News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on A guide to difficult conversations. Parent comment

Re:A guide to difficult conversations by logfromblammo on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @12:26PM (#19493279)
"Is there something you want me to do?" is a slightly less hostile way of saying "Get to the point."

"The petitioner did not make a request upon which relief can be granted." might set off a snark detector, and "The ticketing system already automatically notifies the requester that their ticket has been closed." might inadvertently imply that the supervisor does not know how to do their job.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A guide to difficult conversations by dodobirdlord on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @11:46PM (#19498024)
My habitual response to these sorts of messages has been to just affirm the statement.

> "Hey, I see that you closed out Ticket #XYZ without any resolution or response sent to the requester."

> "yes" / "yup" / "indeed" / "true"

It's an effective way to sidestep having to pay attention until the person comes up with an actual question or request.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A guide to difficult conversations by logfromblammo on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @10:28AM (#19501077)
"That is a true statement." is one that is frequently used around here. It sounds very engineer-y, and has no inflectional or emotional connotations whatsoever. It's about as sterile as a SYN-ACK packet. I heard what you just said, and evaluated it for correctness. Current computation completed, and ready for additional input.
[ Parent | on HN ]