[bsenftner]

I think it is exposing how weakly people grasp communications. The amount of implied everything in most people's communications is extremely high, and those same people do not understand they are using implied information that a non-human construct really struggles to figure out what the human is talking about. I help a lot of non-technical people use AI, and asking them not to imply and to explain what they mean... many cannot parse, the implied version is all they have ever held in their head, and my telling them that they are using implied information confuses them, they don't know or never realized the full meaning of their usage of language.

[eszed]

Yes. Furthermore, when I write precisely - because it's an important subject (read: will cost the company money) where we must be on the same page - people's eyes glaze over, and they ask for a meeting or a phone call instead. So, we do that, and I answer all the questions, and then everyone goes away with a different idea about what we're talking about. The only person who doesn't do that is our controller, who'll tell me "I had to read this three times, but now I understand", and I love her for it. Sadly, she doesn't make decisions, just pays the bills.

I'm sure it's my fault, somehow - but I'm a damn good writer; I just don't know how to communicate with people who won't put forth the effort to engage with detail.

The latest advice is "put in through [LLM]". Which, yeah, takes out the details, and makes bullet points, but sometimes the details are the point... Right?

[27183]

> I'm sure it's my fault, somehow - but I'm a damn good writer; I just don't know how to communicate with people who won't put forth the effort to engage with detail.

I used to put effort into those people. It was a waste of time. Now I just do everything I can to ignore them, work around them, etc.

Knowledge workers who won't engage with the material are just like ditch diggers who won't touch a shovel. They're dead weight, and organizations that fail to cull them are doing it all wrong.

Sadly, that's most of them these days.

[bsenftner]

Careful, because some of those you overlook are probably favorites of management. For who knows what reason, but it surprises me how many times a seemingly deadweight team member just happens to be the owner's kid or some such nepo-baby.

[27183]

Yeah I've stepped on that face rake a few times. I still think it's a decent heuristic, don't see any reason to change.

[bsenftner]

I realize this may sounds like a lot of effort, but I find telling stories of how a person would use the system, with theatrics of confusion and failure, tend to penetrate the dull unwilling to think participants I must engage to get my work completed. I'm not an actor or a good speaker, I grew up with a severe stutter, and I find I have to "put on a show" to generate the dawn of comprehension in others.

[eszed]

Funnily enough, I am (was) an actor. Public speaking and telling stories are my jam. So... I do all that. I love making wacky analogies to help people understand complex systems.

Higher-level decision-making, I find, isn't so much like that. Sometimes it's just tradeoffs: "if the company's going this direction, then A is better; but if that, then B". But they haven't even recognized the this and the that - and don't want to think them through transparently - so I've got to choose the A or the B in the dark. Actually, it's worse than that, because some people have (by implication) already committed to the this, and others to the that, but neither side wants to talk about either, because that would create conflict. So, the best (job- / career-wise) choice for me is to predict which of A or B best satisfies whichever side will be most influential when the bill for A or B comes due. Either could be (technically speaking) correct, but the choice is never made on a technical basis.

[bsenftner]

I've been working for far too freaking long, so I've had a series of pointy haired bosses (referencing Dilbert here). I once had a boss that really fought for the technical reasons every time, exhausing upper management until they gave in. Years later, socially chatting with one of the upper managers from that company, which I'd long left, about that manager and how much his team loved him. The manager's response was "that was the last on-spectrum manager we hired. never again!" and my opinion dimmed.