Dave Winer
Dec. 15th, 2001 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerOne of the great things about Journals is the fact that I get to whine about other people...
I was going to say it really annoys me when people tell you their problems but don't want to hear an answer. But it doesn't, it downright confounds me. Sure, sometimes it can be good to rant and just get stuff off your chest, and everyone needs to complain from time to time, but if you've got problems, surely at some point you'll want to actually do something about them?
On his Blog, Dave said:
Here's something really boring. Some spammer is using my email address as the return address on a lot of spam. Result? Thousands of bounces coming back at me, interspersed with spam directed at me. Is email dying?
following on from a general discussion by numerous people online that email was a really bad way of keeping in touch with people. As I find email incredibly useful (if frequently misused) medium, I#'ve thought about this a fair bit and offered some advice. I got this in reply:
Andrew, thanks for the advice. Now in a friendly way, that's likely to do
you more good than the advice you've given me -- sometimes people don't want
the problem solved. Sometimes they just want to share the story, and leave
it at that. This, by the way, for me, is one of those times. Have a nice
day. Dave
Now, I could have understood it if he'd told me my ideas were unworkable due to problem X, or that he didn't have the time to implement them, or whatever. But no, he's just complaining for the sake of it.
Of course, if I was reading this my response would be "Andy, you're just whining for the sake of it." to which I'm sure the response would be "Nope, I have a solution. When I rule the world, all people will be genetically engineered to actually want solutions to their problems. This will cause the dawning of a new age of mankind where people are actually happy."
So there.
I was going to say it really annoys me when people tell you their problems but don't want to hear an answer. But it doesn't, it downright confounds me. Sure, sometimes it can be good to rant and just get stuff off your chest, and everyone needs to complain from time to time, but if you've got problems, surely at some point you'll want to actually do something about them?
On his Blog, Dave said:
Here's something really boring. Some spammer is using my email address as the return address on a lot of spam. Result? Thousands of bounces coming back at me, interspersed with spam directed at me. Is email dying?
following on from a general discussion by numerous people online that email was a really bad way of keeping in touch with people. As I find email incredibly useful (if frequently misused) medium, I#'ve thought about this a fair bit and offered some advice. I got this in reply:
Andrew, thanks for the advice. Now in a friendly way, that's likely to do
you more good than the advice you've given me -- sometimes people don't want
the problem solved. Sometimes they just want to share the story, and leave
it at that. This, by the way, for me, is one of those times. Have a nice
day. Dave
Now, I could have understood it if he'd told me my ideas were unworkable due to problem X, or that he didn't have the time to implement them, or whatever. But no, he's just complaining for the sake of it.
Of course, if I was reading this my response would be "Andy, you're just whining for the sake of it." to which I'm sure the response would be "Nope, I have a solution. When I rule the world, all people will be genetically engineered to actually want solutions to their problems. This will cause the dawning of a new age of mankind where people are actually happy."
So there.
Re: amazingness
Re: amazingness
Date: 2001-12-15 01:19 pm (UTC)I sent it coz it was about sympathy. No-one explained the grief process to her. No-one told her 'there are more brothers in the sea'. No-one offered numbers for grief counselling.
Joe.