Sometimes I want to hear that I'm beautiful, even with the fuzz in my hair.

You are beautiful, even with the fuzz in my hair.

Thank you for sharing! Based on your last sentence I think we're in agreement that it's probably not great to give someone unsolicited advice (but it's fine if we disagree). I wanted to throw out a couple more thoughts:

I think that having experience in the business (or not) is important. I think that sometimes giving advice on an area that one doesn't have experience in can be a weird way to put oneself in a 'one up' position. Kind of a "Look, I don't even do your job, but let me tell you how to do it better" kind of statement.

I'm not saying that this was your intention or your effect but I think it's something engineers are prone to - I know I've done this. Wasn't there even a name for this? Something about "dinner party advice"? If this rings a bell for anyone I'd appreciate the help about this.

Sometimes I've found that if I have experience in the area I can suggest a small change with a substantial benefit (because I've actually done this enough times to know that the advice will actually help, actually) but even there I'd be really hesitant to offer unsolicited advice.

And, as an added bonus, consider that they may have already committed to what they're doing. In which case, even if you're right, you're basically telling them that they've done something wrong - maybe they can fix it (with more effort and/or money) maybe they can't, but that's gotta be an extra burden for them.

I've heard it called engineer's syndrome. "You start believing that since you're an excellent engineer in one specialty, then you're a friggin' genius in everything you do, because it's all the same, really" [0]

It apparently affects physicists too, and must be common enough to warrant two xkcds. [1][2]

0. https://web.archive.org/web/20071226220909/http://www.pcmag.... 1. https://xkcd.com/1831/ 2. https://xkcd.com/793/

To be fair, engineers are rational. You don't get that with other professions.

It makes them great for advice because they arent going to use emotions or hopes.

But also, in this case, me and my wife are 2 business owners that have been doing it for a decade. This person started a few weeks ago.

Depends on context.

If someone just needs the emotional energy to get back into the fight then a compliment is often what is needed.

If someone is about to do something imminently that you see a correctable fault with and they don't then pointing it out is likely correct.

So many people up here thinking there is always 1 exactly right course of action! Why?! Why do so many otherwise smart people fall back to the silliest of binary thinking and heuristics?

> So many people up here thinking there is always 1 exactly right course of action! Why?! Why do so many otherwise smart people fall back to the silliest of binary thinking and heuristics?

I was one of those. I know the answer: I wasn't/I'm not that intelligent. I learnt that being technically right is not as important as I thought (and I also learnt to care less about it specially when I'm surrounded by other technical people).

> I learnt that being technically right is not as important as I thought

Only in discussions, whenever you do anything being right is the most important thing as doing the wrong thing is just contra productive, being right saves a massive amount of time and work.

Careful to not get sucked into a binary trap. Most (but not all) problems exist on a gradient you can often be "right enough", "fast enough", and as uncomfortable as it seems we can be "correct enough" or even "coherent enough" to succeed.

I think there’s a difference between being right and being technically right (I wrote about the latter). For example, being technically right could mean not to lend money to your best friend because you have historical proof that the money will be lost and you won’t get paid back. Being right in this scenario means: give that money to your best pal because that’s what best friend are for. I could be getting this wrong, though (bear with me).

I don’t want to be technically right 100% of the time (it’s hard for me because of my background, I tend to think in analytical terms first, and in humane terms second). Obviously this doesn’t apply to every scenario, but I think the audience gets the idea: there are people out there (me in the past) that go 100% of the time the “technically right” way, no matter what and you cannot convince them of doing the opposite because they can prove it to you that they are “right”

> Only in discussions, whenever you do anything being right is the most important thing as doing the wrong thing is just contra productive, being right saves a massive amount of time and work.

Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes doing it the way people expect will be better for future maintenance. Sometimes doing it the way that makes your boss look good will be better for you. All interesting decisions are close and uncertain.

Reflection is a form of intelligence. Being able to acknowledge you were once wrong is not a skill everyone has (and being technically correct is a super important part of being smart at least in tech). I hope you see how smart you are and keep getting smarter.

>So many people up here thinking there is always 1 exactly right course of action! Why?! Why do so many otherwise smart people fall back to the silliest of binary thinking and heuristics?

What implied it was binary?

I think that is your own thoughts.

You did.

> What is better? The person that says "You look beautiful", or "You have a piece of fuzz in your hair?"