False. There isn’t even a problem being discussed, in some cases.
Then how would the other person even know what sort of advice to suggest? I’ve never seen anyone give totally unsolicited advice like that.
Same here.
In my experience, it is due to the self-centered, lack-of-empathy of a narcissist or sociopath.
As a valet driver, when I deliver a car to the owner, I must verify my ticket matches their stub.
About 2-3 times a week, they just hop in the drivers seat and try to drive away without verification.
( I ALWAYS turn off the engine and pull the keys, as per standard operating procedure.)
When the say, “Hey buddy, where’s my keys?” I say, “Ticket stub, please.”
When they whine they lost the ticket stub…in the five minutes elapsed from them ordering their car from the cashier…I say, “License and registration, please.”
I MUST verify this vehicle goes with that driver.
“Why can’t you just take my word for it?”
Uhh…no…I’m not just handing over the keys of this $50,000 BMW on a stranger’s say-so.
I need proof of some substance.
It doesn’t occur to some people that not everyone just KNOWS this is your car.
YOU know it’s your car…I DON’T.
My apologies that it was not clear enough. Did you read the very next post? Did that clear it up? Let me know if not.
@Chronos yours is an interesting take. Sure, if someone isn’t trying to understand then that is their fault, but still a teacher’s responsibility. And that isn’t the only professional relationship that works like that. But I wonder @Chronos if that transfers to other domains for you? Are you perhaps better at playing to the level of the room than an average person might be? And more aware of the need to adjust to the level of the room? I had a now deceased former partner who was amazing at that. He could explain complicated things very simply to those with little background understanding or education and also get into the weeds with virtually any expert. And he could size up which level was the right one very quickly. That wasn’t just that he was smart. (And he was.) It was a very particular skill set. One quite a few other very smart people I have known do not possess … and then they blame others for not understanding what they are saying.
Well, I certainly hope I am. But I also know better than to trust my own self-assessment on something like that.
Now I’m the one not being clear.
I sort of understood from the pair of poll options that you were essentyially asking “whose fault is the miscommunication?” but this opening sentence flung me sideways and left me wondering if you were asking something more specific or entirely different:
You are at least aware of it. I see quite a few smart people who are either unaware of the need or at least forget to even try. Or are just really bad at it.
Ah. Didn’t type in a word I was thinking. Which happens to me posting sometimes … well often, even. About it. Meaning what is your default understanding about why the misunderstanding occurred? And even then that was awkwardly phrased. Sorry.
Much clearer, and I feel a bit dense that I couldn’t figure that out on my own. I think I was trying to make that “which” be a specification or an elaboration on “misunderstanding”, i.e. “not just any misunderstanding, but the kind of misunderstanding which is your default understanding about”. And I wasn’t getting it.
It doesn’t seem to happen as much in Japanese society, but it’s really common in Taiwan.
Japanese society tends to assume that the other person is competent and so they usually don’t offer unsolicitated advice. They will listen and if you ask, they will offer their thoughts, but they don’t tend to give suggestions as much. If they do, then they will say things such as “I’m sure you’ve thought about this, but . . .”
OTOH, Taiwanese love to jump in and push advice, even before they have heard the whole story. It was quite a cultural shock going to Taiwan from Japan, and then back again.
Recently I was explaining (in detail) about how I manage my backups for important electronic data and how I use a common regime called 3-2-1 (three copies of anything important, two of them on different media or machines, one of them offsite). None of this is any kind of a problem - I am doing it already and I know how to do it; I wasn’t complaining or even asking for advice - just talking about a thing I do.
Someone offered their unsolicited advice to the effect ‘Why don’t you just get a USB stick and carry your data with you?’; this is not only unsolicited device, it’s also terrible, ignorant advice.
(It was also incidentally, demeaning and hostile advice, but I have paraphrased it here).
People do this all the time. Not every out-loud thing that people say or write or post, is a complaint about a problem.
Okay. I’m not aware of ever being in that situation. It’s possible that I have but simply didn’t notice or it didn’t stick in my memory. I don’t really consider it possible in the first place to be demeaned by someone whose advice I don’t respect. It’s like being insulted by a toddler. It’s more laughable than insulting.
You made it clear that the context here was different, but in other circumstances I’d consider “why don’t you use a USB stick” as a call for further elaboration, such as that USB sticks are unreliable, that they have a single point of failure due to being in one physical location, and so on. In some cases, they may not care about the answer at all, but in the interest of being friendly and wishing to continue the conversation, they ask a “dumb” question to let you continue.
I think that might be a reasonable approach if this was a thing that only occurred as a very small proportion of interactions, or was uncommon in general, but it’s not (hence thread).
I think there’s a big difference if the advice is hostile or not. If the advice is genuine but from a place of ignorance, I think it’s worth listening to out of politeness if nothing else, and there’s some small but non-zero chance that it’ll prove worthwhile. But no one is obligated to listen to a hostile person and it’s far less likely that whatever they say will be at all useful, since it was never intended to be.
I agree, although I would say the phrasing ‘Why don’t you just…’ is often an indicator that the unsolicited advice is, if not hostile, at least talking-down. It’s often not even an earnest question, but rather, a rhetorical one.
I’d consider the tone and other context to be more important than the exact phrasing, but sure, it could be a partial indicator. Also, a rhetorical question isn’t necessarily hostile. Maybe they just want to hear you talk about stuff!
When I say, “Why don’t you just…,” it’s typically off-the-cuff advice I offer in non-critical situations. While it might or might not be helpful, I hope it isn’t harmful if it isn’t. For more important, carefully considered advice, I typically begin with, “You should….”
Sometimes, I also use “Why don’t you just…” for humor or sarcasm. Example: For someone complaining of being interrupted at work, I may say “Why don’t you just lock your office door and pretend you’re on vacation?” Not practical, just an attempt to lighten the mood.
When I receive advice beginning with “Why don’t you just…”, it typically follows the same pattern (s). Not advice to take to the bank, but sometimes helpful taken with a grain of salt…or just funny.
Well, that’s the problem, innit?
You may consider it “off the cuff” when you offer but flip it around and that means you take the words of others trivially a good deal of the time, since the situation is, as YOU judge it, “non-critical”. There’s some assumptions doing some heavy lifting there.
I’m sure that’s sometimes the case. I am basing my views on this partly on where the conversation goes afterward (if there is a conversation to follow). ‘Why don’t you just…’ is, in my experience, often an indicator of condescension.