Ask HN: How often do you ask for help? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How often do you ask for help?

9 pointsvidro315 comments

And how do you ask for help when it seems like the same people are being asked by 4-5 others?

Now I feel like a jerk asking about something that I know is likely a silly error but I just can't see it.

Does frequency of asking for help differ with the kind of help you need? i.e. do you ask design/high-level questions more or less frequently than stupid mistake/compiler/missing semicolon type questions?

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As long as you’re not asking the same questions repeatedly, then you’re doing great! It’s important that you’re learning, growing, and asking new questions. Collaborating and asking for help is an important part of being a team.

Many people like being asked to help. I love giving my coworkers a second pair of eyes and helping them discover a solution to their problem. It’s incredibly rewarding and I’ll almost always learn something.

vidro3 says: "Now I feel like a jerk asking about something that I know is likely a silly error but I just can't see it."

Whenever I need it! I recommend that you phrase it just as you have here, i.e., "I feel foolish asking about this, its probably a silly error, but I just can't see it!"

This kind of thing happens to everyone, especially in an environment with interruptions where you cannot concentrate for long periods of time. Just to make it even more interesting sometimes, when you're explaining the problem, you'll suddenly realize the solution too, without anyone else saying a word! Its as if there's a different problem-solving mechanism that is invoked by talking through the problem.

How often: entirely depends. Hard to put a number on this.

How I do it/when I do it: easier to answer. I primarily ask for help when I've tried a handful of things first. Also, when I do ask for help, I bring my findings/efforts with me!

There is a skill to asking for help and it is much deeper than the single question "how often". One key to the skill is a mindset where you recognise that you are delegating a task and therefore should try to set your answerer up for success.

* What type of attention do you need? An answer to a specific question? A pair-debugger? A 20-minute walkthough of an area of the codebase? Feedback on a design? A sounding board to talk though a tough problem? A pointer to the best person to ask? It is important to give this to someone so that they can manage their attention.

* Why are you trying to do what you're working on? This is important so that they can frame the task in their head and can be creative in helping you.

* What have you tried before? what is your understanding of the problem? This is important both to establish trust that you respect their time but more importantly to give them space to spot your misunderstanding.

Julia Evans has written two really good blog posts on this topic and you should read both: https://jvns.ca/blog/good-questions/ and https://jvns.ca/blog/answer-questions-well/

1) Imagine that you're going to talk to your company's CEO and that therefore every second counts.

2) Prepare your question by summarizing your problem to its core and to then present with a few words all what you've tried so far to fix it and why all those attempts failed respectively what their relationships are.

3) Don't initially approach your potential SME (Subject Matter Expert) by asking generic questions like e.g. "do you have a minute?" or "sorry, I need your help" etc (s/he won't be able to prioritize your request as s/he got no infos about your issue's criticality) but by throwing at him/her directly your core summary, together with your criticality assessment of your problem in as few words as possible.

As long as you put in reasonable effort and ask at a good time (don't interrupt). For timing, messages are often very good, which is also why in my office, we often message to the person sitting right across us at the table.

If 4-5 people are asking the same person, at some point it probably is their role to sit around being asked.

If you're being paid, you're also costing the company money for every hour you spend on the problem. If someone else can answer it in 5 minutes and it takes you 2 hours to find it, it's a lot more polite to just ask.

I always recommend that the time scale up as your career matures. New to the work? Try it on your own until you go 15 minutes with zero forward progress. Then ask for help. Mid-level, maybe a couple hours. Senior-level, maybe a couple days, but you'll also hit the point where you are the expert, and there is no help. You'll just have to figure it out. (Which is also where I tend to draw the line of who is/is not senior.)

I ask for help as often as I need to when I need to get something done. Of course I try to explore other avenues first wen possible.

But you will probably find that if someone is answering other peoples a lot of the time then they probably enjoy it. A lot of people really appreciate being able to give help and support others. Asking for help can be akin to giving a gift for them.

If you feel guilty, try Rubber Duck Debugging first: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

You'll be surprised how often you'll find the solution by yourself before annoying anyone else about it ;)

To add onto that, do your rubber duck debugging in the form of an email asking for help and explaining what you've tried so far. Maybe you'll find the solution while writing the message, and if not, just click send!

I have kind of a timer in my head. If I've worked on it for 15-30 minutes and can't get it, then the timer says "I'm probably wasting time here, time to try something else". That something else is either a new approach to solving it or, if I don't see one, then asking for help.

Pretty much never. I hate asking for help, and will usually find the answer by myself.

How do you feel this affects your efficiency?

I am not sure, nor I'm sure I care very much about efficiency (in resolving problems) in the first place.

But I learn, take notes, and rarely make the same mistake/ask the same question twice.

i ask for help frequently, but in a community of people (at sdf pubnix) who are very, very, very likely to have lists of answers to commonly-asked things ready via gopher or www.

of course this is only after having rtfm.

i imagine it's different for everyone. an interesting question certainly!

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