Harry Potter is real!

Today I got an email that St. Mungo's is looking for a new Research Manager:

My first thought was, St. Mungo's??? Isn't that the hospital in Harry Potter? It's real????

My next thought was, I need more exposure to British culture than what Harry Potter gave me. Sheesh!

Bath Bed

This dog cracks me up.

Baths are the bane of her existence. She hates them with a passion. If you carry her to the tub, she starts squirming and trying to escape (and a lot of the time she succeeds. Bath time is a work out!)

On rare occasions when she is thirsty, she will intentionally jump in the bath tub to ask for more water. That's where she thinks it comes from, I guess. But she doesn't stay in there long--too much risk!

So out of the blue this last week... Molly has started taking naps in the tub!  A couple of times she disappeared, only for us to find her relaxing inside the empty bathtub. What the heck? Maybe it's a cool place to go to beat the summer heat?

Ask vs Guess Culture

I'm a bit behind the curve, but today I learned about something called "Ask vs. Guess Culture" that explains so many interactions I've had in my life. Here's one of my favorite pages about it: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vs3kzjLhbdKsndnBy/ask-and-guess

The basic idea is that there are 2 kinds of people:

• Ask culture people (Askers) who believe it never hurts to ask a question. They aren't afraid to ask anything and everything ("My car is in the shop, can I borrow yours?") because they expect people to say "No" if necessary. They ask with an expectation that sometimes they will be told no, and they fully expect people to say no if they don't want to do something.

• Guess culture people (Guessers) are much more subtle. They don't like to ask a question unless there's a good chance the answer will be yes. They put out feelers to see if the other person might be amenable to their request, and they only proceed if that seems to be the case. Sometimes even if the other person says yes, they keep putting out feelers to determine whether it's a sincere yes, or if they are just saying yes to be polite. To Guessers, questions come with a pressure to say yes. Saying "No" feels rude or dismissive, so sometimes even if they want to say no, they will say yes to something to avoid feeling rude. But they hate being put into that position. From their perspective, some things are not appropriate to ask for in the first place.

Neither of these communication styles are bad. Askers are direct and straightforward, and they expect you to be the same. They aren't offended if you say no. Guessers are more enigmatic, but they are also sensitive to people's emotions and much less likely to ask for something you're not willing to give.

The problem comes when you put askers and guessers together. Guessers are sometimes offended by what Askers ask, because by Guesser standards, the question was inappropriate. Why would you ask them when it was so clear the answer would be no? This throws Askers for a loop, because what is wrong with just asking? You can always say no. Askers sometimes view Guessers as passive aggressive or as game players.

I am a guesser, in case you can't tell by the mound of writing about guessers, my people. I try to be sensitive to other people's feelings and responsibilities and stress levels when I ask them something. If I suspect they will need to say no, I don't ask. I don't want to put any pressure on them to say yes if they don't want to.

If someone asks me something and my answer is no, it can be quite agonizing for me to turn them down, and I try to soften it as much as possible.

Over the years, I've had many interactions with askers where I could tell we were coming from different perspectives, but I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Now I get it so much more clearly.

I admit that sometimes I've been annoyed by questions posed by askers. Why would they ask me that? Couldn't they see it was too much to ask? Couldn't they see I was stressed out of my mind already and I couldn't take on one more thing? Understanding their side-that it's fine for me to say no-helps a bit.

At the same time, I admit it can be easier to pose a question to an Asker. I've noticed over the years that some people will say yes, but I'm not sure they mean it, so I continue to put out feelers, not wanting them to feel pressured to say yes. Other people say yes and I can just tell that 100% they mean it. Is that the difference between an Asker and a Guesser?

There is some internet debate about which is better. I found a few articles by Askers arguing that everyone should be an Asker because it's a better way to communicate. I would argue against that. This is a difference in communication style. One is not necessarily better than the other. Can't we all just get along? Understanding that this difference exists is one important step.

Anyway, that's my psychological insight for today. I really love learning about this kind of thing.