Mar 06 2009
The Art of Asking a Question
Being a polymath I tend to get asked questions on a lot of different things. Over the years, I’ve often wondered how many wasted minutes were spent deflecting questions with a question regarding the original question. Anyone in a support-type role knows what I’m talking about, but for the sake of illustration bear with me this example:
Q: Hi Brian, I don’t remember the username.
A: “Username” for what?
Clearly there is an expectation of telepathy, which I have not quite mastered as of yet. To further cement my issue, allow me another example:
Q: I don’t remember what directory we put that stuff in, do you?
A: What stuff?
My point is, that if you’re initiating a conversation with a question, and you’d really like an answer to that question, try to ensure there is no questioning its completeness. Here is a wrong/right example:
Q - WRONG: Where did you download that thing from?
Q - RIGHT: The program you used to connect to server2 via the keyboard yesterday… where did you download it from?
As a general rule of thumb, if your question contains any of the following words:
- thing
- stuff
- place
It probably needs some adjustment.
Try to remember the person attempting to answer your question may be juggling dozens of different things, probably has hundreds of numbers, passwords, and other data to remember, and would greatly appreciate the reduced mental workload a few extra words provides.
Your favorite support person will thank you!
