River: Why I asked

[mdlbear]

Public Service Announcement #3: If I ask you a question, it's because I don't know the answer, and I'm interested in hearing it. Period. The only exceptions are if I'm recording an interview with you, or drilling you for a test.

Public Service Announcement #4: I almost never ask "social questions". If I don't know you, or don't want to talk, I'll greet you with some variant of "hello". If I ask "How are you?" I'll take a social "OK", but I'll also be ready for a twenty-minute rant or a two-hour brain dump. Really.

If you think I've asked a question before, there are several possible explanations:

• I may simply have forgotten your answer. This happens a lot, especially with names, but it can happen with anything if I haven't had a chance to write it down.
• I may even have forgotten that I asked the question. That can happen especially if I was distracted when, or shortly after, I asked it.
• I may not have heard your answer the last time. I'm both a little hard of hearing, and very easily distracted. I'll try to use the phrase "excuse me" in this case. If it's very noisy or hard for me to concentrate, you may have to repeat the answer several times. Bear with me.
• I may have asked the question with different words, and not understood the answer. Or I understood the answer, but it was so different from what I expected that I'm not sure you understood the question. I'm using different and more careful wording in an attempt to get a more understandable, more believable, or more accurate answer. Usually I'll say so, and say which case I'm working on, but I might not always have time. Please try to believe that it's a different question, even if it sounds the same to you.
• You may have given me the same information in response to a different question entirely (in which case I might easily have missed it in my efforts to understand it as the answer to the question I did ask), or even without my asking.
• The situation may have changed to the point where I'm no longer certain the old answer applies. I'll try to use the word "still" in this case, as in "Are you still upset at me?"
• You may simply be mis-remembering, or remembering when I asked the same question in an earlier situation.

There are also cases where you think I should already know the answer. Perhaps you actually told me the answer a few minutes ago, and I got distracted and forgot it. Perhaps it's something that any human being with the ability to understand normal people's emotions ought to have known implicitly. Perhaps it was implied by something you said, and I simply didn't catch the implication. I'm stupid that way, OK?

The fact is, I didn't know. If I ask you a question, it's because at the moment I'm asking it I don't know the answer. If I ask for more detail, it's because I feel that it's important for me to find out. It's OK in that case to tell me to drop the subject, and I'll either drop it or tell you why I think I need to know, and drop it if you still want me to.

I would really appreciate it if you could be patient with this stupid old bear, and not get too upset because I asked you what sounds like the same question in different words a few minutes ago. Please try to listen to my exact words, and answer the question I actually asked rather than repeating the answer I didn't understand the last time, or answering the question you think I intended to ask. Feel free to correct me if you think I'm asking the wrong question, and feel free to ask me why I seem to be asking the same damned question, or to clarify my phrasing.

Please don't get upset because I don't seem to be listening to you. I'm listening as best I can, and trying as hard as I can to understand you. I wouldn't be asking you questions if I wasn't trying to understand you.

Above all, please believe me when I tell you I don't know. I wouldn't lie to you.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

My first mentor outside of academia taught me: The only stupid question is the one you don't ask. One then presumes that, you being a bigger geek than me, you already know this... and thus presumes that if you're asking, it's because you don't know.

But then, that's just how *this* bear works.

'course, if I encounter the question a second time, I'm likely to see if I can give you the info in a form you can access easily yourself... e.g. file, email, text it to your phone...

But then, I kept myself in PBJ for almost 20 years straight by doing tech support. You get hungry that way if you give bad answers (including ones people don't remember even though they're right). Not everybody is good at that. Heck, some people suck at *getting* tech support, much less giving it. "My internet's broke!" "What's wrong?" "I dunno, it's broke. You fix it." (And my internal voice is going "no, Capt. Caveman, *you* broke it," which is why I got out of tech support. :)

And, yeah, I'd catch the "still", too.

It is good to document these assumptions, though. You and me, we talk almost the same language (like, say, Castillano vs. Latino). A whole lot of folks... don't.

[mdlbear]

Yeah; I don't think I need to document this stuff for _you_ -- you might find it helpful when talking to "normal" folks, though.