On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:51:52 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Even if you don't care about the answer, that's a great way to get
>> people to start talking.
> 
> I think perhaps it's better to say "even if you only care about the
> answer to the extent that it gives you something further to ask about." 
> Asking and then ignoring the answer is off-putting as well.

True, and a fine distinction.  You do have to have some interest in the 
answer even if it's a passing interest in order to carry on the 
conversation.

Jim

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On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:02:42 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:25:23 -0500, Warp wrote: Personally, I
>> prefer written communications because I have a chance to think about
>> what I'm going to say and to research my answer.
> 
> Precisely!
> 
> Despite being quite verborragic on the web/newsgroups, I'm a pretty
> silent soul on the physical side.  I don't know, I think it's the lack
> of a blinking cursor...

Could be.  I sometimes do catch myself running on when talking - I did it 
last week in a presentation, actually, and gave details that I thought 
were useful at the time, but in retrospect were just adding on to 
something to "sell" it, and my audience had already been sold on the idea.

Jim

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On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:00:44 -0800, DungBeatle wrote:

> I do that too...
> I can't answer the phone while I'm
> programming or working on a server...

Yep, it's so difficult to get your train of thought back (and some 
studies show it can take a half hour to get back to the frame of mind you 
were in when you were interrupted).

I love working at home for this reason - far fewer distractions.

Jim

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"nemesis" <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Only geeks care for geeks.

Makes me think of this:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/geeks

:)

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>>> When talking with executives,
>>> especially in writing, brevity is important.
>> It's important because the dicks can't read.
> 
> Actually, in my experience, that's not the case.

What I've found is that in my company, the people at the top find this 
obsessive need to feel in control of *everything*. They will not 
deligate even the tiniest, most insignificant task to anybody else, 
because then they wouldn't be "in control" of that task, and that would 
make them less important.

The result is where every time anybody anywhere in the company wants to 
buy something IT-related that costs more than $100, the IT Director 
himself has to personally approve it. If anybody in IT wants to take a 
few hours off work, the IT Director has to personally approve it. If a 
printer anywhere in the company is low on toner, the IT Director has to 
be personally notified. And so forth.

The net result of this is that the IT Director receives roughly 900 
emails *per day*, most of them nothing to do with anything. And the 
result of *that* is that if you send the IT Director an email of more 
than about six syllables, he'll read the first sentence and send a reply 
to that - which usually result in him asking a question which is 
answered two lines further down the email you originally sent.

This is severely exasperating.

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> One of the things I find a lot of geeks do, though, is tend to go into a 
> lot of unnecessary detail.
> 
> My point is that sometimes it's more effective to say less.

I like to delude myself that this is one of the things I'm good at.

I've seen computer policy documents that are full of technobabble. I've 
seen procedure documents that have a list of definitions that looks like 
a geek's guide to TCP/IP. It's really not necessary. These aren't 
technical documents, they're *policy statements*.

I get the impression that a lot of the people who write these things 
can't think abstractly. Like, they're so obsessed with individual 
technologies, and even where individual buttons are on a specific piece 
of software, that they can't see the big picture of what they're trying 
to do. It doesn't *matter* to an auditor if you use RAID1 or RAID5. They 
don't give a ****. What they want to know is that you're using RAID, and 
what exactly that means. They don't want to know about stripe sets and 
mirroring and parity computation hardware. All they need to know is that 
you've got multiple drives, and if one breaks the system can continue to 
function. That's one sentence. That's all you need to say.

Now that the IT Director is gone, I'm going to make a serious attempt to 
get permission to take my disaster recovery plan home with me. 
(Obviously, being written as part of my job, my employer owns the IP for 
that, so I need written permission to disclose it outside the company.) 
I think it's a damn fine piece of writing - and I have the likes of 
Roche and Pfizer agreeing with me.

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> The main problem I see with email exchanges is this:  people don't like to read.

> Nerds like you and me, yes, general population, no.  Doesn't matter if you have
> a clear text with everything needed covered and explained in minute detail:
> people just won't read and will eventually phone you to talk "about the email".

  With regular people that might be understandable, but with people whose
*job* is to read emails and respond to them (eg. technical support) I think
it's inexcusable.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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> The main problem I see with email exchanges is this:  people don't like to 
> read.
>
> Nerds like you and me, yes, general population, no.  Doesn't matter if you 
> have
> a clear text with everything needed covered and explained in minute 
> detail:
> people just won't read and will eventually phone you to talk "about the 
> email".

IME this is usually because the person you sent it to has other things to do 
that they consider more important.  So many times I have called someone and 
asked if they read the email - "oh, i glanced over it but haven't taken it 
in yet".  If you understand this concept then you understand why a lot of 
things in the world work the way they do.

> Hate the phone.

Me too, but I know when it needs to be used.

> Hate dumb people.

Only if they are trying to a job which they are not skilled enough for, and 
then I really don't hate them, just the manager that put them there.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:21:57 -0500, Jim Henderson wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:53:02 -0500, nemesis wrote:
> >
> >> Doesn't matter if you
> >> have a clear text with everything needed covered and explained in
> >> minute detail:
> >
> > That's often the problem, though - people don't *want* the minute
> > detail.  They want the overall high-level picture.

yes, but I was not talking about money-saving exec bastards in particular, but
about people in general.  In any case, I agree with your points.  But still
think they'd save a lot of time by actually reading it... :P

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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
news:4b67b77a@news.povray.org...
> Yep, it's so difficult to get your train of thought back
(and some
> studies show it can take a half hour to get back to the
frame of mind you
> were in when you were interrupted).

Having several source files open, making global changes is
the worst time. There have been times where someone walks
in, blabbing about this or that, and I'd just close all the
files and start over. And it's not like I have all these
buddies coming in to talk, no, it's always some idiot who
can't configure a browser to allow popup windows to open...
It's always best to ask a programmer those questions, you
know... Don't call the help desk... :)

> I love working at home for this reason - far fewer
distractions.
> Jim

After 20 years, I finally got an unlisted work phone number.
The phone I have doesn't ring and goes immediatley to
message. But I'd much rather work at home and could do that,
but I drive the wife to work (same employer) every day. When
I retire...

~db

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