It’s definitely a phrase that probably should trigger an internal filter and be processed into something a bit smoother.
With that said, in my job as a technical troubleshooter, this kind of discussion is not wasted. It often smokes out the tiny little detail that the application team neglected to mention but which makes all of the difference to our problem solving.
For example, as we are trying to speed up a database in the same datacenter as the application, in the US East area, after a “why don’t you just…” conversation they casually mention that they use a database link that goes to another database…in Europe. One row at a time.
It’s that kind of stuff that people don’t think is important that really is, so a good “why don’t you just…” session will at least get them to fess up.
Sorry to be posting so much but, yeah. Not exactly in the way you mean, but yeah.
Sometimes we just do things because it is the way it has been done. “It is known that …” when none of us actually know why we do it this way. Other than we always have.
Most frustrating is when someone who doesn’t know the basics, is just learning, asks that “why …” and I don’t actually have a good answer. Damn!
Actually having to answer the first blush stupid question is often a learning experience. The old saying that I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, and most from my students … If I can’t explain why, clearly, then maybe I don’t know as much as I thought I did about it.
One place the OP is 100% correct is on Google. Not that google has ever or will ever “understand the problem” but absolutely nowadays if you google for the solution for a specific slightly rarer problem A when there is a similar but different very common problem B that has a obvious solution X, you are getting allllll solution X in your results.
Nowadays (and definitely didn’t used to be this bad) no matter how carefully you craft your query and use quotes to tell it to look for problem A not problem B, you are getting problem B.
Almost 0% for me - when mentioned, it’s usually people who offering a suggestion or referencing a solution that worked for them (usually work/programming related) and it’s asked as a first step on hearing a two sentence summary of the problem. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t - but it’s not person being stupid or insulting or condescending. Just a first step in the process - you have to address the obvious (to either person) solution before moving forward. Sometimes it’s obviosu to all and is not a solution so you move on to the next step. Sometimes only obvious to one of the people (often because of a prior situation where it was addressed rather than innate-ness of the solution’s nature) and it’s an easy fix. No harm it being mentioned and evaluated.
Something I’ve noticed is that people have a very difficult time overcoming the inherent bias they’ve subconsciously placed on the words I’m saying. This makes it difficult or impossible for them to be objective about the data they’re receiving.
Reminded me of this:
“People understand me so poorly that they don’t even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.” ― Søren Kierkegaard
Given this scenario, I’d accept that the OP doesn’t fit. If I give you a two (even run-on) sentence summary, then of course they don’t have enough information to understand what I may have already done. But what’s your % when you’ve done a solid explanation, let’s say at least 3-5 minutes?
Communication occurs both ways - it’s not a one way process. If people often or usually fail to receive your meaning, this may indicate an opportunity to work on ways to improve how you present data.
True, but also, most people simply aren’t looking to optimise every little part of their life, assuming the unsolicited improvement suggestions were truly optimal. I frequently get people telling me (online, in video comments) I should use this or that vegetable peeler, because it’s SO much better than the one I’m currently using, but:
Firstly, I’ve been on this planet well over half a century. I have by now tried a few different peelers, all of my own accord.
Nextly, I’m really, REALLY comfortable with the one I use, and I have been paying attention to that.
Finally, even if they’re right, and it’s better and I could save 5 seconds per week on peeling carrots. Is that really worth anything?
Sometimes it’s just inherent bias. I was drafted onto a tiger team trying to solve a critical problem on an EO/IR (optical sensor) payload. The output was full of periodic but very strange and unexplainable anomalies. Everyone on the team was an expert in optical sensing and sensors. I homed in on the electronics for readout and digitization and suggested that someone go through that chain and make sure everything was functional and nominal, as I’d seen a lot of strange waveforms in electrical experiments that turned out to have nothing to do with physics and everything to do with the electronics being set up wrong.
So they added it to the fishbone chart and assigned someone to follow up, but spent all of their time trying to understand how the optics and the input light could be producing the anomalies.
This continued for a couple of weeks until one day I got a call to come down to the lab. They’d solved the problem. One of the engineers was talking to the vendor that sold them the Analog to Digital Converter module and mentioned the part number. The vendor corrected him with a different part number and the engineer realized he was using the part number from the manual. Which was the wrong manual for the actual part they had! Which meant all the control waveforms were either wrong or going into the wrong port. Once the correct manual was used to set up the control, the problem disappeared.
The funny thing was, even as the engineer was demonstrating the clean output, one of the optical guys was trying to explain how photon physics in the detectors could be the source of the problem.
Sometimes it isn’t how the data is presented, it’s on the receive end.
When there is misunderstanding which is your default understanding about, that is true more often than not?
I need to explain this a bit better.
People are idiots.
0voters
Of course the two are not mutually exclusive, sometimes the reason you have to explain better is because the person is an idiot, but you have to pick one as your primary more common thought.
I of the mind that I should be able to explain something well enough to nearly anyone whose mind is not closed. There is an occasional person who is willfully ignorant, but that usually in a political realm. And a few people on these boards!
I can think of three different categories of people who do this:
Simply unintelligent. They will never understand the complexities of the case no matter how much I explain it to them.
Fed up with my shenanigans. Sometimes people over-simplify because I have a tendency to overthink. And over-explain. And they are just sick of hearing it so they confront me with the Occam’s Razor and dare me to just get moving on the problem even if it’s an imperfect solution.
They have no conscience and so are incapable of comprehending my qualms with taking the easy road. These are the scary ones, but it has happened a few times in my life. 80% of the concerns I have will never make sense to them at all. Because they do. not. care. about hurting other people.
But it also points to a wider semantic habit of mine. Whenever I use the word “just” I stop and ask myself, “Am I rationalizing or minimizing? Am I oversimplifying to avoid a hard truth?” I very seldom find I am using that word innocently.
Again, as a teacher: When I speak and am misunderstood, it’s often the student’s fault, but it’s always my responsibility. Those two concepts are too often conflated.
“Why don’t you just” is only ever a response to someone complaining about some problem in the first place, so who is the greater narcissist in that case? But let’s forget that, and also forget the case where the other person is really just venting and isn’t looking for a response at all (usually you can figure that out from context).
Even if the “why don’t you just” advice is useless 95%+ of the time, it’s entirely possible that the small number of times it is an improvement could pay for all of the other times. It does sometimes happen that you overlook a simple solution that would save hours over the alternative. Since the advice has almost zero cost (especially since it’s part of a conversation that would probably happen anyway), even a very rare savings is a net positive. Unless the recipient has an emotional issue that causes them distress when they hear it, but that’s something they need to work out on their own.
That said, I try to avoid the construction with others, even when I am trying to give that sort of advice. “Have you tried” sounds a little less judgmental, but still isn’t great. “Do you really need to X?”, where X is a seemingly unnecessary complication to the problem, is better. Either they realize the complication is unnecessary or they explain why it is (maybe giving you perspective on the problem). And “What happens if you X?”, where X is not directly related but might reveal the source of the problem, is better yet. A classic version from IT (probably apocryphal) is that if you think the end user hasn’t plugged in their computer, you don’t ask that directly (because they’ll be offended at the accusation of such a dumb mistake), but you might ask what happens if they unplug and replug their computer.
