Ask for what you want
Sep. 1st, 2007 10:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amanda_loddenA few months ago ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pusifoot used a phrase that has popped into my head at least a dozen times since:
In the context she used it, the emphasis was on "ask", as her point was that the people who care about you will generally be willing to give you what you want, but they can't be expected to guess what that might be. And it's come up in that sense a few times, when I asked John to do something so that I wouldn't have to-- often, it's "Can you visit my mother for me so that I can go do this other thing I want to do?". As long as I voice my desire, John's been wonderful about doing what I ask for. Certainly, sometimes you'll get a negative response, as when I asked Shane for a backrub and he said he was too tired, but I was no worse off having asked than I would have been if I hadn't.
But equally valid is the same statement with the emphasis on "want". Far too often, we ask a question where we intend to apply a complicated filter to the answer we receive, instead of just asking what we want to know in the first place. Case in point: John and Collin went halfway across the state a few weeks ago for a business trip. Since mileage is deductible, I needed to know how they got there. So I asked John "Who drove?" John answered that he met Collin up at Collin's and then Collin drove. I then applied my internal filter to that and came up with "I can't deduct the mileage out to the customer site, but I can deduct up to Collin's house." John couldn't remember the address, so I called up Collin to ask. Collin told me that they met up at a Burger King (because what John actually said was that he met Collin up in [Collin's city], and I extrapolated Collin's house out of John's answer), and that John "picked him up." Since that didn't match up with my internal filters, I asked for clarification and said that John had told me Collin drove. Collin's response was that he did indeed drive, because John wasn't feeling well, but that the car he drove was John's (hence, the full mileage was deductible).
Every time I mention this anecdote even in passing, John whimpers and apologizes, but it's not his fault. I asked a simple question, and he answered it with complete honesty. It's not John's fault that I didn't ask for what I actually wanted to know, which was "Which car did you take?" Had I asked that, John would have told me that they took his car. Instead, I asked a related question with the intent of translating his answer.
I don't have a good wrap-up for this. There's a lesson to be learned about the way we communicate with each other, and how easy it is for simple miscommunications to build on each other, but I don't have a way to tie it together succinctly and make a neat ending. So this one will have to do.
pusifoot used a phrase that has popped into my head at least a dozen times since: Ask for what you want.
In the context she used it, the emphasis was on "ask", as her point was that the people who care about you will generally be willing to give you what you want, but they can't be expected to guess what that might be. And it's come up in that sense a few times, when I asked John to do something so that I wouldn't have to-- often, it's "Can you visit my mother for me so that I can go do this other thing I want to do?". As long as I voice my desire, John's been wonderful about doing what I ask for. Certainly, sometimes you'll get a negative response, as when I asked Shane for a backrub and he said he was too tired, but I was no worse off having asked than I would have been if I hadn't.
But equally valid is the same statement with the emphasis on "want". Far too often, we ask a question where we intend to apply a complicated filter to the answer we receive, instead of just asking what we want to know in the first place. Case in point: John and Collin went halfway across the state a few weeks ago for a business trip. Since mileage is deductible, I needed to know how they got there. So I asked John "Who drove?" John answered that he met Collin up at Collin's and then Collin drove. I then applied my internal filter to that and came up with "I can't deduct the mileage out to the customer site, but I can deduct up to Collin's house." John couldn't remember the address, so I called up Collin to ask. Collin told me that they met up at a Burger King (because what John actually said was that he met Collin up in [Collin's city], and I extrapolated Collin's house out of John's answer), and that John "picked him up." Since that didn't match up with my internal filters, I asked for clarification and said that John had told me Collin drove. Collin's response was that he did indeed drive, because John wasn't feeling well, but that the car he drove was John's (hence, the full mileage was deductible).
Every time I mention this anecdote even in passing, John whimpers and apologizes, but it's not his fault. I asked a simple question, and he answered it with complete honesty. It's not John's fault that I didn't ask for what I actually wanted to know, which was "Which car did you take?" Had I asked that, John would have told me that they took his car. Instead, I asked a related question with the intent of translating his answer.
I don't have a good wrap-up for this. There's a lesson to be learned about the way we communicate with each other, and how easy it is for simple miscommunications to build on each other, but I don't have a way to tie it together succinctly and make a neat ending. So this one will have to do.
