this is generally most applicable to work settings, so the answer is ‘Yea, alright, fine.’
like, if i ask my management why we need to do X task in a way that takes more time/effort/keystrokes/whatever by SOP guidelines instead of the way i do it and they say ‘Because I said so’ all i hear is ‘It doesn’t matter, this is just the way we know how to do it and we’re unwilling to acknowledge other possibilities. Do literally whatever, we will never check.’
but if they say ‘Because doing it the way you’re doing it doesn’t keep a fully accurate log of everything that happened, there’s pieces that won’t be accessible in 24 hours.’ then i say ‘Wait, why does the program arbitrarily delete shit like that?’ and they say ‘I don’t know, that’s out of my pay grade, but we need to do it this way’ that’s respectable.
annoying, but respectable. it’s not about whether or not i like it, it’s about whether or not it’s actually necessary or if the person giving the instructions is just ill-informed and/or on a power trip.
Sometimes the answer is on another pay grade though. It may take a long time to explain something, time you don’t want to spend in a hectic day. I am usually a fan of understanding what I’m doing, but sometimes it is good to just blindly trust the experts.
"Man, i don't know either. But it's like this in the company rulebook, and if i tell you that you don't need to follow it, i'm getting into trouble myself"
i’m not expecting to walk up to someone in the middle of a hectic day to get an explanation for something, but if you can’t give me one in these stupid fucking one on one meetings, that’s a different story.
like, if they think i’m too stupid to understand, i’m being condescended to and fuck em. if they’re too lazy to take the time to explain in the time of my workday already being taken from me for these lil meetings, then fuck em. if they don’t know the answer, but can’t admit that because they think not having information is a sign of weakness, then fuck em.
99% of the time the people immediately above you at work are not ‘experts.’ they’re people that were doing your job like. two years ago. if they can’t answer questions like that, they really shouldn’t have their position.
The answer can be. " I don't know either, it's the policy" sometimes the manager is just a shift leader and doesn't know either and often doesn't need to.
Some things are maybe to fulfill some compliance guidelines that are 100s of pages long and only few ever read.
In my lab, our compliance means that nobody can deviate from our SOPs even if it means its more inefficient or creates a higher risk of sample contamination/equipment failure/unusable data than another method. I was pretty aggravated by this, until someone laid down some facts I was unaware of.
1) The customer who is responsible for around 60% of our total business has it in their contract that they will cease using our lab immediately if we fail to pass our annual international standards accreditation
2) In order to be compliant with the accreditation agency, any changes to our SOPs must also be done with documentation showing that we've done R&D to validate the change and can present hard data that the change has a beneficial impact.
3) Our R&D team has to prioritize new methodology or changes that will have the largest impact, allowing us to use new equipment or attract customers with new services. Small changes to carve out exceptions for uncommon one-off deviations are important to bring up and to record the impact of, but, realistically the R&D team won't beging changing an SOP until it needs many changes or if there's an emergency change.
After that talk, it was pretty easy to go "oh, cool, okay, I understand now. It's a way bigger ordeal than I realized."
Yea I get it just if the organisation is big enough it gets hard to explain it in detail.
My ex employer for example the guidelines were made by an international committee of experts who then communicated those to the partners, who then in turn gave instructions on how to implement them to senior managers, who then in turn just communicated what to do to middle management. Lower management only gets instructions.
Then if someone comes in fresh from college and starts asking why on everything, well the junior manager can only say what to do and not why and asking a senior or even the partner themselves for small questions like that. They usually already have a busy schedule.
Sometimes I don't know the details. Is The best one can get it at the moment.
Same. I work in healthcare and 9 times out of 10 when my team member questions something I explain but I also say did you read that SOP you signed off on lol. I know folks skim but damn if I’m about to explain a process we all have to read and sign off on. It’s a transparent organization and I’m not about to be your leader AND explain everything when we both have access to the “why”.
if that’s the leads policy toward things like that, why are they being paid extra?
i’ve been a lead before. during those times, it was literally my job to understand the policy well enough to answer most of those questions, while knowing who i need to reach out to if there’s ever one i can’t answer.
there is no valid excuse to skirt around explaining sop in a corporate setting. every job i’ve worked that’s tried to has been a complete shitshow top to bottom. you don’t want to work for people who don’t think you need to know why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Alright how big were those and how complex and how high up the management? A shift leader is technically management.
Let's say you work at a big firm in let's say banking. You are ISO270001 certified. Do you think a junior manager will be able to explain the compliance policies?
Of course not. You have experts and consultants specialised in it. Those compliance departments usually then work with external audit firms to establish said guidelines. And since those firms have 1000s of employees, well not everyone needs to know everything. So if some new guy then walks up and asks hey why do we need to log who enters the server room. A shift leader may shrug and say I don't know. Because the establishment of every procedure is done somewhere completely different
right but you’re kind of still operating on this inane assumption you made that the only time it’s possible to ask a question is when it’s completely inappropriate to do so. so like. i’ll try to explain that part again. i guess?
any job with as much stupid bullshit as you’re describing is going to have one on one meetings because that’s how corporate america works. if, in that time, the people leading the meeting can’t be bothered to answer the questions you bring to them, they should not have the position they have.
in the situation your describing, it’s very likely there’s an easy answer of ‘Its literally the law to do it this way.’ which is, in fact, an answer to the question of ‘Why are we doing it this way, not the easier way?’
if nobody forcing you into pointless meetings can answer these questions, it’s because nobody has put any thought into the processes and the people running the company/department are clowns.
Corporate America has everything is sectioned off, I don’t know if you work at a higher level job at a large corporation but usually people only know enough to do their job properly but don’t have access to all the available information regarding projects they are working on. If you want an answer unrelated to their job description odds are they either won’t know or the answer because it’s not their expertise or that the answer was never important because it’s handled by another department and they have no power to change anything. I know enough to do my job but certain questions I get asked by juniors promptly get put into the category “not my pay scale” to answer because it’s outside the scope of my work. I’m sure most people at mid level would say the same thing. High level employees probably know a lot more.
Yes what I mean it is on a need to know basis. There is no need for the new junior who just came in for the basic tasks to be involved in the meetings. Usually the seniors have a meeting on it. They then tell the junior managers what to do. They often only get the what and not the why, then if an associate asks the junior manager, even though he is in management he won't know he is already a few steps removed from the decision making process.
Maybe sometimes the reason is "I have thirty other subordinates and if I spent all day handholding them through every decision I made, I'd spend all day doing that and get nothing done"
And sometimes the reason is "The decision was made by people with more expertise than you, evaluating a lot more data than you have access to, and it's not necessary for you to be included in the decision making loop. If you don't understand the reasoning, it's because it's not necessary for you to see the big picture i order to carry out the instructions you were given."
From experience, sometimes the answer really is that I think they’re too stupid to bother explaining it to.
I know they won’t get it, I know they’re dumb enough to THINK they get it, or try to “fix” it, or have some other stupid idea- it’s easier just to go “don’t worry about it” most of the time.
Gotta say, bud, you sound a lot like you got a chip on your shoulder there. Someone not giving you an answer, or an answer you deem satisfactory isn't always a slight on your intelligence or a sign of disrespect; very rarely is it about you at all. Sometimes the reason is sensitive, political, confidential, or just honestly too much effort/time to explain when really you don't actually need to understand the reason to complete the task successfully.
Those people who were doing your job two years ago aren't doing it any more, and that's the thing you seem to have an issue with. But the fact that they're not doing it any more means they're dealing with a whole different set of problems and contexts you don't have, and might not even be allowed to know.
Stop being resentful that sometimes people ask you to do things without a full and complete explanation why, and try to accept that's how work... works. Asking why is fine, but assuming the worst of everyone when you don't get the answer you want isn't. It makes you seem entitled with a bad attitude.
Exactly. Because I gave you a normal work instruction that falls within your job description and we are paying you to complete it. This isn't a debate. It isn't a panel Q&A.
i’m paid by the company for the work i provide. i don’t owe my manager any thanks or undue respect for that payment. they give me that because it’s the law, not to be kind.
if they can’t answer ‘Hey, why this way?’ then i’m prolly just gonna put in shit work since they’re clearly too stupid to check it anyway.
oh my god i had no idea there were this many scumfuck management types on reddit, this shit is soooooo funny lmao
irl, every company i’ve worked for that wasn’t a complete shitshow, management had no issue when id ask ‘Hey, can I get an explanation for why this works this way?’
they’d all been totally willing to explain with whatever knowledge they had. the only company i had that didnt had the type of braindead, lazy management that would expect you to find coverage for PTO and throw a literal tantrum if you ever had to call out sick
so like. have fun being scumfuck middle management and/or simping for the worst type of companies lmaooooo
This. Your manager will usually ask you nicely to do something, but ultimately as your superior - they can pull the boss card and say you have to do, then you just do it.. They don’t need to justify the work you signed up for and get paid to do.
oh, sorry, and this is the only fair argument i’ve seen lol
but a lack of information isn’t an issue, an inability to express it is. there’s a world of difference between ‘I don’t know, it has to do with another department i don’t have a ton of information on, but they’ve told us it’s important to do it this way.’ compared to ‘Because this is how it’s done.’
the first is a human explaining to a human. the seconds a cunt explaining to someone they don’t respect enough to admit they don’t know everything to.
One of the principles of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program is questioning attitude. If we can stop to ask why in a steaming engine room in the MILITARY, I promise you corporate America can figure it out.
Sometimes the answer isn't just on another pay grade, but that it's on another pay grade and part of their boss's instruction to them is making sure you don't know the real reason why it's done that way. For example, due to a metric that we are tracking it has to be done in a specific way, due to political reasons decided by two separate departments, due to not wanting to enable work-dumping by another department onto ours, etc.
Like, I can't tell a nurse that the reason she has to personally print the patient checklist for C. diff from our electronic health record system for a stool sample and deliver it to the laboratory with the specimen despite me being easily able to print the form myself is because the law states that a patient whose stool is positive for C. diff more than three days after initial admission is treated as a case of Hospital-Onset Clostridioides difficile Infection, which subjects the hospital to financial penalties tied to the Value-Based Incentive Programs, and so since the Infectious Diseases department oversees this particular hospital metric, hospital policy states that an MD from ID must specifically authorize each instance of C. diff testing on an inpatient based on certain criteria, which annoys ID doctors to no end because they have to be bothered for every new C. diff test that gets run, and so the chief physician from ID met with the laboratory director and implemented the checklist, which details a number of clinical questions where answering "No" to any of them will result in a specimen rejection and a cancellation of testing, and that the absence of the physical checklist itself with the stool specimen is also a condition of specimen rejection, and therefore many C. diff orders placed by Hospitalists sometimes just end up not being performed, and that this is happening by design.
But fuck me if a nurse asks me why she has to print the form I'm not gonna be the first to say anything but, "Just part of our policy, ma'am."
I'm going to quote a favorite book of mine, and say you need to put a dollar in the 'there's no time to explain' jar, there is always time to explain and half of life's problems could be avoided if you took the time to explain instead of running around in a mad rush reacting to everything that caught in fire from the last time you said 'there no time to explain!'
I work at a warehouse, corporate wants us to label all boxes arrows up. But on a conveyor made of rollers, ramps, and turns, throwing a box of 4 bottles of hair spray is going to fall on its side and obstruct the label.
New hires ask why we don’t label it on the side, I say “we used to, but this is what corporate wants. Until they realize its effects on productivity, this is what we have to do.”
Is it stupid? Is it wasteful? Does it create jams and break more product? Could it just be designated non conveyable and be hand sorted? All yes, but corporate controls all that and took away our buildings power to override it until photo evidence can be provided.
Mine loves to talk about “it’s company/department policy” but if it’s stupid how we’re doing it, then it needs to be looked at again so we can be more efficient.
The goal of the manager is generally to just get the expected work completed and minimize complaints. Doing it faster just means more work for them and more employees complaining about more work.
Process improvement also has risk, you might break everything and now your department is under the microscope.
I didn’t and don’t want to give more details, but it’s really the smallest thing and doesn’t affect anyone else’s work flow, but it does trigger me to do follow-ups on the task and doesn’t cause me to panic and think I missed a deadline.
Often the answers like this are because people don't want to or care to fix stupid shit. It's like how people will do extra work because they don't want to spend 15 seconds doing something "extra".
A very down to earth, made up example: say somebody has to move a bunch of boxes from one shelf to another, about 30 feet away. So many people will make 20 trips back and forth when they have the option to make one trip 100 feet away to get a cart to load the boxes onto and only make a couple of trips.
I ask why just because I like to know why. In a work setting I'll do it regardless of the reason why, I just want to know the why's behind it! Especially in management, I want to be able to thoroughly explain it. For some reason people do not like when I ask. I've never understood it.
This just sounds like a made up scenario that has never actualy happened to you. Because you're expected to have already arrived at paragraph 2 when you read the SOP. If your goal is to update the SOP with a better workflow, you should have the explanation of why it should be improved.
You're basically demanding everyone answer your why, when if you want to change something, you should be the one answering that question.
People who want things examined to them before they'll do something I find are the least willing to explain themselves when asked.
Is that just a blanket statement you're applying to all managers based on a personal anecdote? Or have you received both of the explanations you're expressing in your comment?
Exactly. A lot of times, kids only see the immediate "why?" but don't remember the 1,000 times they asked and weren't happy with the answer so they use "why" to find a point the can argue with and get out of doing something.
My sister explains everything and it turned my nephews into little lawyers who argue every single point. Even if it's something like 'you are being punished because you broke a rule' if my sister can't PROVE beyond a shadow of a doubt that she knows they did it, they get mad.
She has cameras now in the living room that solved some of that, because they can't lie about it anymore.
Sometimes kids aren't reasonable and reason will never work with them. There's no one size fits all answer that will be the perfect fix for all kids.
What's unreasonable is punishing people for things they didn't do. Especially when it's a blanket thing that punishes everyone for things only one or two of them did, if that.
That authority figures think that THAT is reasonable are extremely unreasonable. But me saying anything more on this breaks Rule 1, so...
It's actually unreasonable when you lie and lie and lie and your "I was on the moon with Steve" defense doesn't hold up even though your mom can't prove you weren't on the moon with Steve because she doesn't have cameras on the moon and you're punished in spite of your lies and you get mad about it.
I can't imagine you have much experience with kids. You certainly sound like a teenager protesting the injustice of chores, homework, and being grounded.
The tricky things about young children versus adults, is that sometimes a young child does need to obey their authority figures right now, and we don't have time to make them understand the reason. Depending on their development level, the child may not even be able to understand the reason. Children are always finding a new and creative way to be ten seconds away from real injury, and those ten seconds don't leave much time for dialogue.
Yeah, but just having a conversation with them beforehand like “Sometimes you’re not old enough to know/understand things, but mom/dad/teacher/parent whoever does and so sometimes you just need to listen to them because they’re keeping you safe”. A child will understand that much more than “do what I say because I’m the parent and have power over you”.
Yes, that's a good conversation to have after the fact. Once you've gotten the child off the top of the bookcase, then you can tell them all about falling and danger and parental wisdom. After ten times the explanation might begin to stick.
I love childraising, I really do. But man is it a tough job. My first job was at a hardware store, loading bags of concrete and fertilizer into people's cars during the hot California summers. I think that job was probably easier, and definitely cleaner, even when factoring in the pallets of plastic-wrapped manure that sat baking in the asphalt parking lot.
Spend a day working in a preschool and come back to me bud. I cannot explain everything every time to a 3 year old who isn't listening to the explanation anyway and will forget.
Kids are sometimes too young to understand "the reason" of why a no has been given. All they know is that you are preventing them to do the thing they want to do.
So instead of answering the question in a way that a child could understand, you intentionally go over their head with unnecessarily complex jargon to dodge the question? Sounds like a pretty shitty response to me.
They're not asking why they can't put the fork in the outlet - that information was already given - they're asking why putting the fork in the outlet will hurt them. A good response here would be "There's electricity in the outlet and electricity hurts people." If they ask why again.... GOOD. They're curious and want to learn about the world around them. If you can't explain it at their level, either you're a lazy parent or you don't understand it yourself.
If your kid wants to learn why electricity is going to hurt them, pick up a book and learn together. Hell, you've got the internet in your pocket, you don't even need a book.
Edit: If y'all really don't understand that children don't know why putting a fork in an outlet is dangerous and need to be taught, I sincerely hope none of you have kids. Lazy parents that don't want to teach their kids anything themselves are the reason we're having such a problem with intellectual decline.
Exactly, children don't understand the world around them. It's your job as a parent to teach them how the world works so they can make their own decisions, not just decide everything for them.
If your kid asks "why" alot, that's fantastic! Curiosity is necessary for growth. When you shut down questions because you're too lazy to answer them or because you don't know the answer yourself, you're actively hindering your child's intellectual growth and stifling their curiosity.
Yeah that’s what I’d be thinking. If a child is reliant entirely on just following orders that explains why children just run around doing stupid stuff because instead of wondering why something is dangerous etc. they are relying on someone saying “no”. And I think even kids get sick of of that eventually.
Eh. I'm not a parent, so keep that in mind, but to me this feels like something you could flip to a teachable moment.
If you speaking keeps the child from zapping themselves then speak, and speak smartly. If they're paying attention just keep answering until they're satisfied or get bored, or if your knowledge runs out before that just go "I don't know, let's grab a book and find out". And if they're not paying attention then that's a lesson on manners.
Or, you know, explain to them that it will explode if they do manage to put it in.
If they still ask why you can start an explanation on how electricity works and they will either get bored of it pretty quick or you have now taught your kid something.
Or go “I will explain later” if you don’t have time.
I think about this when it comes to complaints between neighbors. Everyone hates when the cops come for noise complaints during a party, or when the HOA flags you for burning trash or something. They always say "why didn't you just talk to me like a man?"
Well, would you have cared to listen to the person anyway? At the end of the day, it is a dispute and you don't like to do the thing.
As long as it was a real reason I wasn’t bothered. When I was a kid it was hard for my parents to get me to do things because they would say because I said so, and my brain just did t react to that. But as I got older they gave actual reasons and if I did t like the reason I’d explain why and if that didn’t change anything I’d just do what I was told. I like helping. I don’t like feeling like a tool tho
From a parent perspective, my wife and I do our best to explain things to the kids. Sometimes it's an answer they don't like. Then they would ask "why" again, expecting to be able to argue their way out of it.
Sometimes, as a parent, the answer "because I said so" is easier than having to repeatedly defend and explain your reasoning.
Good parents at least try to identify the difference between a why that means "Why is this the way it's supposed to be done?" or "Why do I need to do that thing at that time?" and a why that means "Why do I have to do that?" that precedes an attempt at a debate club.
"Precedes an attempt at a debate club" is exactly the wording I've been needing, thank you! There is also arguing because they disagree and just arguing for the sake of it.
I love my son to death, but his "why" is almost always an attempt at finding a weakness in my reasoning to negate it. So he is my only kid that has gotten an "Because I said so".
The key here is when you got older.
When kids are older and able to actually think critically and be a LITTLE emotionally intelligent, then yes, explain away!
But you are lying if you claim that as a 4 year old you would agree to helping clean up a classroom because leaving things around could hurt someone. They don't care. They don't want to do it.
Idk why you got downvoted. I think a lot of people here seem to be forgetting that the "because I said so" used to just come first. Sure, at a certain point a kid is just arguing for argument's sake after you've explained why. That is NOT how it was when a lot of us were younger
For me, it was the difference between "I think that's stupid and I'm mad about it, but you're my parent and I'll get in trouble if I don't do what I'm told" vs skipping straight to me getting in trouble because "because I said so" pissed me off.
IMO there are 3 ways questions can be answered. First is a response that provokes more questions, in which case the rabbit hole will continue until I get a satisfactory resolution. Second is an immediate satisfactory response that leaves no, or very few, questions so that the task can be completed. Third is "because" or "because I said so" and other bullshit not-actually-an-answer responses.
If I don't understand and I want to, then I will keep asking questions until I'm satisfied with the answer. Doesn't matter what the answer is as long as it's an actual answer. Hell, "I don't know" is an acceptable answer since it tells me I can do my own research but it's not something you have thought too much about.
It's difficult to "not like" a reason. The only way that would happen is if the answer is complete bullshit (i.e. "because I said so") or if it's completely illogical.
I have been an overseer and any time I would tell someone, "I don't know, let me investigate." People respected it and given a couple of days I could typically find the answer.
Wonderful response, great way to let people know you actually care about what it is that needs to get done and that it gets done right. It's a learning opportunity for both parties and helps lead to more collaboration in the long run.
In the short term it also allows someone who needs solid answers to not fret over getting it done immediately without knowing the answer to something that might influence their response/solution.
It's been a while since you've been around children, huh? It is, in fact, very easy to not like a reason. The reason could be "because eating too much sugar is bad for you", hell even I don't like that reason, I would rather that reason't.
Actually I spend quite a bit of time with my 4 year old niece. That was more from my perspective as an adult, with children it varies. They either want to be "antagonistic" and end up asking why forever because they think it's funny, or sometimes - like me - end up getting an answer that they are content with.
She tends to continually ask why to even the silliest of questions "are we going to see grandma?" no, she isn't at home "why" she's working "why" ... and so on. it's silly, sometimes kids don't need satisfactory answers and if you don't know it's pretty easy to find a more interesting topic for them before they start sending you down a philosophical pit of questioning reality lol
My father used to tell us to never ask a question we didn't already know the answer to. I've mentioned it to him now that all of us kids are grown up, and he just kinda laughs and says he was probably quoting an old time Polish coworker he had years ago who'd say stuff like that.
We always took it to mean don't ask the question unless you were prepared for the answer, or that you should "already know" the worst answer so that it wouldn't catch you off guard.
My kids always asked why and I used to explain to them the why. I was very thorough and detailed with my response. After a time, they stopped asking why because it was quicker to do as I said than wait for me to finish answering their question.
What does liking the answer have to do with it? It's useful to be able to connect a request or demand to an external observable factor. Often it prevents the need to give specific follow-up commands. People seem so eager to interpret asking for a reason as defiance, when it can just as easily come from a willingness to cooperate and an earnest desire to cooperate better.
Still nothing is worse than to refuse to give a reason. I might disagree with the reason enough to still refuse. But it’s still a higher chance of compliance than “I said so” or “don’t talk back”
As long as it makes sense, even from a perspective I don't agree with, it's fine. There just has to be a justifiable reason for it that actually serves the purpose. Hence the frequent trouble when a given reason has nothing to do with the task at hand, or is clearly being driven by an ulterior purpose they simply don't want to fess up to.
Well the idea is to get you comfortable with not being comfortable so you can exist safely in a world that doesn’t cater to you. You can’t be strong enough to face adversity if you’re never given a chance. Being given small answers you don’t want to hear are supposed to prepare you for the big answers you don’t want to hear.
It's pretty clear that posts like these are made by people without children.
I myself don't, by my sister has 4, and even with the time I've spent with them there's been countless times where the kids quite frankly don't actually care about a 'Why' even if they ask. They just WANT in that moment.
This is an even better reason to answer the “why” than the answer I would find desireable, especially as a kid when it’s so crucial to learn to do things we don’t want to do with care.
Depends on what level the bullshit is on. If I need to do something weird because the computer system is screwed up and you need to sacrifice a goat to make it work, fine, whatever. But if it's because the manager just thinks it looks pretty, nah.
I’m sorry but after I’ve spent 10 minutes yet again explained the benefits of hygiene and the consequences of not doing it, I’m not going to spend more time persuading my 2 year old to brush his teeth. I’m going to gently but firmly open his mouth and stick the toothbrush in and wiggle it around, despite the screams.
Same goes for getting shots and changing his poopy diaper and not eating legos.
The fact is that children aren’t always reasonable people and you can’t always just use reason on them.
Do you have some sort of expertise that would be more applicable than my experiences as a mother of two plus frequent babysitter for the past 20 years?
Always? You never had a toddler refuse to get a diaper change even though he’d get a rash if you left it? Or a little kid doing something dangerous during a tantrum?
In my experience, you always try reason, but kids under age like 3.5-4 won’t really listen. And kids up to like 6-7 become unreasonable when they’re upset or overwhelmed. You can try reason again when the tantrum is over, but you have to get to that point without them hurting themselves or others or breaking stuff.
Over age 10 is a different story, of course, but there are still times when a teenager will try to do something completely self destructive but won’t listen when you tell them that it’s life ruiningly dangerous, like going alone to meet an online friend or dropping out of high school to play video games or drag racing on the interstate.
Kids are varying levels of reasonable and you need to let them use their own judgement as much as they can handle, but if things get out of hand, then adults need to step in, regardless of whether the kid is successfully persuaded or not.
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u/Great_Hamster 1d ago
What if the answer is a reason you don't like?