
That Guy with a Thousand Inconsequential Objections - _pius
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/that-guy-with-a-thousand-inconsequential-objections/?utm_campaign=Socialflow&utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Tweet
======
blatherard
Captious, nit-picky behavior in a professional context usually signals to me
that there is another problem that is worth attending to. e.g. A person
raising a series of petty objections in a meeting may have deeper problems
with the plan that she can't yet articulate, or is being put in a position of
apparent but not real authority (that is, "the ship has sailed" on a decision
without real agreement being reached).

Telling someone to more or less shut up might pay off in the short term, as in
make a particular meeting go faster, but in the long haul you're ignoring a
pretty telling symptom.

~~~
frogpelt
I think you can tell the captious people from those who aren't by whether they
behave that way in every day meaningless conversation.

The type of person who responds to everything opinion regardless of how
meaningless with "not necessarily" is probably going to have the same problems
at work.

------
gizmo
Let's presume, for the sake of the argument, that not every conversation That
Guy has is slow and painful. It's far more likely that That Guy only has a
problem communicating with _some people_ than that every conversation TG has
ever had looks like the one in the article.

This is a fair assumption because otherwise That Guy wouldn't bother trying to
talk to anybody anymore. So TG is TG from the perspective of the Normal
Person. That Guy may be a normal person from the perspective of many other
people.

So my problem with this article is that That Guy's guilt is presumed. In all
likelihood this fictitious That Guy expected the conversation to go like this:

    
    
        NC: “I think the new guy is really getting up to speed quickly.”
    
        TG: “OK, but what do you mean by quickly?”
    
        NC: “After the first week he hasn't interrupted me with questions every
        hour, unlike some of the previous interns.”
    
        TG: “Gotcha.”
    

Here TG discovers that what NC originally described as "getting up to speed"
really meant "hasn't interrupted me in a while". And perhaps TG _knows_ that
follow up questions are needed to figure out what NC is really saying.

If NC presumes that TG is out to antagonize him then every question will be
answered with a short (and unhelpful) reply until both parties are
exasperated.

~~~
optimiz3
TG's behavior strikes me more as trolling...the example you gave could play
out like:

    
    
      NC: “After the first week he hasn't interrupted me with questions every hour, unlike some of the previous interns.”
    
      TG: “Which of the previous interns?”
    
      NC: “Bob and Alice.”
    
      TG: “Why were their questions inappropriate?”
    

etc.

Folks like TG can be sociopaths, where a game is being played with the aim of
making the target spend more effort on the response than it takes to ask the
question.

There are also chat-bot AIs that use interaction patterns like this to keep
the subject engaged as long as possible.

~~~
gizmo
I suppose it's possible TG is a sociopath, although I don't know anybody who
deliberately trolls like that.

I still think it's far more likely that both people are poor communicators in
that TG wants to get a precise and accurate answer from somebody who doesn't
think about language that way and that NG is oblivious of the fact that TG is
looking for a precise answer and will get frustrated with replies that don't
answer his questions.

------
colanderman
Sometimes I have to be That Guy during technical conversations, to tease out
deeper architectural issues. Conversations generally follow the pattern:

Coworker: "Hey, can you add feature X to that library you wrote?" (The library
was feature-complete a month ago.)

Me: "What do you need feature X for?"

C: "Because the library doesn't have it and it seems like it belongs there."
(It doesn't for a reason.)

Me: "But what will you be using it for?"

C: "I need it to work around problem Y that I'm having." (Problem Y should
never happen in our system.)

Me: "Problem Y… how did you design your code that problem Y is happening?"

C: "Well, I structured it like XYZ…" (We decided on day 1 that nothing in our
system will use XYZ for reasons, and that there exist ways to solve the
problem without using XYZ.)

At this point I know that my coworker's design has not been reviewed, has
potential issues, and that my coworker might not understand the architecture
we _are_ using and why we're using it. Important things, which I wouldn't have
known if I didn't play That Guy.

(Yes, I'm also That Guy who nitpicks code reviews and API designs, rambles
about decoupling and cohesion, and complains when things are coded without any
sort of reviewed specification.)

~~~
crbnw00ts
That doesn't sound like being captious (to use the article's term), that
sounds more like asking the "Five Whys":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys)

which is almost always a good thing.

~~~
colanderman
Interesting link.

 _I_ know my questions are not captious, but I can tell they come across that
way: the questionee thinks all things are fine and dandy, and can't understand
why I'm asking so many (to them) irrelevant questions.

------
DanBC
The article identifies a problem, but doesn't give much in the way of
solutions. Putting a hat on someone just passes the problem off to them -
"It's not my poor communication that's the problem, he's captious". It's more
interesting to build up skills that help you deal with these people.

> and also hopefully discourage him (because he’ll know you know he’s
> captious).

He probably won't know he's captious.

> Some students of mine went a step further and actually had hats made with
> “captious” printed on them so that if anyone did behave captiously, they
> could hat the cat in question.

I wouldn't like to be in an environment like that.

------
anigbrowl
While this article raises a valid point, its arguments are often used to brush
aside real concerns on important topics like workplace safety or product
reliability. I'm sure many HNers have found themselves on the wrong end of a
conversation where they're told to 'just make it work!' by someone who isn't
interested in understanding downside risks.

~~~
Zikes
Yeah, didn't we just have a front page article about how terrible the "Get
Shit Done!" style of management is? I got a very strong vibe of that off this
article.

------
georgemcbay
I've seen people who really are this "That Guy". I've also seen people who are
just more experienced and have already been burned by certain classes of bad
decisions being mislabeled as "That Guy" by other guys who have a massively
skewed view of what objections are truly "inconsequential".

~~~
mfringel
People who are more experienced should also able to understand their audience
and explain their objections in ways the other person will understand, even if
it's just "The last time we did this the business lost $x. Can you explain to
me how the situation is different this time?"

~~~
dinkumthinkum
But that's shoulda woulda coulda. How about the other people around that
person not throwing the baby out with the bath water because they should be
smart enough to understand the wise old sage may have a point but be less than
stellar at convincing you of it. Which sin is worse?

------
bowlofpetunias
This is basically just advocating bullying.

Some guy who's manner of communicating that makes us feel uncomfortable should
be named and shamed, just for the sake of it, with no attempt at resolution or
mutual understanding.

Yes, I've experienced the annoyance, and yes, I've also been "that guy".
Labeling, ridiculing and humiliating people is not the way to deal with that.

With very, very rare exceptions, there's always a very real underlying issue
here, and "that guy" behavior is more often than not a symptom of a systemic
issue.

------
john_b
While we're stereotyping strawmen, I might as well point out that Captious Guy
is just the mirror image of the the Pointy Haired Boss, the guy who doesn't
care about any details and only uses language so vague and meaningless that
you can always interpret it in a simple and agreeable way, provided you don't
think about what he said too much.

Both are poisonous for organizations. However, I'm not sure why the author
thought Captious Guy deserved special recognition.

------
ionelm
I would say it's highly unprofessional to name and shame in a workplace -
regardless of how captious That Guy is. You'll end up having bigger problems
if you start doing that (low morale for instance).

Rather bad advice to say "don't be That Guy" when you actually have leadership
issues and you can't convince your underlings on the execution. Sounds
familiar?

------
tptacek
Paul Graham, this should be linked from the site guidelines.

~~~
ScottWhigham
Careful, there - as I write this, every other first-level comment thus far is
captious in nature (and only one that isn't captious itself is the classic HN
"I like/don't like the opposite of whatever's being talked about"). Don't want
to upset the herd too much!

~~~
adwf
This is going to be like Betteridge's law of headlines. After people have
learnt about it, they can't stop referring to it for months and months!

------
rplst8
Personally I find people that gloss over the details too often equally
annoying.

~~~
jmcphers
What details, specifically?

------
abtinf
This has to be my single most favorite HN post in quite some time. The article
is about people who raise petty objections and how to deal with them. And so
the comments are filled with petty objections against the article.

~~~
summerdown2
I'm not sure the objections are petty. Reading down them, I get the impression
of a lot of people who managers have categorised as "that guy" feeling even
more disempowered by this article.

Now two things (amongst others) could be true here:

1\. They are "that guy," and should learn not to be captious.

or possibly:

2\. The article is a salvo in an ongoing workplace politics issue in which one
side just wants to get work done without having to face objections or think
deeply about them.

My own impression is that the first part of the article is exactly correct -
there are some people who do ask irrelevant objections.

I'm not so sure about the second part: "you know them when you hear them."

I think, reading through the objections here, that the art of knowing whether
an objection is petty may well be a skill that some managers just don't have.

I think also that a lot of managers feel very strongly that they have that
skill.

Hence, one way of reading this thread is not as a set of petty objections to
the article, but as a set of emotional responses from people who already feel
put down.

------
Zikes
> However, like pornography, I think most of us know it when we see it.

Also like pornography, I think most of us would disagree at least to some
degree.

Details matter, sometimes by a great deal. A coworker and I raise objections
and ask for clarifications a hundred times a day in the course of our work,
and more often than not at the end of that day we discover there are still
important details that are missing or incorrect.

Sometimes these so-called "inconsequential details" are what will ultimately
sink a project, and in spite of our captious nature the project will try to
sail out of the harbor regardless.

[Edit]

Since there seems to be a lot of disagreement on this matter, I'd like to take
another stab at exactly why I feel like the article is incorrect.

If a colleague is finding a lot of faults in your idea, that should say two
things to you assuming you have respect for your colleague and value their
opinion: one, that your colleague has a genuine interest in your idea and is
trying to think it through from various angles to find what areas of it need
refined; and two, that your idea is in need of refining and you should
probably be taking notes.

If, however, you do not have any respect for your colleague, you may dismiss
their comments and criticisms and simply call them "captious".

If there is an established cycle of this scenario then there are three
possibilities: that you have a lot of ideas that are worth consideration and
polish, that you have a lot of bad ideas and lack enough of an understanding
of the subject matter to determine what constitutes "petty", or that your
colleague has personal issues that need directly addressed. This is how it
should and often does play out in the real world.

In the author's scenario, which ironically enough takes place in a classroom,
the old adage of "there is no such thing as a stupid question" seems to have
been disposed of. They have narrowed the definition of "captious" to target
individual issues, which in any normal context would otherwise signal that the
person in question is lacking in understanding. Worse still, they are given a
"shame hat" for doing so.

You know what sort of fictitious conversations sprung to my mind upon reading
this?

Adobe Engineer: We should use bcrypt to secure our users' passwords, it's
scalable and processor intensive so it's more secure.

Adobe Middle Manager: Or we can use this other encryption protocol and save on
server costs.

Adobe Engineer: But that's encryption, not hashing, we shou-

Adobe Middle Manager: Same difference, stop being captious.

Petty details, indeed.

~~~
arjunnarayan
> Also like pornography, I think most of us would disagree at least to some
> degree.

Hint: You're that guy.

~~~
Zikes
You can call captious derogatory, but I'll call it a compliment.

I'll also be around to say "I told you so" once my nit picking proves out.

~~~
eruditely
You are definitely that guy, who is going to live and die by the truth for the
smallest inconsequential detail. Theres a war and over expending resource on
every battle will destroy the effort for winning the war. A matter of economy
and survival space, not correctness and truth-space.

~~~
Zikes
It's a matter of the importance of that correctness and truth-space, and that
you shouldn't be dismissive of people that are just trying to paint as
complete a picture as possible before just diving right in and expending
effort on what will ultimately be a fruitless effort.

That is where wars are won or lost.

------
verbin217
I'm totally that guy! My problem is that I can't differentiate between an
attempt to communicate something important and someone who is uncomfortable
and just wants to be saying things. If I misjudge the latter to be the former
then I'll pursue a more precise understanding where none exists, putting that
person on the spot and exacerbating their anxiety.

~~~
cam_l
It is funny though if you think about it. Of all the comments in this thread,
i think you are the only one to pick up on the fact that NC was actually just
making small talk. He obviously felt put on the spot when he had to enlarge on
his inconsequential banter.

------
adammil
You'd better be sure the objections are inconsequential before you slap the
ad-hominem "That Guy" label on someone out of frustration. Sometimes you're so
committed to a particular course of action that someone who raises legitimiate
objections is a theat to your baby, and you're just being blind to the ego
dynamics at play.

------
incision
Coming at this from another angle...

 _> "His net impact on the meeting is generally negative, and he makes it 15
minutes longer than it needs to be."_

Perhaps I'm making the meeting 15 minutes longer by asked pointed questions
because I want the meeting to produce something more than plans for yet
another meeting.

I would rather spend 45 minutes to produce 15 minutes of value than spend 30
for nothing.

That said, I'm only going to do this a few times. If the group or organizer is
intent on holding meetings that don't generate anything of value I'll just
stop attending and interfering with the status quo.

 _> "And I suspect that no right-minded person wants meetings to be longer
than necessary."_

Only in the case of the kind of worthless adherence to convention, meet for
the sake of meeting style meeting I described above.

At their core, I think many people want to cooperate and produce, they hate
the typical meeting and want to end it as soon as possible because it
accomplishes neither of those things.

 _> "Of course, sometimes people roll their eyes to what are in fact smart
objections, but I think most of the time most people (not That Guy) know which
objections are trivial and which actually matter."_

Too often, the things that "actually matter" to the folks holding/attending a
meeting are frankly toxic.

* Wringing implied consent from an audience who has been guilted out of raising objections for fear of being "that guy". When the poor ideas presented or details omitted come back to bite the blame is ready "You were there. Why didn't you bring this up earlier?"

* Simply having an audience. There are a lot of people who just love to hear themselves talk, to gesticulate in front of a whiteboard and love to see their underlings nod in approval even more.

* Maintaining the status quo. Objections are likely to make work or at least require effort from people who are happily complacent and "busy" with a schedule chock full of meetings every day.

Sure, in a great environment with well-run, universally productive meetings
and discussions these situations don't exist and "that guy" would be genuinely
captious.

Thing is, most of us don't work in an ideal environment and I'd expect nearly
of us have worked at some point in a place that was far from it.

------
stevecooperorg
Developers are often That Guy because they foresee what will happen when they
get to writing code; they realise all the thousands of small problems the work
is going to throw at _them_ , and they spew that out to their colleagues.

Foreseeing the problems is good engineering, but it can be a bad move
politically to spend a lot of time describing the issues. That's what makes
you That Guy.

It's a terribly quandary -- I have to stop myself from being 'a lawyer for the
compiler', if you get my drift.

------
neilbearden
I'm the author of the HBR blog. I really enjoyed these comments -- reading
them helps me think about how I can be clearer. @neilbearden

------
dinkumthinkum
Here's an idea. How about we use common sense and moderation rather than worry
with a game of hat the cat. Just an idea. :)

------
dinkumthinkum
While I'm aware of this phenomenon, I fear we will have a new meme I'm our
already deafening echo chamber. :(

------
sarreph
'That Guy' needs to start living in The Now.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Now](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Now)

------
AsymetricCom
~or~

The Guy who Isn't Satisfied with Ambiguity and Mediocrity.

~~~
mfringel
~or~

The Guy who Isn't Capable of Communication or Cooperation.

You choose your pejorative terms, I'll choose mine.

~~~
AsymetricCom
We already read that article.

