Asking
Asking
Twenty minutes of looking, then a question with what you tried in it, sent to a channel rather than to a person.
What the people on this page had to find out, and where from
How to get a staging database password
you asked2The answer was one sentence and had no owner
Why the retry limit is three and not five
you asked9The reason existed and was in one person's head
two things you had to know · nobody told you any of them · the median arrived in week 9 · all two you went and got
Two answers that existed only in somebody's head. The second sat in the question list for a month before it was asked.
The Cost of a Question, and Who Pays It
The instinct not to bother people is a real cost calculation, made with the wrong numbers, by the person least able to see both sides of it.
Asking in Public
A question in a channel is answered faster, by more people, and by somebody you would never have known to ask.
How to Ask So the Answer Is Short
A short question produces a long silence. A question with context, an attempt and a proposed answer produces a one-word reply.
The Question You Are Embarrassed By
The questions that feel too basic to ask are usually the ones with the shortest answers, and they get more expensive to ask every week.
Asking the Same Thing Twice
The only thing people actually notice about a new person's questions is whether the same one comes back, and the remedy takes thirty seconds.
When Not to Ask
Three situations look exactly like being stuck and are not, and telling them apart is what stops the twenty-minute rule becoming a reflex.
The Question That Is Really a Decision
Many of the questions a new person asks are decisions in disguise, and converting them back into decisions is the fastest way to stop needing supervision.
Asking Across a Time Zone
When your colleagues are hours ahead, the hour you press send decides whether the answer comes back today or tomorrow, and the hour is entirely yours to choose.
When Nobody Answers
Silence after a question almost never means what a new person thinks it means, and there are four ordinary explanations before any of the worrying ones.