<story><title>Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?</title><text>This is something that&amp;#x27;s bothering me from time to time, so I&amp;#x27;m interested in knowing if others are struggling with it as well.&lt;p&gt;It seems to me there are some people (my experience is with SWEs but probably not limited to that) that:&lt;p&gt;- don&amp;#x27;t directly address the point of your question &amp;#x2F; provide a much complex answer (or even worse, a non-answer) to a simple question&lt;p&gt;- don&amp;#x27;t stay focused to the point of the discussion&lt;p&gt;- don&amp;#x27;t have some level of clarity in their train of thought and speech&lt;p&gt;- generally over-complicate matters by wandering off to other related subjects and extending the scope of the discussion&lt;p&gt;In such cases I find it hard to have technical discussions at the point where I&amp;#x27;m frustrated thinking of all the pointlessly-spent energy required to have those discussions the first place.&lt;p&gt;Anyone else feeling like this at work? Why do you think this happens? Is it an intentional choice to communicate like this, is it lack of some skill (on theirs or on my part) or something else?&lt;p&gt;P.S. Apologies for this rant (that probably lacks clarity as well)&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Fixed title and some missing words (oh the irony).</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>awb</author><text>Here are some altruistic reasons these events might occur:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; - don&amp;#x27;t directly address the point of your question &amp;#x2F; provide a much complex answer (or even worse, a non-answer) to a simple question&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; - don&amp;#x27;t stay focused to the point of the discussion&lt;p&gt;I often dive deeper if the question itself raises suspicions that the question asker might not fully understand the topic. For example, if someone asked: &amp;quot;can you unbatch those 1k RPCs?&amp;quot;, I might go into more detail than a &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;. I do it to spare the question asker from making a bad decision, without wanting to embarrassing them by saying that the question is too simplistic, or makes no sense.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; - don&amp;#x27;t some level of clarity in their train of thought and speech&lt;p&gt;You yourself are missing words in your communication like the word &amp;quot;have&amp;quot; in the quote above. Also, I don&amp;#x27;t know enough linguistic rules to correct you, but colloquially at least your title is better understood if you write it as &amp;quot;Why do some people not communicate clearly?&amp;quot; So some compassion when others misspeak might be good. Often it&amp;#x27;s possible to read between the lines.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; - generally over-complicate matters by wandering off to other related subjects and extending the scope of the discussion&lt;p&gt;Creativity is often the expansion of a topic, or the merger of multiple topics. Maybe your question sparked their creativity and they&amp;#x27;re taking the opportunity to show you some of their creative thought process.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tomg</author><text>&amp;gt; For example, if someone asked: &amp;quot;can you unbatch those 1k RPCs?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Can we do _________?&amp;quot; is the worst question to ask me as an engineer.   Like, yes, we probably _can_ do literally almost anything, with enough hours and money.  But what&amp;#x27;s the budget?  What really is _______?&lt;p&gt;Eg: If it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;analytics to a page&amp;quot;, what do we want to track? Where does the data go? How do people view the data?  I need to know the answer to those questions, plus the &amp;quot;budget&amp;quot;, before even entertaining a yes or no answer.  Which I think sounds like I&amp;#x27;m beating around the bush by asking, but I&amp;#x27;m not! :)</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Why do some people not communicate clearly?</title><text>This is something that&amp;#x27;s bothering me from time to time, so I&amp;#x27;m interested in knowing if others are struggling with it as well.&lt;p&gt;It seems to me there are some people (my experience is with SWEs but probably not limited to that) that:&lt;p&gt;- don&amp;#x27;t directly address the point of your question &amp;#x2F; provide a much complex answer (or even worse, a non-answer) to a simple question&lt;p&gt;- don&amp;#x27;t stay focused to the point of the discussion&lt;p&gt;- don&amp;#x27;t have some level of clarity in their train of thought and speech&lt;p&gt;- generally over-complicate matters by wandering off to other related subjects and extending the scope of the discussion&lt;p&gt;In such cases I find it hard to have technical discussions at the point where I&amp;#x27;m frustrated thinking of all the pointlessly-spent energy required to have those discussions the first place.&lt;p&gt;Anyone else feeling like this at work? Why do you think this happens? Is it an intentional choice to communicate like this, is it lack of some skill (on theirs or on my part) or something else?&lt;p&gt;P.S. Apologies for this rant (that probably lacks clarity as well)&lt;p&gt;---&lt;p&gt;EDIT: Fixed title and some missing words (oh the irony).</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>awb</author><text>Here are some altruistic reasons these events might occur:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; - don&amp;#x27;t directly address the point of your question &amp;#x2F; provide a much complex answer (or even worse, a non-answer) to a simple question&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; - don&amp;#x27;t stay focused to the point of the discussion&lt;p&gt;I often dive deeper if the question itself raises suspicions that the question asker might not fully understand the topic. For example, if someone asked: &amp;quot;can you unbatch those 1k RPCs?&amp;quot;, I might go into more detail than a &amp;quot;yes&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;no&amp;quot;. I do it to spare the question asker from making a bad decision, without wanting to embarrassing them by saying that the question is too simplistic, or makes no sense.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; - don&amp;#x27;t some level of clarity in their train of thought and speech&lt;p&gt;You yourself are missing words in your communication like the word &amp;quot;have&amp;quot; in the quote above. Also, I don&amp;#x27;t know enough linguistic rules to correct you, but colloquially at least your title is better understood if you write it as &amp;quot;Why do some people not communicate clearly?&amp;quot; So some compassion when others misspeak might be good. Often it&amp;#x27;s possible to read between the lines.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; - generally over-complicate matters by wandering off to other related subjects and extending the scope of the discussion&lt;p&gt;Creativity is often the expansion of a topic, or the merger of multiple topics. Maybe your question sparked their creativity and they&amp;#x27;re taking the opportunity to show you some of their creative thought process.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>echelon</author><text>Verbal communication is a different skill apart from engineering and written communication.&lt;p&gt;People have to plan how to break subjects down before and during speaking. Not everyone has adequate practice.&lt;p&gt;Some people have trouble with eye contact and might be fighting subconscious social anxiety while simultaneously scrambling to put their thoughts into words. If an audience wasn&amp;#x27;t present, it would be easier for them.&lt;p&gt;Some truly brilliant engineers struggle with this.&lt;p&gt;Edit: If you don&amp;#x27;t intuit this or perhaps struggle, I strongly recommend taking an improv class. It should be a fun and safe environment where you&amp;#x27;ll experience your brain lighting up all the communication pathways at once. If you want to go more subtle and read people&amp;#x27;s body language and tone, take a Meisner class. These both help tremendously for people that don&amp;#x27;t get in the daily &amp;quot;exercise&amp;quot; as a part of their normal day to day. I&amp;#x27;ve also heard good things about Toastmasters.</text></comment>