| Date: | April 6, 2006 / year-entry #124 |
| Tags: | non-computer |
| Orig Link: | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060406-21/?p=31623 |
| Comments: | 41 |
| Summary: | Saturday afternoon, my phone rings. "Hello?" "Quick! We're on our way to the nursery. Do you want to come?" I recognize the voice as one of my friends who recently bought a house and presumably is doing some spring landscaping. But I have to answer fast. Time for a snap decision. "No." My friend seems... |
Saturday afternoon, my phone rings. "Hello?" "Quick! We're on our way to the nursery. Do you want to come?" I recognize the voice as one of my friends who recently bought a house and presumably is doing some spring landscaping. But I have to answer fast. Time for a snap decision. "No." My friend seems surprised that I give my answer so quickly. "Oh! Well then! Bye." If you tell me I have to answer fast, you shouldn't act all offended if I give a quick answer. |
Comments (41)
Comments are closed. |
"Sorry, no" ?
Given that women can usually think fast (even far ahead), and men usually respond positive to the idea of seeing nurses, you answered like a girl too.
briefly and directly.I like
Well as long as the friend wasn’t also expecting a baby, you probably made the right decision.
Your friend’s answer didn’t seem as if he felt offended or anything. Looks like you are reading too much into it, Raymond :-)
When calling, some people tend to chatter for minutes until they come to the actual purpose of their call. I know of the importance of small-talk etc. But i usually like to know what’s up right away.
I had a friend once, who was really irritated by my question "Hey, what did you call me for?". That was after minutes of ‘time-theft’.
Callers should not expect to find their opposite to be in the mood or to have the time for small-talk. I agree with intersense: briefly and direct.
Nurses? Babies? These people were going to buy plants.
in cases like that, responding with another question is the safest bet
No time for niceties. They said they needed an answer instantly.
How does that saying go… "you can get the wrong answer fast, or the right answer slowly"
"No thanks, I’m already here"
(wait for their surprised pause to end)
"And they’re out of plants, you should just go home."
I can only guess that the person who called you was a woman.
A man would not answer "Oh! Well then! Bye." if they posed the question in a hurry. They would answer something like "Ok cool, later", or "WTF man.. you should go", or "Dude, I need your opinion, come on" (Modified by your local social slang)
And what’s with the whole quick thing… if they can’t pull over long enough to give you time to think about it, they don’t really care if you go. What, did they have a list of people they wanted to ask, so they couldn’t spend the extra few seconds?
Also, I rarely ever answer "no", unless I’m either in a formal setting where slang isn’t acceptable, I’m correcting someone, or I wish to convey a strong negative (slightly less negative than "no way").
I usually favor "nah" as in "nah, maybe later", or "naw" as in "Naw man, screw that". "Naw" is the slang equivellent of the strong negative "no" conveys, but I only really use it at the start of a sentence.
My response to the quick response would have been "ummmmmmmmmm… nah" :)
The person didn’t literally say, "Oh! Well then! Bye." I was just trying to convey the tone of voice, which was a sort of shocked "How rude!".
Have you learnt anything, grasshopper? Next weekend when the same friend asks "We’re going to the hardware store, do you want to come?" what are you going to answer?
And has your friend learnt anything? Maybe s/he won’t ring at all…
"No time for niceties."
Well if you consider the person a friend there always should be :)
"They said they needed an answer instantly."
OK, but instantly or not, it really doesnt take that long to add a "sorry" or a "thanks".
Cartainly less time than it would take to blog about it or apologize later on.
So how does it feel to have a dozen kibitzers on the minutia of your everyday life? It’d give me the creeps ;-)
"George, you should have nodded when he gave you the ‘chin lift’ ack."
"Yeah. And how could you not hold the door open for the third person as well?"
"What kind of a way is that to hail a cab??"
"Pizza? Come on George, you’re not that young anymore."
So many people make the mistake of asking "Do you want to %s" when what they mean is "I want to %s, join me or I will be offended >:("
my ex pulled that all the time.
her: "are you hungry?"
me: "no, not really"
30 minutes later
me: "why are you in a bad mood?"
her: "because I’m hungry and you don’t want to go eat"
me: "huh?"
Another case of an engineer not understanding HIIP (Human interpersonal interaction protocol).
Anyway, the correct answer isn’t "Sorry, no" either. It’s "No thanks, I’ll catch you next time".
This conveys several additional critical bits of information. A) I appreciate you asking (whether or not that’s true it’s part of the protocol, kind of like an ACK). B) I’m not snubbing you. C) Ask again, because I might have a different answer on a different occasion (again, it’s an ACK, not an in-band information carrying utterance).
Also, I can’t resist pointing out that this response is more optimized even for the case you think you’re in. If they’re *really* in a screaming hurry, they can violate the protocol themselves and hang up after hearing "no".
Why can’t Messenger or Outlook just let you specify that you’re a programmer and that the person you’re communicating to is your gf/lawyer etc and then translate your "no" to something eloquent.
Can I offer another slant on this? I’m a native English speaker; I have been reading the old new thing for ages.
I understood the point he was making about going to a nursery to buy plants and offering a quick, terse answer when asked to do so.
But how many people did not understand that and thought about children at a nursery or nurses. Even if some of the responses are joking, doesn’t this show something more instructive that perhaps Microsoft and others can learn from? I’m not offering a world shattering insight, just the view that when IT people talk, although there is a common language of VB, C++, Java, SQL etc etc. there is often a lack of comprehension of the underlying message or meaning. So, perhaps one good thing would be for Microsoft to hire non-American English speakers of varying degrees of ability to review documentation and help files for international portability. I don’t mean the little things such as the Engligh "labour" and the American English "labor", but sometimes the message is culturally specific in a way that does not translate. Just a simple idea "an idea from out of left field". I know that’s about baseball, but do you expect a C++ developer in Beijing to know that? Or a DBA in Kazakhstan? Or whoever, wherever?
I guess this can be summarised as "internationalisation is not just translation, but endeavouring to ensure consistency of understanding of meaning". Now, if Microsoft could offer something to do that, that’d be cool…
—-"No time for niceties. They said they needed an answer instantly."—-
Raymond, are you really an autistic sociopath, or are you just playing devil’s advocate?
What they mean by a quick answer is "don’t spend half-an-hour thinking about it".
You are supposed to express interest in their landscaping and what plants they are buying and then reluctantly decline. If they know you are a programmer, and thus hopelessly lacking in the social graces, then you might just get away with "Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry but I don’t think I can manage it at the moment. Thanks awfully though." It will still be considered unacceptably terse, but you may be forgiven.
Never come to the Arab world. You’d offend the whole country before you got through immigration.
Maybe "No" is too rude, but how can something like "Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry but I don’t think I can manage it at the moment. Thanks awfully though." can possibly be "unacceptably terse"?
I’m afraid I lack the social skills to chat about plants for two full minutes just to answer a simple question.
She probably thought you called her a ‘hoe’ – which, I understand, is rather derogatory in the US, and explains the unexpected reaction.
What Stephen Jones, but with tact :)
When they said "Quick!" did they sound like they were going to hang up in eight seconds because they were catching a train, or like they were just saying "I’d love to chat, but I can’t write now, we should leave in 10 minutes"?
If they’re friends, you can hopefully ask them :)
I would have been tempted to answer:
"Sunspots!"
It’s 2 syllables to Raymond’s 1, but it’s a complete non-sequitur that would have bought me slightly more time before giving the real answer.
On the other hand, if (as he says) they really needed an answer, I would have in effect caused them to make the decision for me… which probably would have resulted in ‘no’… but without the offense (just some irritation).
Of course, after years of taking a little while to think carefully through most questions posed to me, most people have learned not to demand a quick answer out of me.
"You are supposed to express interest in their landscaping and what plants they are buying and then reluctantly decline."
The whole point of them asking for a quick answer was to avoid small talk like this.
They needed a quick answer because they were *already in the car on the way to the nursery*. In fact, as I later learned, they were just a few blocks from my house when they called, so a quick answer was in fact urgently needed.
—-"I was just thinking how the people in our Israel office often think we Americians are too polite and indirect. This could explain a lot. "—–
Israelis are notoriously rude. Whether this is a result or the cause of New Yorkers famed ill-manners is moot.
Arabs on the other hand are famously polite. It used to be said that when you crossed the Allenby Bridge from Jordan to Israel you went from the politest country in the world to the rudest.
I’ve long had a saying:
"If the answer’s now, the answer’s no."
I know it’s not gramatically correct and all but it gets the point across.
About that "nursery" thing John Greenan brought up: I’ve heard the word before, but it wasn’t until after reading some comments I started suspecting that someone might not be having a baby. (I thought it a bit odd to have a friend call on their way to the hospital and asking if you wanted to come along. Particulary as the answer was no.)
I’m Swedish, btw.
I agree, if someone is rushing you then they can’t expect a well thought-out answer back in return. Nevermind the fact that most people won’t like to be pushed or pressured like that.
Either they stop the car and wait for you patiently, or they don’t bother calling or at least don’t get upset when your response is curt.
Totally agree.
Are you debating if male engineers should consider the feelings of their male friends here? The first answer was the best. And if the friend can’t take it, he is not tech enough. Besides, buying babies from nurseries is boring.
You’re way too considerate. How could you miss that opportunity to ‘um’ and ‘err’ and ‘waffle’ on for ages about nothing in particular tht’s vaguely relevant or ask lots of tangentally relevant questions that might irritate the person in a hurry – which nusreryt? why did you chose that nursery? what type of plant’s are you looking for? why? have you considered…. etc
Do I have any friends? obviously not ;-)
This is more to Michael J than Raymond…
"No." is not acceptable. It’s basic social etiquette. Geeks (yes, I’m generalizing) have a hard time understanding that, because logically, "No." makes perfect sense. It’s direct and concise, and answers in the manner they indicated was desired.
However, unless you’re communicating with some of identical mind, it’s the wrong thing to do. People (in general) don’t expect it, don’t want it, and will be insulted by it, no matter what they expressed beforehand. No amount of rationalization on your part can change their behavior. Knock yourself down a peg and learn how to socialize with the majority of humanity, because for better or worse, they’re here to stay.