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Showerthought: a guy in line at the DMV asked why I bother with an answer, and it changed how I ask stuff
So I was standing in line at the DMV on Grand Ave waiting about 40 minutes, and this older guy next to me was filling out a form and asked if I knew what box 7 meant. I gave him a super long answer covering like three possible cases, and he just looked at me and said "man, I didn't ask for a story, just which box." That stung a little but he was right. I realized I do this all the time when people ask me stuff, I dump everything I know instead of figuring out what they really need. Since then I try to ask one quick follow up first, like "what are you trying to do with it?" before I open my mouth. At work last month a coworker asked me about prepping for a 10k and instead of giving her my whole training plan I asked if her goal was to finish or hit a time, and her answer made my reply like 10 times shorter and actually useful. It feels weirdly hard to not over-answer, honestly. Do you all ask a follow up before you reply to stuff, or do you just go straight into the full explanation like I used to?
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