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My favorite response to the unexpected "have we considered" questions are "no". I'm telling the truth, and often there is no follow up!

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That does not reflect well on you, and these people may be on your promotion committee.

Maybe, but also having those hard conversations and delivering a well-scoped project on time will probably overcome any minor butt-hurt from being told "no".

that's not how humans work

Most people don't mind the being told "no", they just want to understand why and how that might affect them as part of that. For anything but very simple questions (like "do I need to change anything about the way we do CI for this" -> "Nope!") you'll want more than one word to accomplish that communication.

I think when most people reference saying "no" they are really referencing saying "no, %{backgroundOfWhy}" or similar often in a few short sentences, and that's great for everyone all around. It's just the literal "no" with no effort to engage or care about why they are asking that will leave a black mark of "Joe Schmoe is really great at delivering... when he feels like talking to you about things".

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