YSK: Just because something is easy for you, does not mean that it is easy.
ETA; Why you should know; everyone has natural talents, everyone has skills they developed with practice or over time. Something that feels easy to you might be difficult for someone else to grasp, or they might have a different background or a different way of doing things. When you show someone else how to do something, or when you ask someone else to do something, you need to set aside your expectations on how they might do that thing, or how quickly, or how well.
Be patient. Understand not everyone comes naturally to every new skill or new talent. Some people have learning disabilities or just a lack of familiarity with skills you consider “basic.” And try not to belittle someone for needing extra time to master something you find “simple” or they may never try again!
Edit2: Kind of like how I can’t figure out how to edit this to save my life. I’ve been belittled in the past for being bad at things so my instinct was to delete this, but seeing all the conversation, I couldn’t bring myself to do it! Consider me a lesson in action!
What you say: It’s easy!
What you (hopefully) mean: Don’t be intimidated! You can do it!
What they hear: You must be stupid if you can’t do this.
What you say: It’s so simple even a child can figure it out!
What you (hopefully) mean: Calm down and work through it. You’ve got this.
What they hear: Even a child is smarter than you!
Keep in mind that if you’re dealing with someone who is struggling it is self-evidently not easy for them. Claiming that it is invalidates their experience and makes them feel small and stupid. Don’t do that.
What you should say: I get it. This can be pretty intimidating. Let’s work through this together.
It really is that <irony>simple</irony>.
I build cloud IT infrastructure for a living and I’ve been at it for several years. There’s a lot to it, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’ve developed a reputation for being a person who knows how it works and can figure out how to build effectively in it. I won’t call it easy, but I’ve become comfortable and adept with it, and so to some it appears to be easy for me.
Just recently we had a person join our team with a background almost exclusively in OS administration. He’s doing alright for someone who is just starting out, but it’s obvious he’s intimidated and so he asks a lot of questions.
I told him this.
It’s perfectly okay to feel like you’re in over your head on all of this. There is a lot to learn. Besides server administration, you have to understand networking, permissions management, software development to a degree, database management and a ton more.
There’s a plethora of services at your disposal. Much like a giant toolbox, your job is to understand when to pull out the right tool, as well as how to use said tool effectively. This is going to take time, and you’re only going to truly learn it by doing it. Take time and ask questions, and you’ll get the hang of it. When I started, I was in the same boat.
I think that’s made him feel better about his inexperience, and I’ve seen him progressing at an admirable pace.
You sound like a great person to work with!
Holy shit yes to all this. Building architectures is intimidating as fuck but doesn’t mean you have to know everything/can’t ask for help and it definitely doesn’t mean you can’t have fun learning during the implementation/discovery phases
That’s great what you said, and that he’s comfortable enough to ask a lot of questions to improve faster. What you said comforted me also, as I’m trying to learn enough to self-host some apps. I just want to use some cool apps but am currently taking an SQL course because everything is so interconnected and foreign to me as non-programmer.
What I have learned to say is “I understand this is new and confusing; however, don’t stress out, I was probably more confused than you are when I first learned this.” It throws them off a bit, because they think you’re the expert, and it clicks that you had to learn it too. If they probe deeper into why it was hard for me, I explain that I’m so used to how things are supposed to work, I have to step back and see how things can work.
Expertly said. Especially true for kids
This is a good thought but a bad post for YSK
It’s easy for you to post in the correct community, but not for OP.
It really is THAT simple
@flicker Alternatively, just because something is easy for you, does not mean you enjoy doing it. Always sucks when your boss discovers a new useful skill you have, lmao
If you don’t use those skills regularly you might lose them or fall behind on new trends. Chaining those skills together can lead to other future opportunities.
I think the idea is to take on those new responsibilities for awhile to learn the ins/outs then bounce to a new job after a year or two
My mom sat me down to remind me of this, since I’m starting to get more responsibilities in my first job. She learned it through years of being in management positions and taking higher level classes for human management.
And y’all are getting this lesson for free on lemmy. This is why I love people and the internet.
Hello there! I hope you’re liking it here. Could you please edit your post’s body text to include why should people know this? It’s our second rule, and it helps keep this place to a standard. :)
Just because it’s easy for you to follow the rules, doesn’t mean it’s easy for them!
I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t intend to post this. I couldn’t figure out how to add a body to the post after the title and then I went to sleep! Now I’m viewing this on mobile and it blew up and I’m struggling to figure out how to edit it in a way that let’s me add, you know… a post!
Super appropro of the nature of it (and the jokes about this not being easy for me!)
Well I tried but I think I just made the title bigger…
See also: survivorship bias.
I had a professor who used to show us something and then remark that it was easy. I’m sure they meant well but it made me feel bad when I struggled.
We have expectations of people that are unrealistic. I think kids today are challenging these expectations and nowhere is that more evident than the debate over gender stereotypes.
One of the rules of thumb when teaching is to avoid saying something is “difficult” or “easy” most of the time. Usually there is not much benefit to the students in it, and other adjectives or descriptions would better capture the message without leading to discouragement.
It’s a source of amusement to see something referred to as ‘trivial’ in academic literature because it’s usually something fairly inscrutable. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we’re in a position of ignorance with respect to most topics and that’s okay.
“Everything looks easy after you’ve learnt how to do it” this is what I always say to the kids I help doing their homeworks.
It’s easy for me to get addicted to nicotine. I guess it’s just me lol.
Never happened to me!
😅
I’m so jealous. It took me years to get addicted. How do you do it?
Oh man, you wouldn’t believe me - just inhale it lol.
Reminded me of this article on the old CSS-Tricks website. Particularly the heading “words to avoid” (linked)
https://css-tricks.com/advice-for-technical-writing/#aa-there-are-lots-of-words-to-avoid
I’m glad you point that out. I frequently have to catch myself accidentally exchanging the word quick for easy. They’re not interchangeable, and in the wrong context, can be insulting.
You should know more things so other things come more easily to you as they do me, because I am really smart.
- Muscle memory (for activity)
- Scaffolding (in education)
- Ableist (on disabilities)
- Affordances (in design)
- General education (in developed countries)
- Digital divide (in tech and education)
- Training (in professions)
- Grooming (in professions and wealth)
- Experience (broad context)
- Immersion (in cultures)
- Privilege (on racial divides)
- Access (in wealth and nation)
- Infrastructure (in development)
- Coaching (in skills)
- Membership (in location and groups)
- Nepotism (in opportunities)
- Beauty standards (in cultural opportunities) …
Additionally, just because something hard for you looks like it comes easily to another, it probably doesn’t. They’re just working harder.
I don’t agree with this. People have different abilities/talents that mean that certain things are in fact easier for some than for others. By thinking that everything is just hard work, people may work themselves to death trying to achieve proficiency in an area that they just aren’t particularly suited for.
There are some strange cases where innate abilities matter a lot. For example, some people have the supernatural ability quit smoking cold turkey, and it seems to be nothing more than a decision for them. However, mere mortals tend to struggle with it for years.
In many other cases though, time, effort and experience matter more than your abilities.
I like this. Drawing/Art is something I have tried to do forever. I simply do not have the talent. Unless stick people count!!!
I’m not sure I’m convinced there truly are that many skills an average person can’t gain proficiency in with a reasonable amount of time and effort. Sure, some people are more adept at things than others and maybe you’ll never gain a level of proficiency in music to become a professional musician, but given a little dedication most everyone can learn to play an instrument.
I think because often all we see is the output, it’s easy to discount the time and effort someone put in to get there. I once had a yoga teacher tell me I was so lucky to be “naturally flexible” because I had no idea how much some people struggled with it. Meanwhile, as a dancer, I had been stretching 5x/week for like 10 years to get to that point and was very inflexible before that and only moderately flexible when the comment was made haha.
I’d say they have been doing it longer or are familiar with the underlying knowledgebase, so it seems to come easily to them.
Someone who has never used a modern computer before will think that someone who has been learning and adapting since Windows 3.1 would look like a genius. Even if all they know is how to do basic tasks and navigation.
Agreed. I should have been more clear. They’ve put in more effort. Either by working harder (short time) or working more over a long period. I just see a lot of people think things comes naturally to others, but not really. One may have a proclivity for something, but it still takes time to cultivate a skill.
I dunno about that. I was a total fuck up in school and got good grades.
I’ve seen it my whole life in various ways. Some people just have it easier than others with some things. Some people are “luckier” than others.
Eh idk, my sister worked a lot harder in maths than I did (I barely did anything) however she still struggled to get good at it. How much effort you put in doesn’t correlation that well with how good you get.
Plus idk I don’t like the implication that bc you are not succeeding you are not working hard enough.
Yeah it cuts both ways though. First I am generalizing. Some indeed have proclivities, but I’m saying you shouldn’t just assume it is easy for them. A lot of improvement is based on effort. Not all, but it is similarly frustrating to have people diminish successes as luck or “talent”.
…unless its something really basic like washing your dishes or tying a rope.
I have pretty severe ADHD, and some days, washing dishes is very difficult for me.
