You are working with him to create a solution and should ask questions from a shared point of view. Your questions instead sound like you are doubting him.
"How can this make our checkout page better?"
"What benefits do other companies get from using React?"
"Is it feasible to change technology at this time?"
"There might be implications if we switch, like..."
You are not understanding why they should consider it; you are subtly asking them to justify why they are bothering you.
> Your questions instead sound like you are doubting him.
Respectfully, I disagree: _to you_, the "questions instead sound like you are doubting him".
Maybe it even sounds that way to most people. It doesn't to me.
I have been in very similar situations, and having experienced the frustration of communications failure, I've tried to take other approaches.
A few times I've prefaced my questions with something along the lines of: "In order to answer your question I'm going to have to ask some questions; a few of them may not make sense to you, but it's just the way I function".
It has not helped. One time it was met with a kind of "gee, here you go again, giving a lecture on how special you are."
The crux of the matter is that I _need_ to do that if I am going to give a helpful answer to the question that I was asked. Either the manager's question is important and warrants a thoughtful reply, or it's unimportant, in which case almost any kind of reply is ok.
I think the problem, in a nutshell, is neurotypical people's absolute refusal to acknowledge when they're wrong -- for example about what a normal way for an employee to respond to the question: "should we switch to React?" is.
There _is_ no normal way. But neurotypical people, stereotypically, labor under the incorrect assupmtion that there is one. And the discussion in this thread has, in my opionion, made that extremely evident.
To clarify: sure, I'm wrong in the sense that there is a normal way if we by 'normal' mean 'most people do it like this'. Unfortunately, 'normal' almost always also carries a meaning of 'the proper way'.
Also, something that's normal (in the sense of 'most common') in, say, the US is not necessarily normal in, say Norway or Thailand or Zambia.
I'm hesitant to reply further in this thread because I get the feeling I've made some people feel attacked and criticized which is not my intent, but I really don't think the issue here is the neurotypical manager's inability to admit they are wrong. Everyone in this conversation is wrong. Everyone believes that both sides of this conversation are having the same conversation, when instead each side is having a different conversation.
To the engineer, they've been asked a specific question "should we rewrite in React?". They assume the manager's has a specific motivation for asking, because the engineer would have a specific motivation for asking, and are asking questions to try to get at that motivation and determine if React will fill the manager's needs. The engineer is having a reasonable conversation.
To the manager, they've asked an open ended question "should we rewrite int React? What are the reasons why and why not? What issues could it address? What are the drawbacks? Any guess on time-frame? Cost?". The question "what issues is the site having that React could address?" is contained in the manager's question. The manager is also having a reasonable conversation.
The breakdown happened when both sides fail to realize that the other person is having a completely different conversation than they are. To the manager turning around and asking them "what issues are you hoping to address with React?" is the same as if someone asked "does this truck have a lot of horsepower?" and I replied "I don't know, how much horsepower does this truck have?" I'm echoing the question back at them. It's confusing and they don't understand why I'm doing it, and it's naturally going to make them feel uncomfortable and agitated. Meanwhile the engineer doesn't understand why they someone is getting agitated over their reasonable fact-finding questions and start getting... well confused and agitated.
In general, I actually blame the manager more for this breakdown in communication, and that's where I'd put the majority of my coaching efforts. After all, probably 95% of a manager's job is communication, and I view understanding how to change your communication to establish a rapport with other people working outside your framework to be part of the job (this kind of breakdown can happen a hundred different ways, it's not just neurotypical vs non). Sadly, most managers never getting any kind of training on this, and many (most?) are abysmal at it.
But the fact is both sides of this conversation failed to understand the conversation the other person was having. No one is "wrong" or everyone is.
I brought this example up because clearly there is a problem here. But, no one is wrong, and shutting down the conversation as "you just can't admit when you are wrong" is not productive for anyone (since no one is wrong). Maybe the conversation will go nowhere, and because I might be completely oblivious to that fact (I try to be, but it's a lot of work), it helps if the manager, whose job it is to facilitate communication, becomes aware of what is going on, and says "I know you are trying to establish context, but it sounds like you are just echoing my questions back at me. I actually want a list of reasons why YOU think it is a good or bad idea. I won't mind if you assume things; we can clarify that later". I have absolutely no problem being interrupted that way; that makes a lot of sense and helps everybody. Once I know people won't mind me riffing without making absolutely sure we are talking about the same thing, I can go with that just fine.
This assumes good faith and open-mindedness on both sides. Assuming I am being arrogant, dismissive, know-it-all, won't back off, can't admit I am wrong, when I am trying not to, helps nobody.
I speak under correction here, but you won't have teams; you will just do it yourself. Like cad/cam software got rid of a LOT of machine drafters and the designers just became responsible for outputting the finished drawings. You'll be the entire team.
you remember the concept of dumping, i.e., flooding a market with below cost product to drive out competing businesses? This is dumping for creatives.
editing: not that it's intentional, but these things will have the same effect; way too much product even for creative works. No one will be able to make money off the product but the tools.
It's hilarious that the point of technology was to save us time from drudgery to pursue leisure or meaningful work, and the engineers are going all the way to make sure technology does even that for us. Who ever thought we had too many children's book authors or that we needed to be freed from the burden from writing them?
It's like a hydra that eats everything and keeps growing more heads.
The thing is, you may dislike the takes but they are in response to a real problem normies don't think about or would have any advice to give.
The solutions may be seen as bad or the takes as not good, but the problem still is very real, and for many people bad solutions are better than no solutions or the advice people give that doesn't work at all. Things like this should alert you to the fact something is wrong, not make you recoil from all the bad people.
I totally acknowledge and sympathize with people (nerds) who strugge with finding love and sex. I don't recoil, I was a similar situation as a teenager. My point is mostly that it's far from a global population wide phenomenon. Plenty of people are having sex - it's alive and well - and it's not really going out of fashion would be my clarified expanded argument.
there is inflation with everything since we are connected to everyone in the world. All programmers work at FAANG, all artists are superhumanly taleneted, all business owners make million dollar unicorns and look like actors, etc. Average is slowly being filtered out
The death penalty is done to a tiny portion of criminals, is subject to very strict procedures and rules, has plenty of time to appeal, and is generally not "murder" by any description necessary. It can be misused of course, and there's plenty of arguments it is unnecessary, but we abort 800k alone per year in the USA and there's significant debate about the humanity of what the procedure is inflicted on. We have killed 1550 people this year for the death penalty.
They are two different things. You might as well say all prolife people should be anti-war and all prochoice people be pro-war for that rationale. I never see why people think this is a gotcha of hypocrisy.
But on the flip side, i can walk to a bubbling stream that's right in my back yard. I have never gotten mugged, never had to worry about shitty neighbors yelling loud enough to hear through the walls of my house, never needed to thread my way through panhandlers or beggars, never had shit stolen from me, and can see deer and wildlife sometimes even walk through the streets at night.
People seem to think a lack of privacy, quiet, and safety is this massive benefit.
you have safety, privacy and quiet in those areas as well. And instead of backyard you have open parks with soccer, tennis and basketball courts in walking distance.
people here are not talking small raises. Like what job can match a 30-50% raise in compensation? That's absurd. Do you think they can sustain that over time?
They will just pay it to someone newer. Costs are costs and they are going up. I worked with a guy 3 jobs back who is just now making a bit less then what they hired me at. He's good, but won't change jobs. He's been with the company for 20+ years. I've had 3 jobs since then and I'm close to double his salary now.
On the flip side, headphone jacks can wear out entirely. And one of the advances bluetooth has over normal jacks is that it's now possible for headphones to have mics on them capable of answering calls. Sort of similar to wireless charging, its possible to wear out ports from overuse.
one of the advances bluetooth has over normal jacks is that it's now possible for headphones to have mics on them capable of answering calls
Headsets with mics on them did exist before bluetooth, and so did headsets with control buttons (source: my early-2000s portable mp3 player). The only thing bluetooth added to the mix is cross-device compatibility.
"How can this make our checkout page better?" "What benefits do other companies get from using React?" "Is it feasible to change technology at this time?" "There might be implications if we switch, like..."
You are not understanding why they should consider it; you are subtly asking them to justify why they are bothering you.