"What do you think the answer is?" response to ?s

[steph96]

How are you supposed to respond when you ask someone a question and they respond with "what do you think the answer is?" and absolutely will not answer the question? Obviously you don't know or else you wouldn't be asking.

My other favorite is when they show you something that you have done and ask "what is wrong with this?". Obviously you wouldn't have given it to them if you thought it was wrong. Now you will sit there in silence until you respond adequately.

The response to my inadequate response is always "Now Stephanie." in a shaming voice that instantly makes me feel like a complete dumbass. Then we sit in silence until I give another wrong response.

Yeah. That is what I deal with at work. I don't know how to respond to it without sounding like a bitch.

[dr.girlfriend]

Is there a reason they are treating you like an idiot? Either that person is a really bad supervisor, or they are trying to shame you into quitting.

[steph96]

Aug 22, 2012 22:19:14 GMT -5 @crackhabit said:

The go fuck yourself look works pretty well for me.

This is the only response I know. Unfortunately I cannot use it on my boss without having to deal with her wrath.

[Deleted]

Don't ever go to law school.

[steph96]

Aug 22, 2012 22:22:39 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Is there a reason they are treating you like an idiot? Either that person is a really bad supervisor, or they are trying to shame you into quitting.

This is her go to response for everyone (even random people from other departments that call). She is one of those people.

[livinitup]

When I was a supervisor for 5 caseworkers they would come to me with really complicated problems. I'd start to problem-solve until it hit me that they knew all the ins-and-outs and really thought it through and I just needed some reassurance. Intead of jumping to a solution, I started by asking "what do you think" and got THE BEST answers. As a boss, I realized that they just needed someone to say that they were smart and right and completely suppported.

Maybe you are selling yourself short on getting a good answer before you ask your boss. Do you have some solutions? Maybe you're not giving yourself enough time to bring a good idea to your boss - for approval? YOU can probably solve some of this, if you gave yourself some time and confidence.

[dexteroni]

Aug 22, 2012 22:27:04 GMT -5 steph96 said:

Aug 22, 2012 22:22:39 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

Is there a reason they are treating you like an idiot? Either that person is a really bad supervisor, or they are trying to shame you into quitting.

This is her go to response for everyone (even random people from other departments that call). She is one of those people.

I was going to say she doesn't like you until I read this update. It sounds like you just work for a real asshole. I've been there and it's no fun. Are you looking for a new job?

[steph96]

Aug 22, 2012 22:48:47 GMT -5 livinitup said:

When I was a supervisor for 5 caseworkers they would come to me with really complicated problems. I'd start to problem-solve until it hit me that they knew all the ins-and-outs and really thought it through and I just needed some reassurance. Intead of jumping to a solution, I started by asking "what do you think" and got THE BEST answers. As a boss, I realized that they just needed someone to say that they were smart and right and completely suppported.

Maybe you are selling yourself short on getting a good answer before you ask your boss. Do you have some solutions? Maybe you're not giving yourself enough time to bring a good idea to your boss - for approval? YOU can probably solve some of this, if you gave yourself some time and confidence.

I would understand if it was something simple and I was just being lazy. This is stuff that I legitimately do not know how to do. I have only been there for close to 3 months. She suddenly dropped all of these responsibilities on me and won't answer my questions about how to do them. It's not really something I can figure out myself if this hasn't happened in over 10 years (which is beyond the time that we have to keep those records for) and she is the only one that remotely has a clue what it is that I'm working on. It's just frustrating. How am I supposed to learn if she won't answer my questions?

[steph96]

Aug 22, 2012 22:50:46 GMT -5 dexteroni said:

Aug 22, 2012 22:27:04 GMT -5 steph96 said:

This is her go to response for everyone (even random people from other departments that call). She is one of those people.

I was going to say she doesn't like you until I read this update. It sounds like you just work for a real asshole. I've been there and it's no fun. Are you looking for a new job?

I have been looking around, but the only jobs I find would be a 25-50% pay cut. I'm miserable there, but I'm not that miserable.

I was really beginning to like my job and I thought I was starting to understand everything. Then she pulls new crap. It happens at the end of every single month.

[Deleted]

Aug 22, 2012 22:26:53 GMT -5 @misoangry said:

Don't ever go to law school.

This was going to be my response, lol.

[hannamaren]

Maybe she doesnt know the answer so she turns it on you.
I do that with my overly inquisitive students. Well, usually the go to reply is "good question. Look it up and present it to me later". This is why I rarely have students.

[Deleted]

I think your supervisor has no clue and is condescending hope people don't notice.

Being unbearable to work with usually doesn't work either though (except evidently at law firms.)

[jigsy]

Maybe there isn't a right answer if it hasn't been done in so long. Part of working is not always being told what to do/how to do it. Part of it is coming up with better ways to do something, especially if it hasn't been done in 10 years. So much has changed, technology wise and, I think, worker wise.

[LoveTrains]

I actually agree with livinitup in some ways. It is not necessarily condescending to ask the other person what they would do, although in this case it certainly is.

I used to have this boss that I loved. When i had an issue and came to him for help, he would encourage me to think about it before hand and come up with a solution to recommend to him, rather than just tell him the problem. By asking "what would you do?" he encouraged me to think through the issues and develop the solution. Now granted, this was like 3 bosses ago and I was 23 and pretty young in my career, but I really appreciated his approach. At first we would talk through the issues together, but by the time I left that role, I would just explain to him the issue and then my solution just to make sure he agreed with me.

[rubytue]

I had a boss who told you not to come to him with problems unless you came with a possible solution. Although there are times when you don't have a solution (and it was very frustrating then), it did encourage you to think through the problem first.

Depending on your role and responsibility, I can see where the boss may be coming from. It could also be she has a background in education. When I was student teaching, we were encouraged to use questions like that to get students to think though the problem.

[thatgirl2478]

Aug 23, 2012 8:11:26 GMT -5 rubytue said:

I had a boss who told you not to come to him with problems unless you came with a possible solution. Although there are times when you don't have a solution (and it was very frustrating then), it did encourage you to think through the problem first.

Depending on your role and responsibility, I can see where the boss may be coming from. It could also be she has a background in education. When I was student teaching, we were encouraged to use questions like that to get students to think though the problem.

This. My first boss out of college did this. I was constantly coming to her asking questions that I KNEW the answers to - I was just checking to see if I was right. When I didn't KNOW the answer she would push me in the right direction to find the answer on my own.

Perhaps that's what's happening here? Even though you don't KNOW the right answer, maybe you have some other experience with another area that you can apply to the new situation? IE you did x in situation A and new situation B is similar to A so maybe you should try x again?

[aurora]

When posed in a respectful, mentoring manner, "what do you think the answer is" is one of the best teaching tools out there. When done disrespectfully and condescendingly, then of course it is poor management.

To address your question specifically, when people answer my question that way I definitely try to work through what I know to arrive at a mutually-agreeable solution.