[MrWiffles]

There’s a common phrase in English: “what’s the ask?” As in, “what is the other party requesting?” “What does this person want?”

I can see how that would sound/read a bit strange to one coming from another culture. It’s just another way of stating the concept of the purpose behind the reason for a person’s request, actions, statement, or in this case, why they requested a meeting.

Getting to “the ask” here meant, for the author, “what the hell does this fool REALLY want out of me?”

I prefer Walt’s approach. When I was 19, I worked for a small business up in Colorado. They had this contractor named Walt that did all their email, website, all that stuff (very early 2000s). Every time he answered the phone, it wasn’t a polite “Hello?”, no! Walt got straight to the point with one loud, gruff word that immediately set the tone for all his conversations:

“WHAT?!”