorse this tactic.
Stoid if you really want an answer to, “Why?” there’s a way to get it.
Comply.
The person tells you to fill out a form that you know is unnecessary. Don’t ask, “Why?” before you start to fill it out.
Start filling it out. While you’re doing so, say, “Just curious, can you tell me why I need to fill it out again?”
You’re not guaranteed of an answer. But if you’re demonstrating through action that you’re not one of those pains-in-the-butt who plan to argue over every trifling trivial thing, you’re a lot likelier to earn the goodwill, and thus explanations, of the peon with whom you’re dealing.
If you’re looking to triumph over them, this won’t work. Neither, of course, will demanding, “Why? Why? Why?” like a cranky three-year-old.
msmith537, I usually enjoy your posts, but this one doesn’t really sit right with me. I know what you’re saying. I especially hate people that give the enforcer of the rule a hard time when they’re not the person that made the rule to begin with. I think it’s just that fact that I’m a “low-level peon”, so to speak. Oh well. Not a big deal.
Oh God, yes. I’ve been working with a client who’s been testing an upgrade of one of the products I support this week, and it turns out that they completely ignored our recommendations for how to configure Oracle 10g. So I resent the instructions. Now I’m getting a string of emails that go like this:
Them: Why do we need to change this setting from 150 to 0?
Me: Because this product doesn’t use Java, so you don’t have to allocate any memory to the java pool.
Them: Why do we need to use partitioning?
Me: Because it will only have to search through one partition to find the records that need to be updated, making it run a lot faster.
Them: But, but…WHY?
Me (in my head): Could you just SHUT THE FUCK UP and follow the recommendations you asked me for?
I can attest to this working. In fact, I just did this last night. Yet another client wanted to install on an unsupported platform. He kept insisting that if I just send him a specific configuration file, he could configure it himself and make it work. I just kept repeating, “That is not a supported platform, sir.” After six repetitions, he gave up.
I am reminded of Absolutely Fabulous when the blond one gave the dark haired one’s daughter some sort of pill when she wasn’t feeling well.
“What’s this pill for?”
“DON’T QUESTION ME!”
Which is what I say when some peon dare ask me why when I tell them to do something.
Usually “think for themselves” is code for “I feel that this particular task or activity is beneath me or irrelevant and I am going to be as uncooprerative as possible so I can get out of doing it.”
It’s one thing if we are working on a project and we are discussing the possible motivations or circumstances so we can effectively work towards a solution. But I suspect what most people are talking about here is the annoying beurocractic stuff like filling out forms or complying with policies and procedures set by higher ups. It the second instnce, you are not required to “think for yourself”. Just fill out the form so you can qualify for health insurance, receive your direct deposit check, enroll in the company 401k, complete your annual review or whatever it is that requires your minimal input.
There is a time to show creativity and initiative and there is a time to shut the fuck up and do as you are told.
Sometimes it is that simple, and sometimes it’s not. I’ve been writing an application for about six years now, and people have been using it with no complaints. Then I get a new project manager who used the app maybe three times. Each time she failed to understand the very basics of how it worked (any moron could figure it out in about ten seconds, it’s that intuitive), and told me to make specific changes. The changes would take months to implement, would render the app unusable for most of that time, and would make the app less functional in the end. In that case, when I ask why, the subtext is “Why, you insufferable dunderhead?”
This whole thread makes me shudder.
I guess it comes from being a reasonable person (or trying to be, when I’m not), who is patient when it comes to rebooting the computer again, or filling out the form, again, or wending my way through the rope maze when I’m the only one at the bank.
And I’ve never had a position where I had much beauracracy to deal with. My best tactic to counter the person who thought they could change the world (or at least corporate policy, or state regulations) with enough “why?”'s was to simply answer the question.
So I’m on the other side. This thread reminds me of those times when I’m faced with a gum-smacking flunky who is indignant that I cannot recognize their immense genius and command of the situation, but who nevertheless cannot grasp that no, I don’t need to fill out a form, because I’m not in line for that. I came to your window because I see you have a phone, and I think someone should be contacted about the individual bleeding to death in your parking lot.
Well, that’s hyperbole, and somewhat different from the never-ending why situation that the OP has brought to the minds of some.
I suppose I’ll feel better if I suggest that it would help to pay attention to when you’re “on the hook”, so to speak. To notice those times when you’ve gotten stuck in a loop, just repeating yourself, certain that the cretin is the one on the other end of the phone.
Consider a little creativity and flexibility in your response, and you just might find yourself meeting your client’s needs after all. Once in a while, anyway.
On preview: I had to have my wife remind me how to spell “genius”. :smack:
I agree it depends on the context, and also it depends on motivation. Sometimes answer may very well be “because that’s the way it is”, and an employee would be a jerk to badger the powerless messenger. However at the same time, wouldn’t an employee who knew why they did what they did be more valuable then one who doesn’t?
Say your legal instructions had a typo and said the opposition was to be printed on yellow paper and the praecipes on green. Which would work out better, the employee who followed them exactly or the employee who first asked why the color was important on some previous work for that county, and then came to ask you if the county changed it’s colors? The point I’m making is asking questions and understanding why you do what you do can improve your accuracy on the job.
Also you cite not wanting to do work, and I agree someone being argumentative just because they’re lazy is a jerk. However on the flipside cutting unnecessary tasks out improves efficiency. If someone, otherwise hardworking and professional, respectfully asks if something needs done then there’s no harm in that.
Man. I wish I had your job.
When the young child (or someone acting like one) responds to everything with “Why?”, it’s not the Daddy’s job to invent a new answer every time. It’s the child’s job to pay attention to the first and second answers. After that, it’s just a serve-and-volley game.
Got it?
Thanks.
On the flipside it really depends on trustworthiness of the call center. Some call centers just say whatever usually gets you off the phone the quickest regardless of it’s necessary or inherently destructive. For example I had a warranty plan on my first computer. No matter what, they’d instruct you to use the reformat and restore cd, with no warnings of data loss. So you could see why people might learn to be distrustful of call centers, ya? Please understand I’m not saying your techs are so malicious, but the industry does have a reputation.
Also if I was on the phone with one and they started the repeating an instruction and ignoring me bit I’d repeat my question a few times then it became clear what they’re doing, ask for someone who could answer my question such as their manager.
I usually get the guys who want to do the impossible (or highly improbable) and are so convinced of their own awesomeness and intelligence that they have to keep telling me how much more intelligent they are than everyone else while they demand that I show them how to do something that isn’t going to work. As if by repeatedly telling me how awesomely brilliant they are while insisting that what they want to do will work, I will suddenly change my tune and share with them the secrets of the forbidden knowledge. :dubious:
I have no doubt that this guy could make it work. My concern was that he or someone else from his company would call back in later for help with something and would be told that they weren’t going to get help because they installed on an unsupported platform, to which they would reply, “Well, Ashtar helped us do this installation, so you have to help us.”
I figure it’s just best to let the guy get in trouble for not reading the configuration instructions now rather than later. 
Oh I LOVE that! I’m going to carry whiteout tape for JUST that purpose!
Surefire reason to deny assistance there. Person A helps you, then you expect it from everyone else, even when it’s clearly NOT supported, isn’t their product, etc.
The one I was thinking of then I wrote the above was a guy who wanted to do all sorts of word processing and graphics work INSIDE the signature creation area of the mac mail program. NOT do it elsewhere and paste it into the signature box, but create it IN the signature box. All the while insisting that it was possible to do so and expounding on his personal brilliance.
Apparently not bright enough to figure out that his energy would have been better spend doing his graphics work in another package and then copying it to the box rather than calling everyone in the universe trying to convince us that he was brilliant enough to do it if we’d just share our fabulous knowledge of how to get it to work. :rolleyes:
I run into this situation painfully often, which is why I kept it generic.
The example that drove me to the post was not one in which I was compelled to act, it was one in which I was being denied, as folllows:
I was a the library, where I’ve been for many, many, many hours over the past 2 years. There are 14 computers. The system for using them is simple and makes sense: you need to sign in for a computer and you only get to use it for an hour. If you want to continue using it you have to sign in again for another hour. They are designed to knock you off automatically after an hour. If there is a waiting list, you have to go to the end of the waiting list.
All fine so far. I’ve been participatingi in this system without any problem or issue or question, it’s all very rational and I have no complaint with it.
After I had used the computer twice in a row for an hour each time, I had to go back to my car to put more money in the meter. I deliberately park about 5 blocks away, for the exercise. As I was leaving the guy at the desk who knows me and had signed me in for the computers twice said have a nice day, I said thanks but I’m coming right back, I just need to feed the meter.
I hike in the midday sun the 5 blocks to my car and back. (Actually, I dance. I listen to my ipod and boogie down the street, it’s more fun that way. I love the reactions I get. Everything from “What the fuck?” to people falling in beside me and dancing along for a bit. A MUCH more lively and entertaining way to travel on foot. Also accounts for why I get extra hot and sweaty.) I go to sign up for the computers again and the guy who signed me in previously tells me that I can only sign in for two hours total in any given day.
And much more of the same, first from him, then from another librarian with whom I’m very friendly. And in fact, in this particular case, I did not become at all bitchy, but when I am faced with this situation I will at times get a tad snippy when I need to say, yet again: “yes, I heard you and understood you tell me what the policy was, please don’t repeat it. I’m trying to understand it better, because it seems to me to be a rather arbitrary policy and I’m unhappy about it. If I understood the reason for it better, it might alleviate my frustration and unhappiness about it. You repeating it at me like a braindead corpoarate zombie just makes it WORSE, thanks.”