debain version

[Michael T. Richter]

On Tue, 2007-30-01 at 00:21 -0500, Scott Kitterman wrote:

> >Being friendly and helpful is hard work?



> No.  Answering a question and then getting nitpicked for not having 
> answered in the way that someone thought I should have is really annoying.


I should point out that I did say friendly and helpful.  That
conjunction is key to understanding.

At some point, to reduce your own frustrations in life, you're going to
have to develop a sense of appropriate wording.  While "what do you
want!" and "how can I help you?" are identical in effective meaning, a
business that uses the first on customers will lose a lot of customers
to one that uses the second.

Since you appear to have some difficulty with this notion, let's go over
the initial question and your response and see if we can't together find
a better way to do it.

>> Ubuntu is based on debain but which one do I choose: 1 or 2?

> Neither.  Ubuntu is not guaranteed to be binary compatible with Debian
(or any 
> version).

So far so good.  We have a clear answer and an explanation for it.  Both
very good.

> If you need to do this, get the source package and build it 
> yourself.

Ah!  Here is where the trouble lies.  In general, in English, it is
considered brusque and offensive to use the imperative voice when
answering a question.  It sounds a little less like polite, friendly,
helpful advice and a little more like an order.  Wording things in this
manner tends to get people upset.  This leads to people making these
"annoying" and "nitpicking" responses to you which raises your blood
pressure and generally gets you upset to the point you don't want to
talk anymore.  Now a better way to respond might be:


        > Neither is a good choice because Ubuntu and Debian aren't
        necessarily
        > binary compatible with each other.  You may want to find an
        Ubuntu-specific
        > package (have you considered checking the universe
        repository?) or, if that
        > doesn't work, you may want to instead build it from source
        directly to
        > avoid any problems."


See the difference in tone?  That tone is the key.  What I said above is
pretty much the same as what you said (although I added the hint of
looking at the universe repository gratuitously because the OP may be
reading this and this is as much for his benefit as it is for yours) yet
what you said comes across as brusque, rude and aggressive whereas what
I said comes across as helpful and courteous.

The key to understanding this is to understand basic human nature.
People generally don't like being told to do things.  They like being
offered choices.  Hence wording that is in the vein of "go do this"
tends to get people's backs up while wording that's in the vein of "you
might want to do this" tends to get them listening.

As a further example of this, consider another way that I could have
responded to you (and this is an exaggerated example intended for
humourous illustration only!): "ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER, CAN YOU SPEAK
IT?!"

What I have put in this message is not all that different from the
excessive example cited above.  I'm basically chastening you for poor
communication skills in English, the medium of this mailing list.  Yet,
by using polite wording and offering choices and explanations I take the
sting off of what would otherwise be a very raw and very flame-inducing
response to you.


> If you want a thoroughly researched response that includes not only the 
> answer to the question you asked, but also to the questions you should have 
> asked, then hire me as a consultant.


You'll find that most consultants who get regularly hired have decent
communication skills.  Again it's human nature.  "I can hire this guy
that sounds like a neanderthal hunting for mammoths or I can hire this
guy that can speak my language."  Technical skills are vastly overrated
by those who hold them.  Social skills are king in business.

-- 
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter at gmail.com, mtr1966 at hotpop.com
MSN: ttmrichter at hotmail.com, mtr1966 at hotmail.com; YIM:
michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber:
mtr1966 at jabber.cn

"[Blacks] ... are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body
and mind." --Thomas Jefferson
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